Tearaway and the 4th Wall
Tearaway is one of three titles in 2013 which directly dealt with the relationship between the player and game, in addition to The Stanley Parable and Bioshock Infinite. Bioshock Infinite hasn’t been short of any attention. It’s clever, beautiful, flawed, but endlessly interesting. Then there’s The Stanley Parable, a witty exploration game overtly about player freedom and game design. In both there is stuff about player agency and the artificiality of choice. Your rebellions against the narrator in The Stanley Parable are empty – you’re just playing along to a different script. And in Bioshock, despite your best efforts, some things never change. So where does Tearaway fit in?
Tearaway occupies a special place amongst this growing group of self-aware games. These games talk about their artificiality, comment on the medium and often address you, the player, directly. Some games can’t help but bump into the fourth wall when asking you to save or when tutorialising an opening. Some break it with a wink and a nod like Max Payne and Metal Gear. Some like Bioshock or Spec Ops attack it with a admirable, if uncomfortably earnest seriousness. Tearaway doesn’t just break the fourth wall though, it lets you poke a finger right through it. Tearaway is a game about you, and directly addresses you, but it does so without the jolly mocking of the Stanley Parable nor the seriousness of Bioshock Infinite, but rather with an overwhelming enthusiasm. The execution is so accomplished that by the game’s stunning climax, it’s more than just another fun gimmick, or a side effect of utilising the Vita’s tool set, it’s a celebration of stories that both game makers and players create together.
Alienation Games
The alienation or distancing effect, and the notion breaking the ‘fourth wall’ by acknowledging the audience’s presence comes from theatre, specifically from Bertolt Brecht. The intention of doing so, in theory, is to stop the audience passively accepting what they see and encourage a critical perspective. It has been used in a variety of media to a variety of different effects: wryly humorous like the looks to camera in Trading Places and House of Cards, or a way of grabbing attention, like the book ‘John Dies at the End’, which has addressed you before you’ve turned the first page. It can also be genuinely alienating, but it in an empty and frustrating way, like in Bo Burnham’s What in which he constantly points out the artifice of his own show as the punchline. But games especially, with their interactive, artificial worlds, and the experience of being embodied in other characters so immediately present the potential for using fourth wall breaks and other distancing devices, that it’s no wonder many have done it and will continue to do so.
Games it seems, more than other media, have a reason to acknowledge their audience as they’re the only medium that requires participation of the player to move forward. They require input and involve challenge and learning. Games are also an unconventional storytelling medium. They’re complex and abstract, with their interlinking rules and systems, but also silly and stupid, as those systems (or their presentation) can be jarringly artificial. Sometimes these idiosyncrasies act as barriers to immersion, or break the flow, but sometimes they’re as vital to the experience as everything that actually ‘makes sense’, like the vision cones in Metal Gear, or all of Super Mario’s bizarre but consistent logic. Regardless, these idiosyncrasies and conventions are fertile ground for games designers who are trying to experiment. Games are weird. It’s only natural some point out their own oddness, or the inherent contradictions of the choices they present us with.
The way games have used fourth wall breaks is consistent with their Brechtian inheritance so far. Bioshock asks us whether we, the audience, are a Man or a Slave? MGS 2 is a post modern masterclass of 4th wall breaks and a subversion of its own hype. Spec Ops criticises the shooter genre, channelling Heart of Darkness in the process. And then there’s Manhunt, Max Payne, and The Stanley Parable. The effect is always, despite the playfulness of some games’ delivery, a critique on the limits of the medium or the person holding the controller; this is great. I grew up on Max Payne and Metal Gear, relished Spec Ops and Manhunt. For someone who was starting to take games seriously around the time of MGS 2, having a game self-referentially talk about the medium was hugely interesting. They were doing exactly what Brecht suggested they would, stopping me, the player, from having those experiences just wash over me. Tearaway goes beyond this, however. It addresses you but without the irony or pointed cleverness. It doesn’t seek to alienate you or tear down the medium, it just wants to help you make something beautiful.
A World Made For You
Tearaway is a delightful platformer. You tap, tilt, blow, prod and swipe your way through this papery wonderland, helping Iota on his journey to deliver a message to you, the player. The premise and array of interactions instantly acknowledges the player’s presence. You, the player are a ‘You’. Iota is trying to get to you so you’re seemingly the goal; it is your face revealed at the very end of the game. But you directly help Iota on his journey by interacting with the world in ways he can’t. This involvement is further complicated by the obvious fact that you also play as Iota. You are at once the hero, the prize, and the mystical helper. Your own presence is felt everywhere in this game, right down to seeing your own face occupying the sun that overlooks most settings.
Despite all the acknowledgement of the player’s presence, though, the game is purposefully oblique when it comes to explaining the player’s position in all this. It not only fails to mention that the person Iota’s searching for throughout the whole game is with him every step of the way, but it also rather neatly side steps the issue of whether you’re playing as Iota, or are ‘his’ helper,
The reality is, you’re both. Iota is the 9th letter of the Greek alphabet, or simply ‘I’. If calling the hero of The Legend of Zelda ‘Link’ was a brilliant way to represent the link between you and the game world, Iota likewise captures the identity of who any player is. In Tearaway you play as both I and ‘You’. ‘You’ from the game’s perspective, ‘I’ from yours. Also, if you’re a girl you’re called Atoi (Iota backwards). I like to think that’s because ‘I’ backwards is still ‘I’ so reversing the name is just a clever way of giving a different name the same meaning, but maybe I’m wrong. Regardless, right from the outset this is a journey where the player is being communicated to. It imbues every interaction and facet of the world with a sense that it was made for you.
The sense of an authored world designed for the player is everywhere in the game, but most notably in the role of the narrators. Framing a game as a story being told has been done before in the likes of Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, but here there is a sense of improvisation. You’re not simply playing out a story that’s happened, but are present at the points the narrators decide to turn the plot. It purposely frames the narration in the present tense so you’re made aware that this isn’t just a ‘story’ in the abstract, but one that is authored. Further than that, they break the game’s internal fourth wall, with the narrators talking to Iota, and you, to chip in ideas or tell you where to go next, forming out of the environment in process. It’s literally environmental storytelling and further reinforces the point that this world was created to give you an interesting experience.
Compare this with The Stanley Parable. The game is constructed so that the narrator and player will come into conflict. He says go left, you decide to go right: comedy and metatextual critique ensues. Even if you follow his every whim you’re made aware that you could disobey him. In Tearaway however, at the moment when the game steps from good to unforgettable, the narrator assures you: “If it gets a bit weird, just go with it.” The Stanley Parable cleverly highlights the contradictions of giving the player a sense of autonomy when crafting a linear, or even a branching story. Tearaway however, acknowledges the artifice but urges the player to play along with it. Why? Because what’s being made for you is worth seeing.
The art style subtly points to the constructed nature of games. Like Media Molecule’s previous titles, Tearaway is grounded in the real world so you have a tactile reference point. These aren’t squirrels, or rocks, grass, or water, but rather paper versions of them. Not only that but you can also take pictures of elements within the game that are blank, at which point they gain colour and life. By doing so you unlock the designs to print off so you can make real papercraft versions of the game assets. It is another charming device to bridge the player and the game, but along with the art style it reminds you this world has been designed. However, this isn’t to undermine the integrity of its world. Tearaway hints at the construction, uses Brechtian techniques but without a critical intention. MGS2′s ending saw code bleeding out of the environment, likewise showing how constructed the game world was, but here the artifice of the world isn’t the focus, rather, the craft with which it was made. Although, in using Brechtian techniques Tearaway perhaps encourages a heightened level of awareness, even if its messages aren’t critical.
Playing Tearaway feels very personal. All the tactile interactions and seeing your face projected into the game’s world make you feel very involved. Best of which are the red presents, which you get to open by pulling the touch screen enabled ribbons apart with. They’re far too big for Iota, they’re there for you: the player. Most obviously personal is all the character customisation. It isn’t dully moving sliders, it’s a collage of card and stickers that you can change at any point. You’re tasked by characters to make them particular items, or customise how they look, at one point using the Vita’s camera to snap a texture onto a deer.
These choices don’t actually matter. They don’t effect the plot, or your abilities. How good the crown you make for the squirrel is doesn’t effect your score or stats, or the ending. These are all empty aesthetic choices. But they feel important, and that’s the point. Alienation devices stop you getting lost in a game, force you out. They’re interesting in the way they explore some of the things we already kind of know. For example, I already know that in the Walking Dead the actual impact on the story that I have is very limited. There’s a structure the game will follow, with branches at set points. I’m not choosing how to story will progress; at best I’m in control of the demeanour of my character. But that ability to interact in a way which portrays my feelings is extraordinarily meaningful. As is Tearaway’s customisation and sense that it’s your story.
It’s at the conclusion that Tearaway’s messages come across most clearly. The final chapters are full of references to breaking boundaries and trying new ideas. The level design becomes more abstract and bigger in scope; through a level of paper and books, to a desert, then finally to space. But before you end up in space you visit a house and help another small papery person, just like Iota, deliver their message. You haven’t met anyone else like that so far, and you’ve been primed to see Iota as a player cipher. This person has become lost, with no one reading their message, clearly indicating a parallel experience of another person, another player. You’re seeing a mirror of another story that never got told, before the final act of yours ends with a resounding celebration of the importance and beauty of sharing stories, and a reflection of all of your experiences in the game.
Communicating with the player is often alienating. The Stanley Parable and all the others are interesting for showing that this medium isn’t limitless. It’s amusingly contradictory, with an underlying tension between the game and player. But are you or games really that limited? Tearaway shows how much power and involvement you do have. The picture book at the end is an album of everything that you and the game have done together, of all the impact you’ve had. You have explored this world and left your mark on it, and it has given you hours of fun and memorable experiences. Video games, like every medium, have their structural limitations, but Tearaway is a celebration of what they can do. For 6 or so hours you get access to a world, a world so obviously designed, which reminds you constantly that you’re playing a game, but the illusion doesn’t shatter. Breaking the 4th wall is only alienating if the fiction demands it stay up. Tearaway’s brilliance is that it’s communicating with you not to push you out of its world but to let you in.
