Metagames

Games about Games

Agata Waszkiewicz

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Paperback

Forthcoming
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English

Routledge
30 July 2025

Art & Architecture; Popular culture; Media studies; Digital animation; Games development & programming

Series: Routledge Advances in Game Studies

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.

By: Agata Waszkiewicz
Imprint: Routledge
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Dimensions: Height: 234mm, Width: 156mm,
Weight: 453g
ISBN: 9781032615592
ISBN 10: 1032615591
Series: Routledge Advances in Game Studies
Pages: 176
Publication Date: 30 July 2025
Audience: College/higher education , Professional and scholarly , Primary , Undergraduate
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Forthcoming

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).