question about possible checkmate scenario

This type of setup may have a common name, but I'm not educated enough to know if this is even possible, so I thought I'd ask here and I suspect lots will know.

What I'm looking for is a scenario where you have a move that will result in a checkmate, ideally not an obvious one.  And if you perform any move other than this, you're guaranteed to be checkmated by your opponent.  

Is this a thing?

No, it is not a "thing".

So there's no known situation where this is possible?

actually, i'd be fine with the next move not being a counter checkmate.  as long as a missed checkmate on our part is a guaranteed loss, as long as the other player knows what they're doing.

Of course it is possible. It doesn't happen that often especially if you are you're guaranteed to be checkmated by your opponent unless you perform the checkmate, but you can nevertheless probably create an unlimited amount of positions where it is possible.

You asked for a position where your mate in one move is not obvious. That can happen of course although you can discuss what is obvious. There are even games between GMs where there was a checkmate in one which was not obvious, but I guess that a situation where both players has a checkmate in one is rare.

Here is a position where white can perform a checkmate in one if it is his turn, but it is black's turn and he can also perform a checkmate in one. It is a game between Viswanathan Anand and Vassily Ivanchuk:

You can find the game in the topic linked below and there you can also see what happened:
https://www.chess.com/article/view/checkmate-in-one

that's getting close (and watching the live coverage of this game is entertaining), but what i'm after is where if you miss your move, no matter what you do, your opponent will check in their next move.  or if that's not possible then at least where your missed check is almost mathematically guaranteed to lose you the game, a few moves down the line.  i'm not clear that it's the case in the one above, as it needs to apply for all skill levels.

Of course it is possible as I wrote and you can probably create unlimited amount of situations. But in actual chess games it very rarely happens. Here is a puzzle I made just to show that it is possible:

I'm still hoping to find an endgame layout that works, I've had some suggestions but they're too easy to solve.  Which may always be the case, so in that case we'll need the best setup where if we miss the checkmate it's almost assured we'd lose.  The one above kind of fits that category, I think, but still I'd like to see if there's something more solid.

if that's meant as a solution to my question, it's not written in a way that i can decipher it sorry.

BlueKnightShade has provided two positions that accomplish what you asked for - White can mate in 1 but if White plays something else, then Black can mate in 1 in response. If that's not the type of position you meant, you need to be clearer in describing what you want. "Something more solid" is very vague.

well both those positions took a couple of seconds to solve, and i'm mediocre at best.  without going into too much detail, as people might look up this free social vr puzzle once they encounter it and i don't want them to come across this thread when looking for the answer.  basically there's a character that you'll need to defeat in one move, and it can't be this easy.  it's not so much about whether it's possible, but whether or not there's a way to make them really think about the answer, and not see the checkmate if they're not proficient, move wrong and have to start at the beginning.

if it's too unclear, i'd be happy to elaborate in a private thread.

Okay, that's clear - you want the position to be challenging to solve (I thought that's optional). All mate-in-1 problems are easy to solve unless your audience consists of beginners. If this is for newbies, then one way to make it a bit harder is to have many possible checks, only one of which is mate. But if you need the wrong checks to be answered by a forced mating sequence, it may not be trivial to construct such a problem. Also, would you be happy with an "unrealistic" position that seems unlikely to have arisen from a game? If yes, I can give it a go.

I think a bit unrealistic might be fine.  You're supposed to be playing a robot basically, so that might add to the effect.  But I think any checkmate leading directly to an opposition checkmate if you mess would be too tough to miss, so in that case it might be best to find a setup where you're not doing well, and will almost definitely lose except you have one really great last ditch move you can do if you see it.

Okay, I'll think about both options - if the mate is missed, the other side has a forced mate or an easy win somehow. I'll send the position to you via a PM.