History Main / EscapeFromTheCrazyPlace

* ''[[FanFic/{{Bird}} Bird]]'': the climax of the Alchemilla Asylum arc invokes this, as Faultline's mercenary band causes a cascade failure in the security system, releasing several dangerous patients. Taylor and her friends use te opportuinity to escape in the chaos.

* ''[[FanFic/{{Bird}} Bird]]'' the climax of the Alchemilla Asylum arc invoes this, as Faultline's mercenary band causes a cascade failure in the security system, releasing several dangerous patients.

* ''[[FanFic{{Bird}} Bird]]'' the climax of the Alchemilla Asylum arc invoes this, as Faultline's mercenary band causes a cascade failure in the security system, releasing several dangerous patients.

* ''Videogame/{{Outlast}}'', at first you go in to investigate the Asylum, but discover its filled with crazed monsters, and now have to escape it.

** In ''VideoGame/AfraidOfMonsters'', David Leatherhoff wakes in a dark, monster infested hospital and has to get out. Unfortunately, the city outside isn't much better...
** In ''VideoGame/CryOfFear'', Simon Henriksson wakes in an empty Stockholm. All he wants to do is get home, but his path leads him through several crazy places he must escape from: an unholy apartment complex, the city's subway station, a dark forest and an asylum populated by axe wielding psychopaths. [[spoiler:Unfortunately, it's all in his poor, crazy head]].

* ''TheWhiteChamber'' details a game describing the events of a girl who has just woken up on a space station that's missing its crew and has a weird habit of shifting into a DarkWorld. Your goal is to discover what is going on, where everyone is, and why you seem to be unable to remember how you got here.
* ''LimboOfTheLost'' begins with the main character Benjamin Briggs awakening in a cell with a crazy man hanging from the ceiling as company, and has to escape. Most players will likely be clamouring to escape their own little Crazy Place with Alt-F4 about five minutes later.

A subtrope of ClosedCircle. For the post-apocalyptic variant, compare CityInABottle.

** The trope is used again in ''VideoGame/{{Portal 2}}''. It should be a lot easier to escape now [[spoiler: the Enrichment Center is in ruins, [[TemptingFate right?]]]] Well, guess who wakes up GLaDOS? [[NiceJobBreakingItHero Nice job breaking it, hero.]] However, at the end of the game [[spoiler: [=GLaDOS=] actually ''lets you go.'']] This actually counts as a TwistEnding, considering the atmosphere of the game.

* CorpseParty: A handful of students wind up in another dimension where a haunted school exists, they need to escape, and survive.

* ''VideoGame/{{Portal}}'' puts the player in control of a woman named Chell with no past, no personality, and no way forward except to do as the [[AIIsACrapshoot crazed computer]] running the so-called [[MaximumFunChamber "Enrichment Center"]] commands. This involves running through death courses armed with only your wits and an unorthodox {{BFG}} which makes holes in the fabric of space-time that you can use in new and interesting ways. [[spoiler: Eventually, you discover that [[MemeticMutation the cake is a lie]] and you make a bid for freedom through a part of the Center you were never supposed to see, destroying the computer and finally escaping...[[SubvertedTrope only to be dragged right back into Aperture Science, while the credits song reveals that the computer is Still Alive.]]]]

* The ''SystemShock'' games have an introductory cutscene and that tutorial/choice thing, respectively, but the player barely knows anything and for that matter the characters are pretty clueless too, when the game starts. It fits the trope pretty well.

* ''TowerPrep'' has been described as "''ThePrisoner'' [[XMeetsY meets]] ''ComicBook/{{X-Men}}''".

* ''ThePrisoner''. [[CatchPhrase He is not a number; he is a free man]], but the people at the glorified madhouse called The Village seem to think otherwise. "Number 6" is forced into their service as an operative, all the while trying to escape; things come to a head in the GrandFinale, [[spoiler: where the minions of The Village gather together to hold a grand celebration ostensibly to honor his achievements, but when the mindless goons begin repeating his words over and over, Number 6 snaps and a glorious GainaxEnding ensues where he discovers that the mysterious Number 1 is himself in an ape mask and shoots his way out with two fellow prisoners to the tune of The Beatles' "All You Need Is Love"]].

* {{Subverted}} in ''Videogame/BatmanArkhamAsylum'' in that Batman isn't trying to escape from the crazy place, but is still in one.

** The trope is used again in VideoGame/{{Portal 2}}. It should be a lot easier to escape now [[spoiler: the Enrichment Center is in ruins, [[TemptingFate right?]]]] Well, guess who wakes up GLaDOS? [[NiceJobBreakingItHero Nice job breaking it, hero.]] However, at the end of the game [[spoiler: GLaDOS actually ''lets you go.'']] This actually counts as a TwistEnding, considering the atmosphere of the game.
* Henry Townshend of ''SilentHill4'' is one of the rare non-amnesiac cases; in fact, unlike many examples, he's actually ''trapped in his own room'', with the major mystery being the circumstances of his imprisonment. His front door is chained up and no one can hear him. The only way out is a hole in his bathroom, which leads him to a nightmarish mirror world populated by monsters: there are others trapped like this, but despite his best efforts, they all meet a gruesome end at the hands of the serial killer Walter Sullivan. [[spoiler: Eventually, it is revealed that Walter Sullivan killed himself in prison, [[ThanatosGambit but not before completing the first half of a grisly ritual]] [[AGodAmI that has turned him into a sociopathic demigod]]; he is in the process of completing his transformation through a second round of killings, and Henry and his love interest are marked for death unless they can stop him.]]

* ''LastRes0rt'' dabbles at this with Gabriel and the ''White Diamond Crisis''.

* The ''KingOfBanditJing'' story arc "Seventh Heaven" has the eponymous King of Bandits ''intentionally'' landing himself in the titular maximum-security prison in order to steal a treasure created by the legendary magician Campari, one of Seventh Heaven's many inmates. Of course, said treasure has the power to bridge the real and dream worlds, and Jing ends up dealing with man-eating mice, the AxCrazy mirror halves of a "saw a man in half" trick gone horribly wrong, and a giant dodo who learns to fly before discovering the tragic truth about Campari and freeing him from his prison, both mental and physical.

* The CG anime ''GregoryHorrorShow'' starts off with an everyman lost in the woods who happens upon a mysterious hotel in the middle of nowhere; he gets not only a room for the night, but the experience of his life as he tries to escape from Gregory House ([[Series/{{House}} not that one]]) and all its crazy inhabitants. [[spoiler: In the end, he confronts his own feelings and manages to escape...only for him to realize how crushingly dull his life is and return to the House, not as its prisoner but as its willing guest.]] The second season has a woman going through much the same ordeal, [[spoiler: [[DownerEnding but instead of solving her personal problems and escaping, she is consumed by them and becomes a permanent resident]]]].

* Peragus II in Knights of the Old Republic II, a mining facility where all the staff were massacred by the facility's own robotic workers.

-->''"...what the fuck? Who are ''you''?! NO! [[FreakOut I DON'T WANNA BE A SCHIZOPHRENIC]]!"''\\
--[[VideoGame/HalfLife Gordon Freeman]], '''WebVideo/FreemansMind''', episode 3

* {{MS Paint Adventures}}' ''Webcomic/{{Jailbreak}}'' starts out like this, causing a [[FollowTheLeader spawn of fan adventures]] to adopt the general idea. The OntologicalMystery of the mental hospital is an extremely easy setting to pull off, though, which means most of the fanworks are, uh, [[SturgeonsLaw uneven in quality]].

* In the ''Literature/TimeScout'' series, most downtimers who end up on Shangri La either want to go home or go crazy. Only JackTheRipper would dream of going uptime to the present and ruling as a god.

* Peragus II in Knights of the Old Republic II, a mining facility where all the staff massacred by the facility's own robotic workers.

* TheBrightInTheScreen. ''Having trouble finding yourself?... There you are! Continue to the right. [[BrickJoke Mind]] the [[ButThouMust gap]].''