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Bertold Brecht's distancing in Video Game experiences

Brecht has implemented in his theatre the "Verfremdungseffekt", which can be translated to the "alienation effect" or "distancing effect." Essentially, by creating interruptions or fissures within the illusion on stage, the audience can achieve a certain distance to the characters and events, allowing for evaluation and critique. During his performances, the audience is presented to some cues that indicates that what they are seeing is an ilusion, that what they are seing is actually an actor playing a scene. This cues can be strange objects, non-connected actions or actors speaking directly to the audience for example. Different of the Theatre of Pleasure, when the audience is emotionally connected to the play, Brecht seeks to create a critical discussion about what is being showed. He redefine it as Epic Theatre.

Is it possible to have the same effect in Video Games where you, as a player, is somehow intensively connected to the gameplay and the character?

  • A minimum of one or two video game examples must be provided by the author, together with a discussion of how each one employs the technique in question, the player's experience with it, and the degree to which the implementation achieves the objectives that were set out when it was created. Some examples are: The Stanley Parable; Her Story; This War of Mine; Papers, Please; etc. – Samer Darwich 1 year ago
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