[filiph]

Thanks! Author here.

I think quite a few videogames have different levels. For example, I remember an old 1990s game called Wargasm where you could both be the general and the soldier. It was a lot of fun.

Most videogames don't go there, though, because it's more straightforward to use the game at a single "level". Even if they do have multiple levels, though, I don't think they ever go with more than 2 or 3. That would be just too confusing.

In text, though, this is natural. Even in non-interactive books, you have things like "Conan wants revenge > Conan is on his way to Stygia > Conan meets cobras > Conan is being attacked by the King Cobra > King Cobra's attack goes above Conan's head > Conan thrusts sword upward".

[subwayclub]

Scope variance is actually really common in mobile games as well as RPGs and simulation. All of them share the same kind of design goal of bending time to fit a certain play session or inner/outer game loop length. More "immersive" games ignore the logistical problems of extreme detail and offer tools like time compression, but designing for accessibility bends things the other way, towards providing a spliced-up timeline where events don't have to happen in any particular order apart from one that builds up a sensible narrative.

Hence you have the existence of things like equipment screens that can be popped up mid-battle, pausing everything to let you think about how to divide up loot. And the energy model in mobile F2P, which doesn't make a lick of sense but enforces limited session length and progression. You can take this even further when you think about power up items in pretty much any game.

[phlakaton]

I think it's relatively common to the RPG genre to have multiple levels going on in a game. Minigames are a hallowed feature of most Final Fantasy installments, for example. Crafting might also be considered somewhat of a game.

_Fractal_ design, though, implies some element of self-similarity between the levels – and that definitely seems like something more rare!