Here's the thing nobody tells you when they hand you the five clues: the clues can disagree. Each one is quietly casting a vote — "this thing is near" or "this thing is far" — and your brain adds the votes up. When they all point the same way, the illusion is rock solid. When they split, the brain can't settle, and the picture either looks like a mistake or turns into something strange and dreamlike.
Every Clue Is a Vote
Think of the ball in the toy as standing for trial. Size votes by how big it's drawn — small means far, large means near. Placement and overlap vote by where it sits — high on the page and tucked behind its neighbour means far, low and out in front means near. While the two votes agree, the verdict is confident: "nearer than the reference", or "further than the reference", and the scene feels real. Drag the sliders so both say far and the ball calmly retreats. The brain's happy because the evidence lines up.
Make Them Fight, and Watch It Break
Now pull the trick apart. Drag the ball large — size is shouting "I'm right up close!" — but also shove it high up the page and behind its neighbour, so placement and overlap are insisting "I'm miles away!" The toy's verdict flips to confused, because that's exactly what your brain does. It can't be a near thing and a far thing at once, so it stops trusting the scene. The object seems to hover, or feels wrong in a way you can't quite name. That's a genuine drawing trap: a "distant" mountain drawn too big will always feel like a cardboard cut-out pushed up against the lens.
Breaking It on Purpose
But here's the gift hiding inside the trap. Those very contradictions are how artists make the uncanny. Surrealists love a clue-conflict: an apple drawn the size of a room, a man placed "far" but rendered in crisp foreground detail, a doorway that's near and far at the same time. When the votes refuse to agree, the brain reads "this place does not obey normal rules" — which is dreamlike, unsettling, otherworldly. For an "another world" project, that's pure gold. Once you know why a conflict reads as wrong, you can dial it up deliberately to make somewhere feel genuinely strange.
Play both ends in the toy. Find the settings where the ball sits convincingly far. Then deliberately break it and feel the unease. The difference between a clumsy mistake and a clever surreal image is just one thing: knowing you did it.