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Submitted by

beepbird! Thank you,

beepbird!

"I'm so tired of the bad blood between us. But it's hard to let it go. You've hurt me. And I've also hurt you."

Blurb: You're on a path in the woods, and at the end of that path is a cabin. And in the basement of that cabin is a Princess. You're here to slay her. If you don't, it will be the end of the world.

Why is it worth your time?: Overtly median protagonist where hearing voices is a central part of the narrative, an ever-changing princess whose fluidity of self is emphasized, and it's all amidst a narrative where your choices all have meaningful consequences (despite the time loops). Hearing voices is presented as a strength, not a flaw, and you even have the chance to tell one of them that you missed him.

Plural Tags: nonhumans, the dead, realitymashing, enmity, teamwork, nonswitching (mostly), median, voices, possession

Content Warnings: a detailed list of content warnings written by the developers can be found here (it even breaks it down by route): https://blacktabbygames.com/content-warnings-stp

Accessibility Notes: Game can be purchased from Steam, Gog, itch.io, and on Switch. Dialogue is narrated and the accessibility menu includes font replacement and adjustment, text-to-speech for non-narrated dialogue, and contrast improvements. Game is a visual novel, so it's mostly text, though there are some stunning images that don't give much information that's not also stated in text.

The audio is only available, however, in English. (The text is available in English, French, Italian, German, Spanish (both Catalan and Latin American), Japanese, Korean, Polish, Brazilian Portuguese, Russian, and both Simplified and Traditional Chinese.)

If the violence is too much for you, ManlyBadassHero did a censored Let's Play here covering all routes and updates.

Misc. Notes (if any): Abuse is not related to the plurality; there's never any explanation given for the voices existing, actually. Check the content warnings for sure on this one. It's definitely a horror game.

Also, there is merch: shirts, stickers, and posters!

Submitted by a kindly anon! Thank you, anon!

Full title: Clock Tower Ghost Head AKA Clock Tower 2: The Struggle Within

"Don't be afraid, Alyssa..."

Blurb: Teenager Alyssa Hale is trying to start over in a new city after a horrific incident at her previous school. She is haunted by someone named Bates who has been taking control of her body against her will. Things go from bad to worse upon reaching her uncle's house and finding a dead body shortly after. The reason why Bates exists will be revealed, but she must learn to accept him in order to find that truth and, most importantly, survive the night.

Why is it worth your time?: Alyssa and Bates switching is a game mechanic that can be used to solve puzzles! One can do or find something the other can't, and vice-versa. That itself is pretty cool, especially for a PS1 game.

That said, the game's got a lot of issues. The English version's box claims that Alyssa has an 'evil split personality and she is thirsty for blood oh nooo' without acknowledging Bates as his own person. The Japanese version at least makes it clearer that they are two separate souls in the same body. In both versions, Bates, the so-called 'evil' one, is really more Chaotic Neutral.

See comments for clarifying spoilers!

Plural Tags: spiritual, teamwork, enmity, switching, the dead, family

Content Warnings: death (child and adult), bodily mutilation, strong language, parental neglect, medical experimentation

Accessibility Notes: It is a PS1 game long out of print with two language options (Japanese and English, separate releases); the English version is prohibitively expensive to acquire secondhand, but it's available to play on archive.org. This Let's Play has unobtrusive commentary, reads all text aloud, finds all endings and extra bonuses. The game itself comes with all dialogue subtitled and audio both.

Misc. Notes (if any): Honestly...the game kind of sucks lol. But this system appreciates protector tropes, and Bates very much hits that trope. Plus, in the English version he's voiced by Roger L. Jackson who is so very fun to listen to!

Submitted by

acorn_squash! Thank you,

acron_squash! ^_^

“Vern reached out to squeeze Lucy’s hand. Lucy squeezed back. In her mind, Vern said the words, I love you, I miss you. Lucy put down the book, turned to Vern, and said, ‘I like living inside of you.’”

Blurb: Everybody in Cainland is used to hauntings - visions and night terrors supposedly caused by withdrawal from white people's toxins. But in Cainland, everything is connected and nothing is what it seems. After fleeing the Cainland cult compound pregnant with twins, an exoskeleton develops on Vern's disabled, teenage body, a passenger that saps her energy but connects her to something greater than herself. Meanwhile, she learns to communicate with her hauntings and develops loving relationships with some of them.

Why is it worth your time?: It’s a fast-paced thriller with some of the most unique and creative science fiction elements I’ve seen in a while (did I mention the exoskeleton?). Definitely read the content warnings first, though!

Plural Tags:abuse high-focus, the dead, children, setting-specific plurality, family, friendship, and intimate relationships, visions

Content Warnings: The author includes the following content warning: “I hope that even as Sorrowland delves into the pain these colonial states have wrought, one might see the joy, triumph, and humor of those who resist, resist, resist. That said, there is no mincing words about some of the darker themes in this book. Note discussion and instances of racism, misogyny, self-harm, suicidality, and homophobia, inclusion of animal death and explicit violence, and references to sexual violence that have taken place off the page.”

In addition to this, the book also includes the death and sexual abuse of children, the forced removal of children, poverty, homelessness, cults, medical experimentation, and drugs. Pregnancy, childbirth, and consensual sex also appear.

Accessibility Notes: Available in e-book, audiobook, and print.

"Goldie let me absorb him. So that I could live. That means my soul isn't entirely my own, ennit?"

Blurb: Burned-out sorcerer John Constantine had a twin who died in the womb. In the world on other side of the mirror, it was the twin who survived, and John who died. And one day, that twin comes out to make him an offer to solve everything...

Why is it worth your time?: It's good! Jes & Cin packed a lot of thought on themes of self-hatred, grief, and sacrifice into these short little comics. Give 'em a shot, they're free!

Plural Tags: abuse not mentioned, otherworld, children, the dead [twins], nonswitching, fusion/integration [failed and successful both], family and enmity relationships, setting-specific, visions

Content Warnings: It is not a spoiler to say that these are comics about a dead twin, and the grief therein!

Access Notes: Not screenreadable. Free to read online, though not posted in order!

Misc Notes: The creators have put it all in one expanded "Director's Cut" post now! (EDIT: here's also the tumblr post version.) Here's the masterpost on the creation of it (back-up link). The authors' notes in the original posts are also well worth reading:

"I cannot hold onto this body when another will need it far more. We are a single existence, split only by the tides of time, joined together in death."

Blurb: You play as a body-hopping Foundling, borrowing bodies of the dead, finding out who they were when alive, and fighting your way through a corrupted doomscape. Each "shell" has different skills and playstyle, from Eredrim the long-suffering king with all health and no stamina, to Tiel who runs up stairs for fun and chugs poison like candy.

Why is it worth your time?: It seems like a fun souls-like! It's lighter on story than other games in here, but I didn't mind watching it. The Virtuous Cycle expansion pack gives a little more story.

Plural Tags: abuse not mentioned, nonhumans (the Foundling), the dead, bodyhopping, possession

Content Warnings: It's a gory game with a grim atmosphere and a bunch of hyperdevoted cultists around. Comments contain warnings with spoilers.

Access Notes: Available on X-box Series and One, Playstation 4 and 5, Nintendo Switch, Steam, Epic Games, and GOG.

Audio is English only, but subtitles and interface are available in English, French, Italian, German, Spanish, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, Simplified and Traditional Chinese, and Russian.

Due to the nature of the bodyhopping gameplay, I haven't found a total completionist Let's Play, but Lotus Prince has a pretty thorough series with unobtrusive commentary:

Mortal Shell proper playlist (covers base game and the start of Virtuous Cycle)
Virtuous Cycle beating (as Eredrim)
Discovering Foundling Obsidian Black
Virtuous Cycle final ending (as Foundling)
A silly alternate ending for the base game
Bonus interactions with Brether Corvid
A Forever Alone run (playing through the base game as the Foundling, no bodyhopping at all)

Misc Notes: A review of the game is here. And just so you know, you can pet the shopkeeper's cat.

"The you that killed Viola Wright was mulched a month later. I found my outlying scrap of consciousness balled up in Gus's pocket, all unbeknownst to him, along with the rest of your magically compressed matter and a great charge of vibrating magic. It was an unsettling vantage, for where I curled infinitesimally in your remains I could hear what I might call my primary self screaming above Gus's head.'"

Blurb: Gus is a sorcerer so obsessed with Catherine that he murders her, and her ghost is stuck haunting him forevermore. Unable to accept that Catherine doesn't love him, Gus then becomes obsessed with finding other girls that remind him of Catherine and making THEM love him... only to kill them when the inevitably don't'. He creates magical duplicates of himself to do that dirty work, forever recycling them into new copies, using Catherine's ghost to follow them. But over the decades, that means a piece of Catherine is embedded in those pieces of Gus. And she still wants her revenge...

Why is it worth your time?: It's pretty good! This is a book covering 150+ years of time, with three major time periods and two (or three, depending how you count) different points of view, and a decently sizable cast, all organized well enough so as not to throw us. Gus is utterly convincing as that special brand of romantic obsessive who sees himself as the most loving person, all the while being an utter horrorshow, and Catherine's revenge is delicious.

Plural Tags: abuse (mostly of a ghost) high-focus, cofronting, copies, the dead, enmity, setting-specific, possession

Content Warnings: contain spoilers; see comments

Access Notes: Available in print, ebook, and audiobook

"These stories were very old, as old as people, and they had survived because they were very powerful indeed. These were the tales that echoed in the head long after the books that contained them were cast aside. They were both an escape from reality and an alternative reality themselves. They were so old, and so strange, that they had found a kind of existence independent of the pages they occupied. The world of the old tales existed parallel to ours, as David's mother had once told him, but sometimes the wall separating the two became so thin and brittle that the two worlds started to blend into each other.

"That was when the trouble started."

Blurb: After the tragic death of his mother, his father's remarriage, and the birth of a baby brother, troubled boy David finds himself sucked into a fantasy world that seems cobbled together from the various books in his room. But those books and stories don't all belong to him, and some of them are very grim...

Why is it worth your time?: It's an enjoyable dark fantasy with truly frightening villains, tragic heroes, all overhung with a backdrop of World War II, which David is too young to fully understand the nature of. Give it a shot!

Plural Tags: abuse not mentioned, otherworld, fictioneers, the dead, visions, voices

Content Warnings: contain spoilers; see comments

Access Notes: This book is mainstream and well-liked and has gotten multiple printings, so it's easy to find in libraries. Available in ebook, audiobook, paperback, and hardback formats. Also got translated into French, where it won an award!

"The Blight may have taken them, but they are still watching over us. And... I will never leave your side."

Blurb: A young girl wakes to a land blighted by an unceasing rain that steals the sanity and mortality of everyone it touches. Unable to fight as herself, she relies on the spirits of bosses and enemies that she befriends to protect her, fight for her, and help her explore and traverse the environment, so she can lay the dead to rest and end the cycle of horror.

Why is it worth your time?: It's good! Elegiac and bittersweet about flawed people at the end of the world trying to make things better. Nobody shares a body, per se, but the spirits who make up the members of your party can only manifest in the girl's vicinity, they all rely on her survival to continue, and she relies on them to progress through the game. Also, as a multiple whose system is stuffed with upset, hostile ghosts, the mechanics of soothing the dead, befriending them, and building strength through alliance with them rang true! This is a game about generation upon generation of horror finally being laid to rest. Also, the soundtrack is really nice!

Plural Tags: abuse low-focus, cofronting, teamwork, friendship, the dead

Content Warnings: contain spoilers; see comments

Access Notes: Available on Steam, Nintendo Switch, Playstation 4, and Xbox One, Series X, and Series S. The game has no spoken dialogue, only written, and languages available are English, French, Italian, German, Spanish - Spain, Portuguese - Brazil, Russian, Simplified Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and Traditional Chinese. A completionist Let's Play with unobtrusive commentary and almost all text read out loud is here.

Misc Notes:

"Gameplay:
- Go to sleep in the bed and open the door to enter the dream world.
- Explore the dream world and collect effects.
- The dream world is very large, so use landmarks to navigate: walk straight in one direction until you come across something to use as a landmark, then change direction and walk straight until you find another landmark, and so on.
- If you get lost or stuck, press 9 to wake up.
- You can save your game at the desk when you're awake." (from the Readme)

Blurb: A young woman who cannot leave her room explores the strange world of her dreams instead.

Why is it worth your time?: This game has a devoted niche following for its surreal, open-ended sense of mystery. It just drops you into an environment with lacking instructions and leaves you to figure it out. There are all sorts of strange little easter eggs, including dream creatures you can't interact with or even see under most circumstances. This is a game that's easy to get lost in, in all senses of the word; I had to play it with the Wiki open. It's something to be experienced, rather than beaten. Also, it's free!

Plural Tags: abuse not mentioned, dreamfolk, enmity (but only if you choose it), visions

Content Warnings: contain spoilers; see comments

Access Notes: There are surely a bajillion Let's Plays of this game, but we haven't seen any of them and can make no recommendations. Being an RPGmaker game, both the old fan-translated version and the new Steam version are Windows-only, far as I know. (We played the fan-translated one.)

Misc Notes: This game may have helped inspire Lisa: the First! There is also a manga and a TON of fanmade games, none of which I have touched. Seriously, if you want a fandom to dive into, Yume Nikki will keep you busy forever.

Submitted by

starfallhaven! Thanks!

"this was your shell, but it was all filled up with me. God, the double entendres were hard to resist."

Blurb: the sequel to Gideon the Ninth, Harrow the Ninth follows Harrowhark Nonageismus, who has failed to become a true Lyctor--a necromancer who has absorbed the soul of her cavalier. She is being both haunted by both visions and ghosts as she attempts to survive her time aboard the Mithraeum as one of God's chosen saints.

Why is it worth your time?: this book is extraordinarily good if you know what's going on (that is, body and mind sharing). The entire premise of Lyctorhood, one of the novel's defining world building aspects, is based on the idea of a secondary soul residing in a single body. There's even possession.

Plural Tags: mindsharing, switching, visions, setting-specific, abuse not mentioned, fusion/integration, otherworld, enmity and romantic relationships, the dead

Content Warnings: contain spoilers; see comments

Accessibility Notes: available in print, ebook, and audiobook.

Misc. Notes: This book is not going to make much sense if you haven't read Gideon the Ninth, and I can't recommend reading one without the other. Although I'm firmly of the opinion that knowing about the bodysharing aspect in advance will only make the reading experience more enjoyable, it is technically a spoiler to know about at least one of the bodysharing relationships in this book.

Submitted by

expmachine !

"This is your reality. Hurry up and accept it."

Blurb: "Asa Mitaka is an introverted high school student attending Fourth East High School, who has trouble finding her place in society following her mother's death to the Typhoon Devil. One day, after accidentally killing her class' pet devil Bucky, she is confronted by a student who has made a contract with the Justice Devil. The student attempts to kill Asa, but Yoru the War Devil appears and makes a contract with Asa, inhabiting her body and making her a living Fiend host, under the condition that she kills Chainsaw Man. After dispatching her killer, Asa seeks to find Chainsaw Man, though she and Yoru have differing goals: Asa wants Yoru to leave her body, while Yoru wants to reclaim the Nuclear Weapons Devil which was consumed by Pochita."

Why is it worth your time?: Specifically it's the second part of Chainsaw Man when Asa and Yoru are introduced as protagonists. Yoru can read Asa's thoughts, she can only possess (or switch with) Asa when she's not feeling distressed. Asa sees Yoru as a hallucination and talks to her out loud. While the plot is ongoing, the way the possession and relationship between the human and devil is treated so far is interesting.

Plural Tags: mindsharing, enmity

Content Warnings: Contain spoilers; see comments.

Accessibility Notes: I'm unsure of any screenreader available.

"If you or your doll partner begin to experience identity blending, shared dreams or hallucinations, or other such synchronicity events, immediate self-termination is advised. Failure to do so may lead to ego death, erroneous visions, delusion, reality corruption, and ultimately complete derealization and integration into the human subconscious."

Blurb: A doll and its beloved owner watch reality unravel together.

Why is it worth your time?: It's short, spooky, sad, and good, embracing ambiguity, the grotesque, and queer love at the end of the world.

Plural Tags: abuse not mentioned, nonhumans [doll/robot, witch], setting-specific, realitymashing, visions, romantic relationships

Content Warnings: contain spoilers; see comments

Access Notes: Screenreadable, free to read online. Read it here! (EDITOR'S NOTE 2023/11/28: deleted? Back up link here.)

"He's not watching me at all. He only sees me as Migi's host, doesn't think of me as a separate opponent."

Blurb: (from wiki) Brain-snatching, shapeshifting parasites start taking over people's bodies and eating humans, but when one goes after high schooler Shinichi, it goes wrong and ends up in his arm instead. Fed by Shinichi's circulatory system, Migi (his parasite) feels no desire to eat humans, and the two must work together to survive, avoid detection, and possibly protect humanity.

Why is it worth your time?: This manga has won awards and is a bestseller for good reason: it's good! The gore and body horror are lightened by goofy teenage boy humor, and Shinichi's resourcefulness and rising to the challenges of his situation are fun to watch, as are the interactions and mutual influence between him and Migi, who has very coldblooded, inhuman morality but seems to at least somewhat care about what Shinichi would want, if only out of enlightened self-interest. The narrative makes it very clear that Migi may be dangerous and inhuman, but he is not evil or malicious.

Plural Tags: abuse not mentioned, cofronting, nonhumans [man-made parasite], teamwork

Content Warnings: contain spoilers; see comments

Access Notes: This manga is easy to find due to its popularity. Available on paper and ebook, in Japanese and English. There have also been adaptations in Korean and Chinese (despite the manga being banned in China). There are anime and live-action versions, but I have no idea how they compare.

Misc Notes: Note that at this time, I've only read volume 1 of the 8-volume series, so this only applies to that volume!

“It’s important to recognize that the actual cards themselves don’t matter,” she said plainly, as though trying to calmly drop a bombshell.

“How do you mean?”

“The cards are a vehicle for understanding. But any vehicle will get you from point A to point B. We could reshuffle these cards and lay out a different spread, and I could tell you the same fortune, and it would still be your fortune. The fortune is told through the conversation we have together, not through a bunch of paper and plastic and ink spread out on the table. "

Blurb: Practicing the art of autonomancy, a multiple works as a pseudo-exorcist, ousting noncorporeal entities masquerading as ghosts. The story dips back and forth between their coming to selves-awareness and magic in the past, and their present-day battle of wills with a "ghost," who is pulling out all the stops and maybe more than they bargained for...

Why is it worth your time?: It is so engrossing! I totally got sucked in and read the whole thing in one sitting. Just reading this system working together, despite lack of co-consciousness, and using their DID to fight asshole entities is so satisfying. (And how this story MAKES their DID specifically a load-bearing plot element. This is one of those rare stories where pretty much no other type of plurality would work for the purposes of the story.) The spooky moments are truly spooky, the jokes are truly funny. Also, it's free!

Plural Tags: mpd/did, inner children, community, switching, realitymashing, plural creator, abuse high-focus

Content Warnings: contain spoilers; see comments

Access Notes: Available for free reading on Reddit. Start reading it here! (EDIT: some chapters are locked behind an 18+ filter, which apparently makes some chapters inaccessible under the new www.reddit URLs. Following is the full listing of chapters under old.reddit URLs, which are less accessible on mobile but can at least all be read:

Misc Notes: There is a short story in the same world as this, The Autonomancer's Homunculus - Recipe Not Included, but it involves different characters and doesn't fulfill the plural requirement. Ian Night of the Desired Constellation was also posting about autonomancy (the use of personal symbols to find meaning and self-actualization) back on tumblr in 2017, and he influenced parts of this series. You can read his posts about it here and here.

CATALOGER NOTE 2024/10/6: emailed DC about back-up rehosting the story in one file on healthymultiplicity.com because oh god if I have to back-up all 24 chapters manually I will cry.

CATALOGER NOTE 2025/1/23: One of DC has requested no back-up be made; they got Book of Autonomancy stolen and resold by some jerk on Amazon without recourse and are removing all their fiction from the Internet. :(

"When the rose ???s, so too will you ??? away..."

Blurb: You play a nine-year-old girl named Ib who, upon visiting an art exhibit with her parents, gets sucked into a world spawned from the imagination and creations of the deceased artist being exhibited. Unfortunately, the vast majority of that imagination DOES NOT LIKE YOU.

Why is it worth your time?: It's pretty good, fun and spooky! Both are short, and the original is still free online. The only plural themes are getting sucked into a fictive world created by someone else, inhabited by beings formed from that psyche. The Fabricated World doesn't work on conventional rules of reality, and the game does some fun things with that idea.

Plural Tags: otherworld, fictivity

Content Warnings: contain spoilers; see comments

Access Notes: A pretty good completionist Let's Play of the remake exists! (Alas, I haven't been able to find a Let's Play of the original that I feel worth recommending.)

Misc Notes: There are multiple versions of this game. Version 1.07 of the original game, translated to English, is still up for free online (back-up link 1 and 2), but being an RPGmaker game, running it on non-Windows machines may require some fiddling. The remake, which only came out a few months ago, is $13 on Steam and streamlines the game, makes some of the puzzles easier, and fancies up the graphics a bit, but the core experiences are about the same.

"Get back to your room..."

Blurb: An abused young woman tries to escape through her imagination and fails.

Why is it worth your time?: It's free, short, and pretty good. I played it and enjoyed it, despite its depressing tone and disturbing imagery.

Plural Tags: nonswitching, otherworld, introjects, abuse high-focus

Content Warnings: Contain spoilers; see comments

Access Notes: Free to play, text dialogue. A completionist Let's Play with the dialogue read out loud is here, though it's not the best.

Misc Notes: This game is the first in a series, and I am not going to play the other two because the first is about as upsetting as I can take. It is an RPGmaker game inspired by cult hit Yume Nikki, which I'm also working on playing through.

Play it here! (Back-up link here.)

"Everything's fine.
It feels like heaven.
I see my parents.
They look happy.
They have a present for me. I wonder...
It's a cat! So sweet and pretty!
Dark as the deepest night.
It's Mr. Midnight!
My best friend...
My only friend..."

Blurb: After witnessing the brutal murder of her parents, ten-year-old Fran Bow gets shipped off to an oppressive asylum for children, where she starts having grotesque visions. After having a dream about her beloved cat, Mr. Midnight, she decides to escape. Reality starts coming apart at the seams.

Why is it worth your time?: It's really good. It is amazing that this game was made by only two people; its visual style is singular, and the horrific imagery is contrasted and intensified by beautiful moments, plus the love Fran and Mr. Midnight have for each other. As someone who also sometimes has gruesome visions, this game was ironically comforting to watch; it has a theme of choosing happiness despite intense pain. The game is intentionally surreal and unclear as to what's "real" and what isn't, but I feel it fits under a greater plural umbrella due to (SPOILERS)

Plural Tags: imaginary friends, visions, nonswitching, realitymashing, otherworld, metaphysical/supernatural, creator speaks from experience, abuse high-focus

Content Warnings: contain spoilers, in the comments below.

Accessibility Notes: Subtitled in English, Spanish, German, and Russian, not voiced. I've found a Let's Play that voices the dialogue in English. (When I link a Let's Play, it's to a completionist version with an unobtrusive, leisurely player who focuses on the game.)

Misc. Notes: Natalia Martinsson (nee Figueroa) has stated that this game is based on her own life: "The game itself is a kind of screaming out what I been experienced through my childhood and teenager years. [...] So yes, Fran Bow is a gathering of many events that have being crucial in my life and in a way, I don't want to speak only for myself, but also the others I meet on my way, because not everything is about painful situations. Beautiful things has also happened on the way, and those happy event are those who really helped to battle my mental state."

"Canute, why didn't you ever tell me? We're friends. You're supposed to tell me about--about things like this..."

Blurb: A Native teenager attempts suicide and reality starts to melt. Medlock writes, "I wrote this while looking back on when I was suicidal. I felt like my thoughts weren't my own and it was really scary. I legit thought I was possessed by demons or something, but now I think it was more an influence of bad spirits. But whatever you wanna call it, it felt very supernatural to me. Anyway I got some help and am better now. I hope you got something out of this story~ "

Why is it worth your time?: Medlock uses beautiful surreal, supernatural imagery, mixes color with black and white to striking effect, and also discusses mental health from a supernatural, community integration perspective. It's a valuable perspective, and I want to boost it.

Plural Tags: supernatural, otherworld, nonswitching, nonhumans [spirits], realitymashing, creator speaks from experience

Content Warnings: This is a comic where the main character attempts suicide. There is blood. That isn't a spoiler, because it's on both the back cover and the first page of the book, but further content warnings ARE spoilers and go in the comments below.

Accessibility Notes: The paper form is now on sale at Ko-Fi! It is also available to read for free on Webtoon, though not alt-texted.

Read it here! (EDIT: Webtoon has now access-locked this to people with accounts, so with Medlock's permission, we rehosted it at healthymultiplicity.com!)

"Isaac and his mother lived alone, on a house on a hill. Isaac kept to himself, playing with his toys while his mother watched Christian broadcasts on the television. Life was simple, and they were both happy--that is, until the day Isaac's mom heard a voice from above: 'Your son has become corrupted by sin. He needs to be saved...'"

Blurb: A computer game following an abused child and his possible-headmates fighting through randomly generated dungeons filled with poop, trauma, and abortions. Offense guaranteed. This game has very little narrative, but McMillen has stated that all the player characters are Isaac, so I don't think it's a stretch to see them as headmates, or to interpret the levels as a form of violent headspace. (Especially since there are items which, if possessed, allow you to die and come back as a new player character--i.e., switch.)

Why is it worth your time? The game is a blast to play, as long as you aren't bothered by the grotesque aesthetic. It has insane replay value, due to its randomness. It rewards experimentation, though it does rely on fine muscle control.

Plural Tags: nonhuman headmates, abuse high-focus, switching, otherworld, children, the dead

Content Warnings: In comments below; contains spoilers.

Accessibility Notes: No subtitles for spoken cutscenes, but there are only maybe two or three of those, all of which you can probably follow through visuals alone. There are a bazillion Let's Plays of this game, but I haven't watched many and the nature of the beast makes completionism kind of impossible, so I can't recommend any one in particular. Any one playthrough lasts maybe an hour tops, but getting everything can take hundreds of hours, making this impossible to length-tag appropriately.

Miscellaneous Notes: There are two main versions of the game, a bunch of expansion packs, and a card game now, the last of which I have not played.

"I want to forget! Who would choose to be alone, imprisoned by their own broken memories?"

Blurb: Alice's Wonderland is decaying and being tampered with by outside forces. Time to pick up the Vorpal blade and hack and slash through some more inner demons! (Or are they inner?)

Why is it worth your time? It's fun; people tend to prefer the first game, but we preferred this one. The controls are much more fluid, the combat and weapons system is much more streamlined, and we enjoyed how the game built on and expanded on the themes of the first. The soundtrack isn't amazing like the first game's, but is still good, and the visuals are gorgeous. (There are an annoying number of invisible walls, though.) This is also probably my favorite depiction of memory work in fiction.

Plural Tags: memory work, non-switching, headspace galore, abuse intermediate-focus

Content Warnings: In comments below; contains spoilers.

Accessibility Notes: game has both audio dialogue and subtitles, and a Let's Play is available. (Note: if I link a Let's Play, it's to a completionist version with an unobtrusive, leisurely player who focuses on the game.) Available for PC, Playstation3, and... er, whichever Xbox was in use in 2011.

Misc. Notes: There are two experimental short films made after this, called Alice: Otherlands, but in our opinion, they aren't worth your time. If you want to see a stop-motion animated Alice in short films, stick with the three stop-motion animated trailers for this game instead. They're quite striking!

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