This thesis explores the ways in which suspension of disbelief works in digital games. Primarily concerned with how players relate imaginatively to the often major dissonance between gameplay and narrative in digital games, this thesis questions how the literate players of games reconcile these complex texts imaginatively. Proposing that Samuel Taylor Coleridge's concept of suspension of disbelief is a complicated process often cited rhetorically rather than given its theoretical due, this thesis aims to rehabilitate the term and turn it into a useful, sharpened tool for games studies. Digital games themselves are also seen to be an intense new realm of possibilities for the suspension of disbelief, and textual analysis of games which approach the fourth wall or the suspension of disbelief on their own terms helps to make this clear. Beginning by defining the differences of games compared to other media, the thesis goes on to define suspension of disbelief in both its historical and modern contexts and see how it fits with games, isolating three key problems with uniting the concept with the medium. The three chapters which follow looked in more depth at the problems of the skilled reader, fundamental activity and dissonance through investigations into games’ textual construction, the mindsets they engender in players and their reformulation of the fourth wall. The final section looks at the conclusions working together to achieve the dual aims of proposing a new model for game reading which centres around a willed disavowal of presence on the part of the gamer combined with the gamer's taking up of a role offered by the game-text, and rehabilitating both the term and the concept of suspension of disbelief.

Att göra något som kallas för att “bryta den fjärde väggen” i spel, att adressera spelaren utöver spelmediets ramar, är något som har intresserat oss sedan länge. Att söka om den fjärde väggen och spel på internet har visat sig varit fruktlöst, tills vi upptäckte termen metalepsis. Metalepsis betyder bokstavligen “a jump across” och härstammar från berättarteori där det hanterar hur ett narrativs olika nivåer behandlas. I det här arbetet tar vi hjälp av Karin Kukkonens och Sonja Klimeks artiklar för att djupdyka i termen och dess användning i medier som litteratur, film och musik video samt spel. Vi tar hjälp av Astrid Ensslins och Huaxin Weis arbeten för att förstå varför metalepsis i spel är ett outforskat område och varför narrativen endast studeras på en ytlig nivå. Vi vill därför med frågeställningen “hur kan metalepsis användas i spel?” bidra med mer information om metalepsis i spel och undersöka en medveten användning i utvecklingen av ett spel. Genom att undersöka metalepsis i spel och andra medier, har vi skapat oss en uppfattning av hur det har använts upp till den här punkten för att sedan kunna applicera på vår gestaltning. Arbetet fokuserar på en metalepsis kallad Möbius Strip, som innebär ett narrativ som börjar om i sig självt. Utifrån Georg Kreislers bok Der Schattenspringer har vi tolkat hur en Möbius Strip kan se ut. Gestaltningen, i form av ett spel, har vi sedan byggt på den här tolkningen och jämfört resultatet med bokens version av metalepsen. Det vi har fått ut är fler konkreta exempel på hur metalepsis har och kan användas i spel. Vi har kunnat skapa diskussion om hur vår gestaltning förhåller sig till boken genom Sonja Klimeks beskrivning av Möbius Strip metalepsen. Vi har endast skrapat på ytan av det som kallas metalepsis i spel med det här arbetet, och anser att det finns fler vägar att undersöka. / The act of doing something that is called “breaking the fourth wall” in video games, to address the player across the games’ scope, is something that has been in our interest for a long time. To search about the fourth wall and video games on the internet have been futile, until we stumbled upon the term metalepsis. Metalepsis literally means “a jump across”, it originates from narratology and handles how the different levels in a narrative are managed. In this Bachelor Thesis we take a deep dive into the term, with the help of Karin Kukkonen’s and Sonja Klimek’s work, and how it’s used in different medias such as literature, film, music videos and video games. We discovered why metalepsis in video games is an uncharted area with the help of Astrid Ensslin’s and Huaxin Wei’s work, and why studies of narratives in video games are executed in a shallow grade. With our research question we want to contribute with more information about metalepsis in video games and to examine a conscious use of metalepsis in the development of a video game. By surveying metalepsis in video games and other media, we have created an estimate on how it has been used so far and then to applicate the observation to our video game. This thesis lay it’s focus on a metalepsis called Möbius Strip, that consists of a narrative that restarts within itself. Using Georg Kreisler’s book Der Schattenspringer, we have made an interpretation on how Möbius Strip could work out. We have then developed a video game based on this interpretation and compared the results to the books version of the metalepsis. What we have gathered with this thesis is more tangible examples of the use of metalepsis in video games so far. We have been able to create a discussion about how our interpretation of Möbius Strip relate to the book, with the help from Sonja Klimek’s description of the metalepsis. We have only managed to scrape the surface on the topic of metalepsis in video games and feel like there are multiple other roads to investigate.

This study researches the possibility of creating immersion through the use of breaks in fiction that includes the player inside of the game world through the use of their real name, age gender and more. The qualitative method is used in the form of semi-structured interviews with two groups of respondents (one consisting of experienced players and one with inexperienced) who were made to play an artefact, in the form of a visual novel like experience set in a chat room. The reason for having two groups was to find out if their experiences would differ or not.The results of the study show that the majority of the respondents were able to immerse themselves in the artefact and that the fiction breaks and the use of the player’s real life information played a role in achieving this. However a minority of the respondents did not agree with this and stated that they found the fiction breaks distracting and that the use of them broke their immersion. This, along with the fact that the artefact mostly focused on the narrative rather than gameplay, makes it hard for the study to draw any definitive conclusions for video games at large. It does however show that it is possible for fiction breaks to immerse the player.

<p>This study charts the real-world impact of Superman and how embedded the superhero is within American culture. Since debuting in 1938 as the first superhero, kids embraced Superman as a heroic symbol to emulate while adults mainly used him as comedic fodder to discuss race and ethnicity, gender, and sexuality. Although Superman is a fictional character, he maintains traceable documentary footprints and should be treated as a historical figure. Through sincere and satirical play, the public brought the Man of Steel and his make-believe world to life as an immersive realm and metatopography. This project studies the reception and adaptation of Superman by the populace and the geography of Comicland, a surreal realm mirroring our own modern reality that exists both within the imagination and the material world through pageant, masquerade, and multimedia. The beauty of this fictive universe is its mutability, being a permanent yet intangible place that imprinted itself in the real world. Comics fans do not have to travel to a theme park, even though it is now part of that type of entertainment, to participate in the fantasy. Comicland is, thus, a mental and physical landscape that audiences can inhabit as their own regardless of location and serves as a portal between fantasy and reality. From Superman’s inception, critics dismissed the superhero as a fad and its culture as marginal. However, multigenerational and multidecade engagement with Superman shows that the genre is mainstream and an unfading facet of Americana.</p>

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Verklighet och fiktion betraktas ofta som varandras motpoler, det verkliga i kontrast till det påhittade. När någon bryter dessa konventioner skapas reaktioner. Den här studien utforskar det filmtekniska greppet direkt tilltal, fenomenet som implicerar att ‘bryta den fjärde väggen’. Syftet med den här studien är att undersöka hur direkt tilltal används i TV-serien Fleabag (BBC, 2016) och hur det fungerar som retoriskt verktyg inom ett narrativ. Genom en kvalitativ metod kommer första tillfället av direkt tilltal, samt sista användningen av fenomenet, analyseras utifrån ett teoretiskt ramverk bestående av visuell retorik: actio retorik, parasociala relationer och teorier kring direkt tilltal. Genom multimodala transkriberingar av vardera scen och respektive retorisk analys resulterar studien i att karaktärens direkta tilltal går att tolkas som retoriska verktyg. Genom actiotillgångar och kvaliteter, samt ethos och pathos, bygger Fleabag upp en autentisk attityd och vinner över åskådaren genom intimitet.

This thesis explores how manipulation of the fourth wall can affect players’ Gameplay Experience in digital games, due to the lack of any significant research regarding the matter. In preparation of the study, multiple commercially released digital games with instances of fourth wall manipulation were analysed. This led to the creation of four distinct game design patterns. These patterns were implemented into a game artefact specifically created for the study, which was played by eight participants. After playing, the participants were interviewed about how they experienced the game artefact. The results show that the majority of the patterns had a positive effect on both the participants’ immersion and engagement, which both form part of the Gameplay Experience model. / Denna uppsats undersöker hur manipulering av den fjärde väggen kan påverka spelupplevelsen i digitala spel, då det saknas allmän betydelsefull forskning gällande ämnet. Under förstadiet av denna studie analyserades flertalet kommersiellt lanserade digitala spel som innehöll instanser av fjärde väggen manipuleringar. Detta ledde till skapandet av fyra olika designmönster. Dessa mönster implementerades i en spelartefakt specifikt skapad för studien, vilken spelades av åtta deltagare. Efter att ha spelat blev deltagarna intervjuade om hur de upplevde spelet. Resultaten påvisar att majoriteten av designmönstren hade en positiv inverkan både på deltagarnas immersion och engagemang, vilka båda formar delar av spelupplevelsemodellen.

This thesis broadens the discussion surrounding the fourth wall and immersion in games; the hypothesis being that there are more ways to manipulate the fourth wall other than breaking it, and that manipulation of the fourth wall does not necessarily break immersion. Four types of fourth wall manipulation have been labeled in this body of work: breaking, expansion, contraction, and grazing. Expansion and contraction derive from Simon Conway (2010), with minor augmentations to the contraction category having been made by this thesis. The term breaking has been narrowed down and specified while grazing was invented for this particular study. The aim is to update terminology surrounding the fourth wall to introduce it as a narrative tool for game designers, where the tool can be used in different ways that underline the narrative experience that designers want to convey. The study was done by a close reading of the games Metal Gear Solid and NieR: Automata, but references other games relevant to the different types of manipulation. The results show that the identified instances of fourth wall manipulation within the two focus games can all fit in the proposed updated terminology, with some instances elevating the play experience.

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