With Inception out in the cinemas and me having no money to see it, I have to imagine a completely different way of stepping into an alternate reality.

Videogames obviously fit into this.

What's more intriguing, however, is that alternative reality can be within alternative reality. You can already tell one example I'm giving out, the ARI glasses from Heavy Rain which I think subtly suits in with the ludicrous plot. All the technology goes hand in hand with it, the ARI glasses might actually be something in the real world, butt they are directly inspired by Science Fiction. So it's as if we've come full circle here, alternate reality has inspired somebody to create technology, to which David Cage sought to replicate in an alternative reality.

Now, videogames, being actual videogames are capable of replicating anything. They are videogames, they are tools and instruments that a designer can be used to create a living, breathing world in which they can populate it with obstacles that provoke a reaction from the player; pretty basic game design. What makes this all the more interesting, however, is the fact that this scarily reminds me of a line.

It's from an Inception trailer, and I think it fits perfectly.

"Building a dream from living memory is the easiest way to lose your grasp on what's real and what is a dream."

If we apply this to the world of videogames, however, then I think that the direct opposite perhaps happens. We do lose grasp on reality and our entire focus is all divulged into one singularity that is pointed directly into the experience. Sometimes I like to believe that we do not play games, we escape into videogames. We control the world around us, we can kill people and bring cities to their knees. We can be gods, soldiers, giant fluffy things and pop culture icons.

But what happens when we marry alternative reality with alternative reality?

As the example I listed above, Heavy Rain, nothing much occurs. What we get is a new gameplay mechanic that only one set character can use. We have escaped into the dream, the nightmarish land of David Cage's dream, in a way we have accessed into his dreams. His thoughts and feelings are at our very fingertips, we control the world, we are in total power of the realm.

When you put on those ARI glasses, for the first time, I think there's a rumble inside your brain. A little thought that's telling you that you're going deeper and deeper into the rabbit hole. Reality, actual reality, is no fading away and you are no so fully invested into this world that it begins to have its physical grasp on you. You'll feel unnerved, your palms will go sweaty; what was possible in one singular alternative reality is now just minuscule compared to what happens when you cross further inside the dreamscape.

This doesn't just apply to basic gameplay devices, such as the ARI glasses, when you feel so invested into a reality such as Batman: Arkham Asylum, when the Scarecrow bits come along, it is genuinely pulling your strings. It's making you consider the boundaries between alternative and actual reality. Which one is Batman in? There's a particular sequence in which your actual television would look to be becoming pixelated. It's one of the great moments about Arkham Asylum, just as a whole experience, it's not treated as a comic book film or just a comic book experience, but a comic book game.



So you entire this dream to become Batman, not physically possible in the real world, and perhaps you react physically in the real world. Shivering with fear, waiting for Scarecrow to suck you deeper into the rabbit hole. There's the "Edge of the Seat" comparison that I like to use a lot. The further that you delve into fiction, through worlds and entire narratives, the more that you pulled over the seat. Now, what Arkham Asylum did which was so good was that it did the comparison, then it did the complete opposite and then it repeated to drag us into a further alternate reality.

In the pixelated Scarecrow bit, where your television looks to go wibbly wobbly, you are instantly taken out of the experience. It's as if the game actual did break or host migration failed in a multiplayer game. What happens, however, is that instead of dropping you back into one alternative reality, the game goes about dropping you in the dream within the dream, immediately. No need to break down barriers, no need to put on any gloves or do any interaction with the game. You've just been sucked out of the experience and are now put deeper into the experience. I think this goes hand in hand with the fact that you play from an entirely different perspective, as the Joker, and now your all perspective of what is actually happening is hand in hand with what Batman is feeling. The final Scarecrow sequence is one that is very harrowing, and I think that happens throughout the course of the sequences too, especially the one where Batman morphs into a child Bruce Wayne.

Perhaps this is why "It was all a dream." might work better in a game than any linear film. We are the observers, we do not forge the walls or break the walls that the film puts in place (between realities), we are the characters. We become so invested into the reality that as soon as we are taken out, we are not disappointed, we are gradually moved forwards towards the edge of the seat. Imagine an observer like piece of fiction, a film/ piece of literature/ comic books, and I want you to consider something.

Within a linear course of fiction or experience, we observe characters. If that just so happens to delve deeper into alternative realities (a la Inception) we are intrigued. We know we will come back to reality but we are more than interested in seeing deeper into another realm of infinite capabilities. If fiction yields infinite capacity, alternative reality within fiction must yield even more unlimited capability of anything. They are not bound by the rules of the set 'reality' that we have seen in the first reality that we come across.

If that's too heavy handed then let me tell you a story. It's of a frog, the frog hops around and you (as the audience) know this frog to live in a pond. Then, we enter the dream, and now the frog can fly. He is not bound by the limitations of the previous world, reality, and thus there are even more infinite capabilities.

Now consider a game.



We are the frog, we jump and skip around the pond. Then, we enter the dream, and we are flying. We do not need to be pulled back to the reality to enjoy it, we might even feel more comfortable in an alternative domain. Much as the character is going deeper into his own inner thoughts, we too are travelling with him, hand in hand.

Think of 'alternative reality' in films being something of a linear pyramid, with each giant block representing a reality. One that is bound and printed, we know that the character will wake up back in reality or stay in the alternative realm. We are not upset by this unless it comes abruptly. In a game, imagine a circle, anything is possible. The circle can turn and turn, and we will not feel discomfort in the slightest, since the game is not designed to stop anywhere and we can experience more alternative reality than we can find in linear fiction.

Perhaps I've rambled on a bit there, but alternative reality within alternative reality is something that I want to see. It already happens in the real world, dreams within dreams and all that malarkey, but this needs to go hand in hand with games. Let me be a space pirate and then suddenly wake up as the Captain of Moonbase Alpha Delta.

Also, see Inception.

Now.

I know I need to.