Metagames: Games about Games scrutinizes how various meta devices, such as breaking the fourth wall and unreliable narrator, change and adapt when translated into the uniquely interactive medium of digital games.
Through its theoretical analyses and case studies, the book shows how metafictional experimentation can be used to both challenge and push the boundaries of what a game is and what a player’s role is in play, and to raise more profound topics such as those describing experiences of people of oppressed identities. The book is divided into six chapters that deal with the following meta devices: breaking the fourth wall, hypermediation, unreliable narrator, abusive game design, fragmentation, and parody.
The book will predominantly interest scholars and students of media studies and game studies as it continues discourses held in the discipline regarding the metareferential character of digital games.
Introduction
1. Fourth-Wall Breaking and the Twofold Play
2. Hypermediation and the Hypervisible Interface
3. Unreliable Narrator and the Playable Exaggeration
4. Abusive Game Design and Masocore Games
5. Fragmentation and Mini-Games
6. Parody and the Edges of Metagames
Conclusions
Biography
Agata Waszkiewicz, Ph.D., is a game scholar whose interests include metafictional and experimental video games, the representation of non-normative identities in digital games, and the intersections between food and game studies. They are an author of Delicious Pixels: Food in Video Games (DeGruyter, 2022) and they hold the position of a Secretary of DiGRA Central Eastern Europe chapter (2022–2025).
