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Video Game: Sanitarium

"If Jacob's Ladder was reality squared, this is reality cubed"
—J.C. Herz (The New York Times) on the game

Sanitarium is a Point-and-Click Adventure Game by ASC Games. It is set in a mental hospital, except when it isn't.

More clearly, it begins with the main character losing his memory and being instituted in a sanitarium. Occasionally, he is transported to strange, alternate worlds, sometimes changing his form, sometimes not. A constant feeling of bewilderment and fear follow you as the worlds you visit become stranger and stranger.

You need to figure out many things: Why have you lost your memory? Why are you in an insane asylum? Is the asylum the "real" world, or is it just another dream?

Not to be confused with the Slender Fan Sequel Sanatorium.

This game provides examples of:

Abusive Parents: See Mummies at the Dinner Table, below
Adventures In Coma Land
A Glitch in the Matrix: The "real world" starts becoming more and more unreal with each chapter.
All Just a Dream: Most of the game, except several cutscenes, is just Max's dreams while he was in coma.
All The Worlds Are A Stage: The next to last subchapter is a mishmash of all of the non-"real world" chapters. You also have to shapeshift between Max and all of his alter-egos.
Alternate Universe: It turns out that the Morgan from Max's past is not the same Morgan that he encounters throughout the game. The former exists in the real world. The latter exists in Max's dream world.
- Two of the chapters have an alternate universe version of Max's wife as well.
- Then there's a non-playable AU version of Max himself.
Ambition Is Evil
- Played straight with Morgan
- Averted with Max
Arc Words: "Seek the truth"
Babies Ever After: During the final cut scene, it is revealed that Max's wife was pregnant during the events of the game. The end credits/epilogue shows a picture of them with their new baby.
Back from the Dead: A dead woman comes back to life long enough to give Max some cryptic warnings.
Bandaged Face
Bedlam House: Well, of course.
Big Bad: Morgan. Interestingly, he is not the final boss. He gets defeated in the cut-scene after the boss is destroyed.
Big "NO!"
Black Bug Room: More like Black Bug Universe, but still...
Body Horror: You don't even know.
Booze Flamethrower: Sarah is taught how to do this by Inferno, which is then used to fight Iggy.
Bratty Half-Pint: Billy, Jennifer, and Dennis.
Breather Episode: In chapter 3, the horror takes a backseat to...comedy?
Buried Alive: Happens to at least 3 characters
The Chessmaster: Morgan (both of him) and Gromna
Circus of Fear: Playing with. The circus is very unnerving, but only two of the staff members are dangerous and, of those two, only one is actually evil.
CloudCuckoolander: A non-comedic example. Don, Lenny, and Martin in the first chapter. See "Foreshadowing" below.
Combat Tentacles: Iggy
Cool Big Sis: Inferno to Sarah
Corrupt Corporate Executive: Morgan is much happier TREATING the deadly disease that's killing children world-wide, rather than helping Max develop the cure, because treating the disease is far more profitable than wiping it out.
Creepy Children
Creepy Circus Music
Creepy Twins
The Cuckoo Lander Was Right: See "Foreshadowing"
Cuckoo Nest
Daddy's Girl: Sarah and Eileen
Dead Man Writing: Carol's diary.
Deadpan Snarker: Max, when the situation calls for it.
Doppelg�nger: Max's shadow and the two Morgans
The Dragon
- Max's shadow to Dream World Morgan
- Dream World Morgan is unwittingly this to Real World Morgan, due to him thinking they are the same person.
- The scarecrow to Mother.
Dying Dream: Both Morgans try (and fail) to invoke this trope for Max while he's in a coma by keeping him confined and confused (Dream World Morgan) and slipping him poison (Real World Morgan).
Evil Laugh: Dream World Morgan and The Scarecrow.
Face Heel Turn
False Widow: Played with. Inferno isn't exactly lying about her widowhood, but since she's a part of Max's dream, that means that her dead husband never actually existed in the first place.
Final Boss: Max's Shadow.
Five-Man Band: Played with because all of them are one character, but they DO have to work together in the finale, and the others even (kind of) say goodbye to Max at the end.
- Max is The Hero and The Smart Guy
- Olmec is The Lancer
- Grimwall is The Big Guy
- Sarah is The Chick (and The Tagalong Kid)
Foreshadowing: The first chapter contains a room of babbling loons who each talk about different worlds...worlds that you will travel to throughout the rest of the game. Then there's the stained glass windows in each segment of the sanitarium, Zippy the Clown's predictions... really, a second playthrough of the game can be seen as a grand conga line of Fridge Brilliance.
Freudian Excuse
- Hinted that this is at least part of Morgan's motivation.
- Mother
- Inverted with Max, who used his own past tragedy as motivation to become a doctor and help people.
Ghost Town
Go Among Mad People: Most of the game. Except not really-turns out it's a Black Bug Room caused by Max being in a poison-induced fever dream.
Good Is Not Nice: Olmec (hoo boy).
Grave Humor
Greed
Happier Home Movie: Watching these comes into play in the "Mansion" sub-chapter.
Happy Ending
Haunted House
Hey, It's That Voice!: David Fielding (Mighty Morphin Power Rangers) plays a crapload of characters in this game. It's most obvious with Olmec, which is essentially his Zordon voice.
- Other characters voiced by him include Morgan and Lenny. You totally wouldn't know those were him unless you watched the end credits. Talk about a guy with a range.
Hybrid Monster: Iggy, though it depends whether the human head and torso on top of his squid head is actually part of him or a body of a victim that somehow got stuck up there.
I'm a Humanitarian: Vera
Infant Immortality: Nnnnope.
Involuntary Shapeshifting
Ironic Nursery Tune: "Don't go into the pumpkin patch. 'Cause if you do, you won't come back. Mommy says to stay way...if you want to play another day."
Jerk Ass:
- Dennis
- Morgan's Father
- Olmec
- The Clown with the Balloons
Kid Hero: Sarah
Large Ham - Grimwall
"Now that evil machine will be silent for a while!"
"No More Genocide Today!"
"Grap!"
Little Miss Badass: Sarah (again)
Loads and Loads of Characters: It may be an Adventure Game, but it utterly averts the Beautiful Void trope.
Lotus-Eater Machine: after the Maze, Morgan attempts to trick Max into believing he's in the real world and just had a nasty bump on the head, and dreamt everything. Max breaks out of it when he realizes SARAH IS SUPPOSED TO BE DEAD, even though she's alive and living with him and his wife. Still a kid. And levitating. A very eerie scene, all in all.
Mad Scientist: Morgan, the dream world version. Given the real Morgan's personality, it isn't a stretch to see why Max thought of him this way.
Make It Look Like An Accident
Mama Bear: "Mother"
Man Child: Lenny
Manipulative Bastard: Morgan
Mental World
The Mind Is a Plaything of the Body: Multiple shape-shifting events
- At its most extreme with Olmec, who is almost the exact opposite of the kind, compassionate Max.
Mind Screw: A good example is the pumpkin children. In fact, there's a lot of unexplained symbolism.
Mommy Issues: Lenny. Surprisingly averted in Max's case despite his banters with "Mother".
Mummies at the Dinner Table: Made extra disturbing by the fact that it's a kid
Name's the Same: There is a 2001 film also called Sanitarium. Besides that, the movie's main character is also named Max.
Nice Guy: The Main Character and Timmy O'Toole.
Non-Identical Twins
The Nth Doctor: Max's shapeshifting (except for Grimwall, who sounds different but is still played by Max's actor).
One Bad Mother: "Mother"
One-Winged Angel: Morgan
Plant Aliens: "Mother"
Preacher Man
Red Herring: Three literal red herrings. One is a red fish painted on the roof of a building. The main character even comments that he was sure he would find something inside.
The Reveal: A whole lot
- "Mother" is an alien, chapter 2
- Max was called by his parents because his sister was dying, chapter 3
- Morgan is behind everything, chapter 4
- Everything other than the opening and the flashbacks was a Dying Dream resulting from Morgan trying to kill Max; also, there are two Morgans; the one who sabotaged Max's car and the one who exists in the dream world and tries to prevent Max from making any progress, chapter 8
- Max's wife is pregnant, chapter 9
Rhymes on a Dime: Vera
Romancing The Widow
Rule of Scary: Subverted near the end when it turns out it was All Just a Dream, which perfectly explains away all the outlandish stuff.
Scary Scarecrows
See You In Hell
Shapeshifter: Max (the main character) does this involuntarily throughout most of the game, and voluntarily in the second-to-last level. With one exception, each of his forms has a different voice actor.
Songs in the Key of Lock: One of the doors in the Hive has a lock with keypad buttons that produce individual musical tones.
Surreal Horror
Talking to Himself: Grimwall and Max share the same voice actor. Grimwall briefly talks to Max in the final chapter.
Theme Naming: All of the cyclopses have names beginning with "GR."
Time Shifted Actor: Frank Schurter plays Adult Max while Paul Crocker plays him during his childhood flashbacks.
Token Evil Teammate:
- While the other player characters tend to be on the nice (or at lease polite) side, Olmec really isn't, especially considering one of his puzzles is solved by threatening a grieving father.
- Dennis in Chapter 2. Unlike the other children of Genet, he seems 100 % aware of what's really going on and has no problem with it.
Town with a Dark Secret: The entirety of chapter 2.
Twist Ending
The Unseen: A big part of Max's arc. His face is covered in bandages. When he is seen in flashbacks, his face is always hidden. The one exception is a flashback from his childhood.
- This is a rare case of the main character pulling off this trope.
The Unreveal: The Cure
Unusual Euphemism: Grimwall's favorite exclamation, "Grap".
Unwitting Pawn: Arguably Dream World Morgan. He believes that he and Real World Morgan are the same person and doesn't realize that his fighting Max and enabling the poison to work its way through his veins will actually kill him along with Max. The example has the oddity of both the pawn and the manipulator being unaware of the manipulation due to Real World Morgan being unaware of Dream World Morgan's existence.
Villain with Good Publicity: Morgan and Gromna
Waking Up At The Morgue
Walking Spoiler: The player characters other than Max are difficult to talk about without revealing that Max starts shapeshifting in the middle of the game.
Well Done Son Guy: Morgan
Wicked Cultured: Morgan
Womb Level: The Hive is unpleasantly organic.