Imagine the world of a bug living its life between two sheets of plywood. This imaginary creature would be trapped in a world of forward, backward, left, and right. That’s it, just two dimensions of travel. Between sheets of plywood there would be no up or down—just left, right, forward, and backward.
Imagine that wonderful moment when our little bug friend makes its way to the edge of the plywood to emerge into a world with the new dimension of up-down. Back in the world of flat between the plywood up-down was only a myth. Up-down was something that philosophers may have guessed at. Now, much to our buggy friend’s surprise, it is smack dab face-to-face with this new dimension.
How our bug reacts to this newfound freedom of up and down will depend a great deal on its ability to move within this new dimension. If the bug has wings and can fly, life will be good as it flies for the first time free with sky above and ground below. If, on the other hand, the bug has no means of flight, then the sequence of events might be something like: emerge into a new dimension, experience a new-found freedom of movement, puzzle at the strange rushing sounds of wind whipping past one’s buggy ears, followed by a resounding splat on the ground below.
Most likely, our little friend would have appreciated this new-found freedom if it had some prior preparation—suddenly going splat is not the best introduction to a new dimension.
It is to this bug that I dedicate The Any Game Cookbook. These recipes for transforming otherwise ordinary games into spiritual adventures are designed to exercise extradimensional muscles of movement.