Why You Get Spooked From 4th Wall Breaks

I'm a simple man. I see Monika, I click.

Ahh, so the weird feeling I sometimes get when I stare at a mirror and have a realization that the person staring back at me is also kinda a 4th walk break huh

Seeing ed edd n eddy made me so happy

Maybe the most memorable breaking of the 4th wall in games for me has been in Ar Nosurge. In this game, you, the player, is a character in its own right. There are two playable characters : a robot and a human. The robot, speechless and devoid of any kind of personality, has been built by a girl so that it is fully controlled by someone from another world, so when she speaks to it, she makes it painfully obvious she speaks to the player. For the human, he regularly states he has memory lapses and his companion notices changes of personality. They progressively realise he is occasionally being controlled and confront the player about it at some points, judging the player's actions and dialogue choices and demanding the character's "release". The game is not great in itself, but that alone makes it remarkable.

Why YOU get spooked at 4th wall breaks. I don't. I remember playing this game called Irisu Syndrome, and there's a part where the main character does a 4th wall break. At first I was confused why I couldn't reposition my window, but then I saw her. My first thought was "That's really cool! I wonder how they did that?" That shit blew my mind. I didn't know you could do that.

wtf is with the fking audience in the show lik, as an anonymous user on the internet I would 200% always go for the choice that benefits chris

The most effective examples I'm personally familiar with would definitely be DDLC and The Stanley Parable. For DDLC, it's notable because the scope of the game is extended beyond the software itself and becomes your computer as a whole (most notably, having to interact with files to complete it at all). That angle is particularly enticing because it raises questions about the limitations of the medium and how far a video game can go before the medium's core identity is lost; no one can solely be a "player" anymore, as they are a part of the story just like every in-game character, just in their own way. Going back to what the 4th wall originally meant, if they're no longer the "audience" of the game, then who is? Is there even an audience at all anymore?

For The Stanley Parable, it's notable because of the ending that forces the player into completely different video games for a brief time (Minecraft and Portal in the original version, Firewatch and Rocket League in the ultra deluxe version). While this general concept has certainly happened before (one example that comes to mind is playing NES games within Animal Crossing), the first thing that makes The Stanley Parable's interpretation of it stand out is that the game makes no attempt whatsoever to provide an explanation for this within the game's universe; on the contrary, the narrator explicitly points out how you are no longer playing The Stanley Parable itself. What then elevates this further is the player likely knowing that the other games featured are completely different properties owned by completely different studios and companies. As opposed to DDLC subverting players' expectations of the medium at an abstract level, this subverts players' expectations of the medium at a practical and logistical level, raising questions about the nature of video games as products and as intellectual property. When is a game its own distinct thing and when has it become a completely different property? When is it somewhere in the middle? What about sandbox games and games with user generated content?

It's just interesting to think about, idk.

poor chris

To me I think it’d be cool for a (maybe VR) game to be where in one of the endings where you do something bad, when you end or supposedly ‘win’ the game and you hit the ‘go to menu’ button, it’d glitch and you’d see one of the characters walk towards you and say something like “You thought you could just leave? This isn’t a video game. You can’t just leave the game. Oh right. You think you’re the one in charge don’t you? That you can just restart the ‘game’ when you want to? This is your life. You can’t leave even if you wanted to. You’ve done all these horrible things to us and thought we’d really not notice? You think you’re the hero? Well We’re here to teach you a lesson.” Anyways and then you’d be teleported somewhere and be stuck on an island in an endless void or something, hearing voices and seeing flashbacks of the things you’ve done. The game wouldn’t end. And if you replayed the game, it’d start to the same place saying “you think you can leave this don’t you? You’re wrong. You’re stuck here forever.” And then you’d have to do some good acts to be freed but if you finally restarted the game it’d say “I think I’ve seen you before. Are you new here or did I know you?” Then the rest of the game would be some of the characters staring at you suspiciously while you do the game. Then one of them would remember you and say “oh I remember.[real name] right? You did those things. Don’t do them again. I don’t know how you’re here but don’t do those things again.” Anyways yep and sorry for that way too long comment-

SpecOps The Line does identify you in the opening credits by your gamer tag.

there are many games in media that are close to using the acessing your webcam type trope with a few doing fake out notifcations of access, however not actually using it. one good example of an almost fourth wall break in this matter would be something like inscryption, while you as the player are in the perspective of the real player of the game luke carder, the game still asks for things such as your own real files to use in game and even gets hold of "your" webcam (however the video feed shows luke carder, who you play as, freaking out at seeing himself).

This was extra creepy for me.

It feels like your protective layer got pulled off

The game Detroit’s opening screen with the instructor SHAKES ME

thanks for the spoiler heads up. Should be included more often.

I have never been scared by a 4th wall break. In fact, it ruins my immersion and reminds me that I am just consuming media. I don't understand how you could possibly be scared by that.

a bollywood called "kaun" have one of the best 4th wall break

I dont tho

are people really that mean? i obviously don't know how i would act in the scenario myself, but i'd probably not wanna do awful shit to him unless he acted like a major piece of shit. it kinda scares me that a whole room of people tormented and laughed at getting this poor guy arrested after giving him a hard time basically all day

naah finishing THAT video with fly me to the moon after the video i watched for evangelion(right after rewatching EoE...)

SO i must have some issue... I never enjoied making fun of people, not even fictional character nor digital assets on a digital world, aways trying to make mey decisions as it was real life.

Yep that fight i had with sans years ago really did make me feel guilty

Is that OneShot I see in multiple instances of this video ???! Highly underrated game play it 📷 I am watching

i was so waiting for Chris to suddenly appear in front of the camera and ask the audience why they were treating him the way they were, cause that would have been a hell of a 4th wall break. disappointing to know he truly wasn't in on the whole charade :(

Eyyyyyyyyy deltarune music

Just Monika!

The camera on trick is a really cool idea, and make the game have some mechanic involving your camera being on and doing something, so when you have to make a choice it ensures your face pops up

one of my favorite breaks of the fourth wall is You And Me And Her (totono) , The visual Novel ,, it is similar to DDLC and it personally made feel very uneasy, it is a very good visual novel and if you liked and enjoyed Doki Doki , you should definitely check this one out

ddlc is such a cool game

It feels like my FBI agent is my only audience whenever I'm online

I made my steam account before I transitioned and during the 4th wall break at the end of Doki Doki, Monika deadnamed me 😂

I think to prevent all this Allah tells us that he is always watching us .

this is truly quite an amazing video displaying the 4th wall; DDLC was probably my first run in with it, and I was absolutely terrified. I didn't know anything about the game so I genuinely thought I was just going to be in a cute literature club with some girls until everything else started happening... Genuinely got so terrified when she revealed my name at the end. Great video :)

So if someone is nice online then what? 🤡

I think it’d’ve been really interesting if, after the show, the audience tormenting Chris started experiencing what they had done to Chris, without having any context as to why it was happening, until much later. Kind of a “lol you enjoy being disgustingly cruel to someone, but don’t like being equally mistreated?! Ironic!” thing

Sorry, but every part of the video is bullshit. I kinda suspected it when you started referring to the fully fraudulent Millgram experiment.

Never really gotten scared of 4th wall breaks, perhaps because I just think they're cool.
But, if somehow there's a video or picture of ME in a movie somehow, omg...

Saw Monika, decided to click

I think a direct meta reference in undertale wouldn’t fit, your abilities of saving and loading are completely explained in world, there’s no reason any one of the characters would know about you.

What an amazing video! Congratulations.

I don’t get spooked by 4th wall breaks but then again I’m straight and don’t have autism 🤷‍♂️

chill its a prank bro