4th Wall Breaking as Game Mechanics

There's been a couple of mainstream games in the last few years that have done well with 4th wall breaking as an element of narrative (characters aware they are in a video-game or of events outside of what occurred in their "save file", characters talking directly to the player, etc).
Some of them use coding to do fancy things to make the illusion stronger (recognizing when the game is being recorded, getting the player's "real" name assuming the username for their PC is the same, etc. I've seen a horror game with a unique transition into the game booting up rather than just cutting to a black screen).

However, are there ways 4th wall breaking can be done as a mechanic of the game?
There are obscure games that teach coding via you modifying the game's code to achieve goals, or some game that deletes your files as you shoot them or you get hit. But how far could this go?
There's not much I can think of, it's hard to see how the gimmick wouldn't get boring after a few hours, and the idea only comes back in one or two good games every few years. But what do you think Alex?
That's worth it for the one or two anons called Alex who read this.

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My name is Alex. Haha no, I lied. My name is 21.

tl;dr: hacks played MGS2 back in the day and think they are suddenly the next kojimmy.

Surely that's an example of just narrative though?
MGS1 with Psycho Mantis would be a gameplay example- and MGS3 with The End considering he can die after a week.

Psycho Mantis was 10/10 but that's an obvious one

You also have to take into account that the internet exists so what was easter eggs around 2 decades ago is now a "strat" you can look up online. I don't think you can do anything like this anymore due to the internet turning people into either min max faggots who will use those little tricks in such an efficient way it takes the mysticism out of it or they are so casual they would miss it unless you put a giant sign over it showing them where to look.

This is usually how 'immersive' mechanics go for me.

I don't think this is even considered a mechanic, but in Black and White 2 every time that the clock reachs 1:00 AM a creepy voice would say your name. I think Lionhead got list of the most used names in the US or something. It depended on your save game profile name.

To me the fourth wall being a core game mechanics seems to no longer make the game break the fourth wall, since if the whole game is self aware from the get go it never has anything to break out from like monika revealing herself in ddlc. There needs to be an element of surprise to it and since it has happened so much it isn't to surprising of a mechanic. The only way for the game to truly feel surprising in the fourth wall break is by collecting information to spook you but this would be a horrendous violation of privacy. You could give the information or have a notice that it will collect it but that'd possibly tip off the wall break.

I remember that easter egg. Fun shit.

Characters saying your name (or the name you put in) would be great. Closest to that is Fallout 4 putting in a ton of names, and it not flowing with what else is said.
Un/Fortunately, advances in modifying what someone said to say literally anything else is moving forward. In a few years from now (if not already) you can fake the President saying he kicks puppies- about five or ten years after that, vidya character will say your name in a sentence and it'll sound like it was all recorded in one take. Another 5-10 after that, and you'll get more emotional readings of your name (working out what vowels to extend when shouting, etc).

What games are you talking about, undertale and that literature club shit?

Only game I can think of is Ghost Trick and thats only one part

I dont play meme games

Automata you fucking pleb

the stanley parable

I completely forgot about that with the choice to delete your save file to help another, and while it was for one moment- I think it had far more impact than Undertale or Literature Club.
Both of them rely on immersion and the player willingly believing the fiction is capable of doing shit it just can't. Automata actually has a real-world effect in a way, so it actually breaks the 4th wall rather than just pressing it's nose against the safety glass and making scary faces.

Not if you made lore-related strategy guides and walkthroughs before everyone else and made sure they stick around at the top of the results.

...

GAME IDEA!

There was one indie pixelshit game that came out a while ago, I can't remember the name but you played this human/cat looking girl character and I think during the game you have to go to desktop and look at the games data files for some puzzles. OneLight or something like that, it starts in a dark room where you have to get the password for the computer by looking at a remote control in the moonlight.

Niko is a boy

I assume that's how literature club managed to say your name.

It's not really a game mechanic, but Arkham Asylum did this with the third Scarecrow scene. At first they try to scare you by giving you the impression that your computer is shitting itself, then it cuts to the intro scene, but with the roles of Batman and the Joker being reversed. It's pretty cool.

One of the better sections of an okay game, it would have been better had we not had to use such a terrible melee system

OneShot. Later on there's a puzzle where you have to move game files from one folder to another, and run a seperate exe to get through a part of the game.
One of the first puzzles requires you to open a text file the game plants somewhere.
If the game were less obvious about it I'd say it's one of the best 4th wall breaking games, because it uses the gimmick as a feature instead of acting like the player is special for doing it.

Baten Kaitos
Baten Kaitos 2.

That's actually a pretty cool idea and I'm surprised no other devs have done that before. Probably because either your game is so small nobody gives a shit or it's big enough you could fleece people for an "official strategy guide" or whatever.

Here's a game like that: store.steampowered.com/app/323380/The_Magic_Circle/

It's a very… dumbed-down GameJournoPro game though.

I figured something like that was coming after that prompt, just got to playing it yesterday.