One quick further idea along that vein, then: what if the level is not supposedto be a fully immersive story-like experience (say, a Great Expectations or a Catcher in the Rye? What if it's not one of those experiences where you suspend disbelief and actively believe it's a real world? But more like an interactive art piece in a museum where the viewer is largely aware of their own participation and the author's presence in the work? Could that change how you see what I did? (Though, to claim that was always my intent would be to lie and say I wasn't at one point intending for this to resemble one of those classical works that're all immersive. If I said I didn't want the world I created in there to feel like a world, that would be a further lie.)
I think this is a matter of context. In an interactive art piece in a museum - and by that I presume we mean installations, performance art involving the audiece, etc.; late 20th century stuff - you're obviously aware of the author and your own participation; this awareness and this participation are partly the point. However, with obvious exceptions (Nouvelle vague cinema, some Dadaist and Surrealist paintings and art objects, and so on), this doesn't really apply to traditional arts. At least for me. When I look at an oil painting, be it the decaying, dying, corrupt world of the Christian situation in a Bosch work, or a mysteriously serene single figure portrait by Velazquez, I become completely immersed in the world of that painting. Not that I don't think at all about Bosch or Velazquez' personalities, goals, influences, places in art history, and so on, but those thoughts are
somewhat separate from actually perceiving the paintings.
Video games by their very nature are an interactive art form, and so they can lend themselves perfectly to "hey, this is just a game!" and "hello, I created this" reminders. In earlier games this was very commonplace, sometimes the charm of a particular game could depend on such immersion-breaking things (
Space Quest II, anyone?). However, and here I come to my main point, the effectiveness of such approach depends on the context. In a game such as Headgrinder's "Badly Built Level" it's very obviously essential. In a game like
Quake it would ruin the game, unless the immersion is broken in just one or two very cleverly hidden secrets (*cough*dopefish*cough). La Mulana, which I would unhesitantly place among some of the greatest pieces of art in history, has its share of inside references and talking to the player, all hidden as secrets and not ruining anything, because the game never tries to be something more than a platformer - a majestic, beautifully designed, immersive platformer with stunning gameplay flow, but still just a platformer, no exploration of the human mind, no deeper issues troubling humanity, etc. So when you find a secret where the creators of the game talk to your character, it's really just another speck of paint on the canvas; you never for a second forgot you're playing a game. Whereas in
splitMind you are aware that the level is trying to communicate something more than "just another platformer world", and so anything and everything that reminds you of the author is perceived as being out of context.
Of course, you can treat a Bosch painting the same way you treat 21st century art installations (particularly the triptych with the self-portrait, I guess); you can also treat
splitMind as part-platformer/part-exploration of the psyche/part-interactive installation-type piece. This could lead to interesting results, but I believe that it wouldn't be the best way to perceive these works.
Eh, there I go again, I've written too much to illustrate a simple point. I'm sorry for excessive rambling!