I had put this post on the Game Design forum last month to see what they thought, but the thread didn''t get much responce, so I''d like to see what the regulars of this forum think. --- I recently saw Pink Floyd''s The Wall, the 1982 movie. Great stuff. And also, I''ve recently seen cartoon network''s Big O. Again, great stuff. But this has got me thinking. A lot of games renound themselves for believable physics engines and such, but I was wondering if a player would be able to handle a game that delve a bit into the abstract? Computer Simulation, Dream World, take your pick. To give a for instance, imagine a world map that was just a Phrenology model, and individual portions of the brain led to different areas. Or, perhaps the player playing two stories at once and never (eventually) being informed as to which one is reality and which is fantasy, and theres plenty of evidence in both to support that one is a fantasy of the other. Or think the movie Lost Highway where time was treated as a mobius strip. Of course, as a player I''d want to see a point be developed eventually. Even if it had inanimate objects talking to me. But could this type of avant-garde gameplay be handled? --- So we don''t cover old ground, I want to present a new question. What type of alternate reality types can we think of? I''m not asking to think along the lines of the Sliders TV show, that is not about other interesting worlds, but rather how can we pull our heads out of the grounding in reality and think of worlds that exist beyond what we take for granted. I won''t blow Big O for anyone, (if you seen it, you''ll know what I''m thinking), but in what terms can we accept the world as existing inside of a snow globe (or ourselves as kittens in a box), and what would be the experience of escaping? Probably sounds like I''m asking for a replacement for the Matrix, but really I just want to see if its possible to put together a story that could effectively mess with the heads of the reader/audience/player in a way that they could learn to accept. Anyone have any interesting ideas?

have you ever play kick ass eternal darkness??
when the sanity level of the player is to high, is hard to tell what is real or what is fantasy

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
be good
be evil
but do it WELL
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

There are lots of games that have one or two metaphorical levels - the abstact one in cronocross and the one inside cloud''s head in ff7 for example. The games Obsidian and Santarium take place almost entirely in alternate realities, a metaphorical virtual reality in the first and delusional insanity in the second.

I think that there''s actually a large area of overlap between the types of alternate worlds - dream, insanity, and virtual reality: they are all more symbolic, metaphorical, and mythic than regular reality. If you want ideas for alternate realities, why not just ask people for some of their most interesting dreams in a thread in the lounge?

I wasn''t so much asking what alternate realities are possible, but rather asking how could we classify them, or if thats not even possible, what other ways are they to describe them. Like, for instance, heres a short list of alternate reality types:

Dream, Coma, Insanity, Matrix, Death, Afterlife, Book, Wardrobe.

By book, I''m thinking The Neverending Story, or Myst. Wardrobe is The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardobe. I''m not sure if that fits there, but it is at least an entry into an alternate world.

So, is that the only list of alternate reality cliches? Thats really what I''m asking.