Sanitarium (video game)



""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?

""Now that evil machine will be silent for a while!" "No More Genocide Today!" "Grap!""
 * Abusive Parents:.
 * Adult Child: Lenny.
 * All the Worlds Are a Stage: The next to last subchapter is a mishmash of all of the non-"real world" chapters..
 * Alternate Universe:.
 * Then there's a.
 * Ambition Is Evil:
 * Played straight with Morgan.
 * Averted with Max.
 * Arc Words: "Seek the truth".
 * 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:.
 * Big No
 * Black Bug Room: ...
 * Body Horror: You don't even know.
 * Booze Flamethrower: Sarah is taught how to do this by Inferno, which is then used.
 * 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 and Gromna.
 * Circus of Fear: Playing with a Trope. 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:.
 * Creepy Children
 * Creepy Circus Music
 * Creepy Twins
 * The Cuckoolander Was Right: See Foreshadowing below.
 * Cuckoo Nest
 * Daddy's Girl: Sarah and Eileen.
 * Dead Little Sister: Two of them!
 * Dead Man Writing: 's diary.
 * Deadpan Snarker: Max, when the situation calls for it.
 * Doppelganger: Max's shadow and.
 * The Dragon:
 * to.
 * to Mother.
 * Evil Laugh:.
 * Face Heel Turn
 * False Widow:.
 * Final Boss:.
 * Five-Man Band: Played with because :
 * 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 ... 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
 * A Glitch in the Matrix: The "real world" starts becoming more and more unreal with each chapter.
 * Go Among Mad People: Most of the game..
 * Good Is Not Nice: Olmec (hoo boy).
 * Grave Humor
 * Greed
 * Happier Home Movie: Watching these comes into play in the "Mansion" sub-chapter.
 * Haunted House
 * 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.
 * 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."
 * Jerkass:
 * Dennis.
 * Morgan's Father.
 * Olmec.
 * The Clown with the Balloons.
 * Kid Hero: Sarah.
 * Large Ham: Grimwall:
 * 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."
 * Jerkass:
 * Dennis.
 * Morgan's Father.
 * Olmec.
 * The Clown with the Balloons.
 * Kid Hero: Sarah.
 * Large Ham: Grimwall:


 * 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, attempts to trick Max into believing he's in the real world and just had a nasty bump on the head, and dreamt everything. . A very eerie scene, all in all.
 * Mad Scientist: Morgan,.
 * Make It Look Like an Accident
 * Mama Bear: "Mother".
 * Manipulative Bastard: Morgan.
 * 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.
 * Nice Guy: The Main Character and Timmy O'Toole.
 * Non-Identical Twins
 * One-Winged Angel:.
 * One Bad Mother: "Mother".
 * : "Mother".
 * Preacher Man: Preacher Bob takes himself seriously but is a comical instance of this trope. In addition, Chapter 2 makes mention of an influential small-town preacher.
 * 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.
 * , Chapter 2.
 * , Chapter 3.
 * , Chapter 4.
 * , Chapter 8.
 * , Chapter 9.
 * Rhymes on a Dime: Vera.
 * Romancing the Widow
 * Rule of Scary:.
 * Scary Scarecrows
 * See You in Hell
 * Sliding Scale of Anti-Heroes: Olmec is Type III.
 * Appropriately, as he is the least likable of the playable characters, Olmec is voiced by the same actor who plays the Big Bad.
 * 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
 * Theme Naming: All of the cyclopses have names beginning with "GR".
 * Timeshifted Actor: Frank Schurter plays Adult Max while Paul Crocker plays him during his childhood flashbacks.
 * Town with a Dark Secret: The entirety of Chapter 2.
 * Twist Ending
 * The Un-Reveal: The.
 * 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.
 * Unusual Euphemism: Grimwall's favorite exclamation, "Grap".
 * Unwitting Pawn: Arguably . He believes that . The example has the oddity of both the pawn and the manipulator being unaware of the manipulation.
 * Villain with Good Publicity:.
 * Waking Up At the Morgue
 * "Well Done, Son" Guy: Morgan.
 * : Morgan.
 * Womb Level: The Hive is unpleasantly organic.
 * "Well Done, Son" Guy: Morgan.
 * : Morgan.
 * Womb Level: The Hive is unpleasantly organic.