"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-ClickAdventure 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?This game provides examples of:
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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."
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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