4 ms·

it predates TVTropes (Shakespeare did it), and it's called "a play-within-a-play" https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ShowWithinAShow https://tvtropes.

• yamtaddle 4y ago
  Well, right, but that's not quite the same thing. Video games also do "show within a show", sometimes taking the form of an actual show (Address Unknown in Max Payne, and that other one that's plainly mimicking Lynch's Invitation to Love from Twin Peaks), or an actual play, as in Midsummer Night's(? I think it has the one with Thisby and such, right?) or Hamlet, which I wanna say at least one Final Fantasy has featured (9?), among other games, or sometimes, matching the medium, taking the form of minigames (dice or card games, or arcade games, say, in games that aren't primarily about those things but just have them in the world—even sports games in non-sports games, like Blitzball from FFX) The purest form of this specific thing is more like having an entire episode of MASH play on a TV in the background during an episode of Trapper, MD.
  • pixelbath 4y ago
    There's also the linked "Game Within a Game" article linked from the above article: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/GameWithinAGame https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/GameWithinAGame or the "Embedded Precursor" which is more specific about the embedded game: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/EmbeddedPrecursor https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/EmbeddedPrecurso...
    • yamtaddle 4y ago
      Ah, embedded precursor is the right one. I tried to find the relevant page by looking through the lists of tropes for a couple that feature that, and failed.