Fourth Wall Manipulation in Digital Games and its Impact on the Gameplay Experience

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.