The game is a very complex story of a person (you) named stanley and the narrator. The narrator comments and explains everything that you do but he doesn't make you do anything... or does he. In one of the endings in which you unplug a phone so you does have to talk to your wife, the narrator goes crazy and tries to explain to you that it is not the story yet the idea of the game is that he is telling this story.

Even though the game is the narrator's story you can do what ever you want.. or do you. Because you can't go back you don't actually know if he wasn't going to say what he said. What if every time you play the game you don't really do anything at all and it just does exactly what the game wants even though you think you are in control and because you can't go back in time to do something else or even go back to a previous room for that matter, all you can do is reset the game.

Because you can only reset the game the game could have something completely different planned out... which means that the true meaning of the game... hold up I've gotta google what the rest of it is... that people long for freedom... maybe lets check this other site... AH, here it is, it explains that people even though they may or may not have it long for freedom but because of the nature of the story it tries to tell us that even we, conscious living people who can choose what we do, might not have freedom over our own lives. Think about it, we can't go back and do something over if you don't like the outcome of a decision in game or real life.