Agata Waszkiewicz - Böcker

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.

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.

Delicious Pixels: Food in Video Games introduces critical food studies to game scholarship, showing the unique ways in which food is utilized in both video game gameplay and narrative to show that food is never just food but rather a complex means of communication and meaning-making. It aims at bringing the academic attention to digital food and to show how significant it became in the recent decades as, on the one hand, a world-building device, and, on the other, a crucial link between the in-game and out-of-game identities and experiences. This is done by examining specifically the examples of games in which food serves as the means of creating an intimate, cozy, and safe world and a close relationship between the players and the characters.