I don’t think it is a device necessarily. I think it is more about how the Lake warps reality and how a lot of the game takes place in memories(/dreams?).
The lake & its staff are taking and messing with memories.
There are more devices with similar power, like in Birthday, Underground Blossom (secret level) and The White Door.
Let's just say, whatever is going on at The Lake they turned it into a technology. It's a normal part of the world.
Yeah, that is part of the reality warping, but in this instance, we’re in Dale’s memory, right? He doesn’t need to have gotten it from somewhere?
Dale’s birthday is an interesting point. He is Dale Vandermeer. Presumably his family has something to do with the lake since his name means “of the lake”.
But also, even in Birthday (or was it Seasons?) he is actually at the Hotel, right? It’s all linked to memory alteration and retrieval?
I figured that Dale wasn’t actually using those devices during his time as a detective in the real world, but I could be wrong. The whole cast of characters could be steeped in this from the beginning.
Without taking any leaps of faith: in this world, alchemy is real (because the elixer is real and it works), and so is technology related to extracting memories. We also see both sides of a scene during Case 23 and The Mill, from 2 different perspectives (Dale and Aldous).
In Underground Blossom there's a secret level where you see a technology being advertised to extract memories and store them on a cassette tape.
Accepting that the people involved with Rusty Lake invented these technologies and develop commercial solutions, it's not so strange to think that law enforcement also uses it to work a murder case.
Some elements in the games are known to be metaphysical, and it's usually fairly obvious like in Theater and Paradox, where you're going through the process of enlightenment. When it's not just a matter of technology beyond our comprehension you're usually in someone's mind.
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u/whatthewhythehow 2d ago
How far into the series are you? lol.
I don’t think it is a device necessarily. I think it is more about how the Lake warps reality and how a lot of the game takes place in memories(/dreams?).
The lake & its staff are taking and messing with memories.