Don Quixote is an incredible novel for that, yeah. It's amazing how many details of the metaficticious elements still feel novel to this day, all these years later. Especially with its ideas of "madness," which I interpreted as commentary on human emotion vs rationality in behavior and thought.

Getting stuck causes players to explore the world.

Dying causes players to think about what they're doing.

An "impossible" situation causes players to learn how the game works and eventually achieve the impossible.

We need to be able to design *some* games around these fundamental ideas.

Utena also good it's true if you asked me tomorroe that might be on mine... Wife trains are awesome. There should be people running them.