What is 5th dimensional experience?
To sum up, "5th dimensional experience" is about the concept that every action every person makes creates consequences (good or bad), and that every time you make a choice, you "split" the universe because your choice changed the future.
These choices can vary from big and obvious consequences (choosing to save someone's life) to small choices with less foreseeable consequences (that old nursery rhyme about how a missing nail led to a kingdom getting taken over), and the resulting universes created can vary from subtle changes (an alternate universe where everything is exactly the same as your universe, except you're wall's a different colour) to major (an alternate universe where the light bulb was never invented).
The term for all of these alternate universes co-existing (but not necessarily about to affect/touch one another) is termed a "multiverse." (See: Rick and Morty, below, for more on multiverses.)
Now, 5th dimensional experience is when a character is aware of not only the existence of a multiverse, but can also (to some extent) foresee possible futures and what actions will lead to which future. (See: MIB3, below, for a character example of this.)
What's this got to do with visual novels?
After writing the Tumblr post, I realised that visual novels are an ideal form of storytelling to explore 5th dimensional experience. Why? Because VNs allow you to make choices that change the plot. That's a VN's most basic game mechanic.
As the player, you inherently learn and remember future outcomes by re-playing the VN. What if your character also did that?
Examples of the 5th dimension's use in fiction:
(Unmarked spoilers below.)
MIB3/Men in Black 3 - In this film, there's a character who is described as thus:
"He’s a Fifth-Dimensional being. They can live in and visualize an infinite set of time-space probability simultaneously."
His first appearance in the film is a great explanation of his powers:
As you can see from the above video, his powers are played for comedy (it's later also played as tragedy because being able to see so many possible futures at the same time is overwhelming. It also means that he sees futures where his friend end up dying). He can see ripple effects from others' actions, no matter how small, and can link two seemingly-unrelated things together (example in the video: J having his pocket watch with him = several people have died).
Rick and Morty - In this sci-fi series, we learn that not only does Rick's world exist in a multiverse, but that he also has the ability to travel between different universes/dimensions using his portal gun device. This means that it's possible for him and Morty to meet alternate universe (AU) versions of themselves in other dimensions (for instance, there's an AU version of them where they became cowboys, and an AU version of them where they died during one of their adventures).
In the episode, Close Rick-counters of Rick Kind, it's revealed that Rick built a special meeting place for all the Ricks and Mortys to talk to each other, in case a villain learns how to jump between dimensions and tries to kill every version of Rick and his grandson, Morty throughout the multiverse.
In another episode, Rick Potion #9, Rick and Morty fail to save the world and their planet is in ruin. They end up "fixing" things by going to an AU where they did manage to save the world, but died in the process, essentially "replacing" the dead Rick and Morty to prevent their (now alive in this AU) family (meaning Morty's parents and sister) from grieving. From then one, they stay in that AU.
Bioshock Infinite - At the end of the game, it's revealed that the player character's companion, Elizabeth, can not only open tears into other dimensions/AUs, but also has the power to see every possible future event. It's also revealed that the main villain is actually player character.
On top of all that, it's also revealed that the man and woman scientist duo who have been helping you are not twins: They are actually two AU versions of the same person (in one AU, the scientist was born a man).
Back to the Future II - In this film, the protagonist's use of time travel causes an alternate timeline where the antagonist is rich and powerful (because the antagonist was able to send a sports statistics book to his past self, allowing him to win tons of racing bets). The protagonist then spends the majority of the film trying to fix the timeline back to the way it originally was.
Undertale - In one of the bad endings, the player character sells their soul. From then on, if the player tries to replay any of the good endings, the game will add on a bad twist to it, basically saying that since the protagonist sold their soul in one timeline/AU, then they no longer own their soul in any of the possible timelines.
Additionally, there's another character who follows you around and remembers every action you take and every ending you get, even if you reload a save or reset the game.
Another thing is that's sort of implied is that there's another character who has some knowledge that the timeline keeps getting reset, and that it's made him depressed and lazy because he feels like none of his choices matter, because they'll always get "reset" (similar to the main character in the film, Goundhog Day). For example, this character buys an expensive house to live in (agreeing to pay for it by the end of the month) because he knows that the timeline will reset before the end of the month.
The Stanley Parable - This video by Errant Signal (around 5:55 into the video) talks about hos the game treated every ending just as "canon" as the other, including "bad endings" and "joke endings."
Intimate Infinite - This game is based on the 1941 short story, The Garden of Forking Paths, which is about a man who writes a book that describes every possible outcome that can happen to the book's main character (the "garden" of the story referring to the book, and "forking paths" referring to the branching paths of the story).
Intimate Infinite has an interesting game mechanic where it's divided into three mini-games that, at first, don't feel connected. However, if the player makes the "right" choices in one mini-game, it will lead to changes in one of the other mini-games, and so on, until you reach the game's ending.
My questions for you:
1) What do you this of the idea of seeing more VNs that explore this idea? Does it interest you? Do you see possible problems/pitfalls with it being used?
2) What are other ways of using 5th dimensional experience in a visual novel? VN ideas?
3) Why are there so few examples of visual novels (and fiction in general) that explore this idea?
4) Do you have any other good examples of 5th dimensional storytelling in fiction that I haven't mentioned?
5) Also, do you have any other thoughts on this subject in general?
