Rabbit Holes

I have a thing for stories that get very convoluted. Stories that you can spend countless hours digging into the minutiae of things to try and piece together the whole picture. What are some games/series you can think of that take you down the rabbit hole if you try to figure out everything? Pic related is one of my favorites. It's the final installment in the Infinity series (barring a Japan only game that retroactively became a part of it later). There are multiple websites that try to figure out the truth behind Remember11's story. The game itself will take roughly 20 hours if you just go straight for the ends for both routes, but getting all the endings takes another 10, and then getting all scenes 100% to unlock all the TIPs is even longer. And then, after THAT, you have to read the TIPs. Once you have done all that, you can find multiple websites that claim to have deciphered the whole mystery... but all of them have different interpretations.

Serial Experiments Lain

The Stanley Parable The Beginner's Guide Prey (2017) Call of Duty: Black Ops III John DeFoe quadrology (Chzo Mythos) The Prisoner (1980 Apple II computer game) Bureaucracy (1987 Infocom video game) The Path

Metal Gear captures this to a T.

One example in terms of indie games is The Strange Man series which was made with Wolf RPG Editor. It deals with the theme of mental illness especially the first entry which is The Crooked Man. To a lesser extent, My Neighbor Totoro since it leaves questions at the end about what the mystical beings really were. To a significant extent, Kino's Journey since some of the story arcs leave some wondering about full context. In terms of old literature, the Poetic Edda (AKA the Elder Edda) is a great example not just because it deals with religion but also comes with numerous linguistic translations and archaeological research and analysis that can deeply alter the deeper meanings behind the North Germanic and Norse legends. There is also a book called the Norron Ordbok that also adds depth by providing various more linguistic translations including one that can be pieced together to make Ragnorak sound like the "Rebirth of the Great Powers" in which certain gods merely temporarily and symbolically "fall" only to return through the rebirth of the world as oppose to permanently dying and that interpretation tends to fit in with the idea of "Twilight of the Gods" more than the idea of permanent deaths since "twilight" implies the eventual return of light (life) and the cycles of day and night have often been used to describe the cycle of not just life and death but also of rebirth. There are also heroic sagas that make the concepts of afterlife sound more like allegories for where you temporarily dwell until familial rebirth (reincarnation as a blood relative several generations later) such as one that treats the underworld (Helheim) as a reference for a graveyard and Valhöll (Valhalla) as a reference to an ancestral crypt despite Helheim being depicted in one story as a beautiful place where those who lived and died peacefully and in a mediocre manner receive hospitality and live an afterlife that resembles life on earth contrary to the Prose Edda (Younger Edda AKA Snorri's Edda) which is a Christianization that make Helheim look awful by merging it with Niflhel, a place of final death for the dishonorable.

>>1780 Figuring out what's really going on in Higurashi before reading answer arcs is very difficult if not impossible. A lot of RPG maker games have convoluted plots, Fausts Alptraum and Pocket Mirror are two that immediately come to my mind. *kki games (Yume Nikki, Yume 2kki and .flow are the most widely-known ones) consist almost entirely of dream sequences with their meaning (if there even is one) hard to decipher. LSD: Dream Emulator can be included in that category as well. Every game made by Ice-Pick Lodge has a lot of symbolism and hidden themes that take some effort to extract. The English translation of Pathologic is quite bad, but I've heard it's getting a remake so that probably won't be the case for much longer. If you're Russian or Polish (the Polish fan-translation is much better) you should play their respective versions.

>>1782 Nothing to add but that The Beginner's Guide is a really fantastic game, one of my all-time favorites.

>>1788 I liked it quite a bit myself. I'm not even sure it's appropriate to call it a game. It's goes on my short list of good postmodern video "games," along with Sons of Liberty.

Blazblue, Kingdom Hearts, NieR and Metal Gear are convoluted as fuarrrk and fairly enjoyable

>>1785 Higurashi is great, but Umineko is the real rabbithole. I couldn't recommend the VN enough if you're looking for a compelling, mysterious narrative that'll keep you coming back to dig at the fine details.

The VN Subarashiki Hibi is a good example of this. The first chapter is even called "Down the Rabbit Hole", and for very good reason. Reading it blind is an absolute trip.

>>1936 It's brilliant. Somewhat accurately encompasses the fuarrrking tractatus logico-philosophicus in eroge format. Writer knew his soykaf with the other literary allusions too. Shame tsuki no sora and other denpa VNs aren't translated.