The Lost Room: Great Computer Game material

Been enjoying watching the The Lost Room lately. It's a fine program whose plot driver is an alternate reality in which various sundry objects have unexpected powers. Most recently the program introduced "the scissors" as an object that can flip things at a distance.

It struck me that an appealing aspect of this show is that the multiple possibilities of each object's use and the permutations available by combining them. It reminded me of the better RPGs I've played where the world in which you're placed is not "run on rails" but is simply a set of objects to manipulate and interact with.

Such games are not guaranteed successes. Some, like Trespasser, have failed terribly. But when done well, can make great results.

Imagine a RPG world based on TLR. One of the great aspects of computer gaming is that physics can be altered at will. Such games as Armed and Dangerous and Marble Blast have show that reference frame changes (e.g. "which way is up") can be effective. More compelling is the ability to make non-Euclidian space via portal technology, as first seen in Descent and more recently in Half-Life 2.

The TLR world would initially appear "normal." However by use of different objects different aspects of the physics engine could be altered. Of course this also brings up all sorts of gameplay design problems, for example if this were a multiplayer would it make sense that a single player could flip gravity for the entire playspace? Ultimately it seems wide to limit the effective range of such objects, but doing so in a linear, connected manner would be challenging.