/vr/ - Retro Games

Wonder Project J2, the whole game is interacting with a cute robo girl.

>>4806269
What a friendly little dude. Overcharged jetpack backfire was the best easter egg

>>4806258
Don't have a gif at the moment but there's one of those Ren and Stimpy games where Ren starts punching the glass between you and the TV.

>>4806258

Every time you die in Hugo he mocks the player. The game was made for TV, so they had to make it entertaining.

>>4806258
IT'S

>>4807047
Based hugo
>>4806710
That reminds me when Mario looked at the camera after the explosion in one of the cutscenes of SMW.

>>4807047
>>4807061
*SCREEEEEEEEEEEEEE*

I think King K. Rool had a habit of doing this in the first two DKC games.

>>4806258
It's not retro, but in Contact for the DS, the player character becomes aware that you are controlling him toward the end and starts throwing rocks at the screen. You tap him with the stylus to damage him and make him stop.

>>4807047
Just like the dog in duck hunt.

>>4806258
In Yoshi's Island, the player Yoshi sometimes looks at the player with an uh-oh expression, like during transformations and the frog boss
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b-G3I_jf7F0#t=41m50s

>>4806258
It's not common at all. In fact it'd never been done. A character moving it's eyes isn't breaking the 4th wall.

>>4807232
It is if they move them to look at the player.

>>4807824
And if that was what was happening then it would be but it isn't so it's not.

>>4807874
Do you seriously think that breaking the fourth wall is impossible in a video game? If you do, I'm guessing what you mean is that "a character can't look at the player, because they don't really see." That is stupid, the consciousness required comes from the developer, not from the software. When a video game has, for example, a "tapping on the glass" animation and sound effect, that is literal 4th wall breaking.

>>4808530
Do you seriously think that your straw man has a brain? Do you seriously think that eyes moving randomly is the same as a "tapping on the glass" animation and sound effect? Do you seriously have mental issues?

>>4808597
Dude what? You said "In fact it's never been done." Can you just explain what you mean? Clearly I did not interpret it the way you intended. Communicate better instead of fucking imitating me like a misbehaving child, and maybe you'll have a better time.

This thread is like the /vr/ equivalent of pov jack off instruction videos. Shine on you glorious weirdos.

Conker's Bad Fur Day is full of it. Conker even talks directly to the player.

>>4808701
No but don't you see? That's not breaking the 4th wall because video games can't break the 4th wall! It's impossible. "Conker" doesn't really exist, when he is "looking at" or "talking to" the player, it's just images on a screen or sounds coming out of speakers. He's not really speaking and he's not really seeing anything. "Breaking the 4th wall" is a stage term that really only applies to theater. Sometimes people misuse the word to describe other things (like movies) where the actors behave like actors breaking the 4th wall in a staged scene.

>>4808715
Oh that's a funny joke you did just now, you referenced that guy from earlier in the thread. Yes.

>>4808735
What an amusing website.

>>4808615
>How common is it for games to break the 4th wall by having an interface like this where the character occasionally glances towards the player?
>It's not common at all. In fact it'd never been done. A character moving it's eyes isn't breaking the 4th wall.
I answered that question clearly, concisely, and accurately. Your agenda and the tism caused you to sperg out and start trying to use your powers of aspie logic to prove me wrong. Now you're buttpained because I just made fun of your weak bait.

>>4809241
You are flat out wrong about breaking the 4th wall "never" having been done. That is what your post says, as you just repeated. If you mean something else, correct yourself and say it.

>>4809241
>That is what your post says, as you just repeated
I believe he is replying to this part specifically:
>by having an interface like this where the character occasionally glances towards the player
So no, not "no 4th wall breaking has ever been done", but "it has never been done in this specific way"

>>4809526
maybe he thinks breaking the 4th wall = literally popping out of the tv screen and entering our world

>>4809545
>it has never been done in this specific way
But that is completely wrong. The Sonic idle animation >>4806710 would probably be the most famous example. There is absolutely no dispute that it depicts the character addressing the player. It's not a "random eye movement."

Bubsy knocks on the screen. It's too bad his sticky feet and 1 HP broke the flow and made it not fun.

>>4809558
But if I get that anon, eye movement can never break the fourth wall, so it follows that it couldn't have been done this way.
This does not necessarily that this anon thinks video games can never break the fourth wall, only that they can't do so with eye movement.
That anon's position, not mine. I am just being a pedant pointing out that you're putting words into their mouth.

>>4809559
He's not really knocking on the screen, you fool. It's just a sound effect. He's not breaking the 4th wall because it is physically impossible for a video game character to do that. Play it on an LCD screen and the sound would be all wrong. Fourth wall breaking can't be context-dependent, or it's just part of the content.

Metal Gear Solid series does it.

>>4806258

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/BreakingTheFourthWall/VideoGames

>>4809592
Impossible.

>>4809567
I think your interpretation is probably correct, but that the anon's wording was undeniably ambiguous. He did not communicate what he really meant to say, and he still won't say what he actually means even though he has had several chances to correct himself. If you accidentally say words with the wrong meaning, it's not "putting words in your mouth" to fail to read your mind.

Beyond that, it is still wrong that eye movements have never been used to break the 4th wall in video games. It's actually pretty common. The Sonic idle animation is very obviously a deliberate 4th wall break, and the eye movement is the key thing that establishes that.
The sad thing is that I think a reasonable discussion could have been had here about which of these examples actually constitute breaking the 4th wall.

>>4809598
Granted, that anon didn't really clarify their position (repeating what was said does not really count if it was unclear or misinterpreted in the first place). All we got was name-calling.

>>4809580
I really, really like this post.

Hello is anyone playing..this game..??

I... I think he died.. are you dead?

Hey.. what are you doing? Stop doing that! You're gonna go blind!

>>4809526
>maybe my straw man army can defeat him
lol. No. It just makes you look retarded

>>4809545
Bingo. It's really not that hard to understand.

>>4809558
>but that's completely wrong because another completely different thing is a little bit like it.
It's really entertaining to watch you flail around failing.

>>4809772
What are you talking about? It remains completely false that eye movements have never been used to break the fourth wall in a video game. If you think that is a strawman, fucking explain why.

The mentats in Dune 2 follow your mouse cursor around with their eyes if you move it.

>>4809801
So is this breaking the 4th wall? It's a legitimately interesting question whether eye movements that suggest an awareness of the screen constitute breaking the 4th wall on their own, or if they require context in the "scene" like the dialog in your screenshot or Sonic's foot tapping to establish that they aren't part of something "in universe."

>>4809801
So is this breaking the 4th wall? It's a legitimately interesting question whether eye movements that suggest an awareness of the screen constitute breaking the 4th wall on their own, or if they require context in the "scene" like the dialog in your screenshot or Sonic's foot tapping to establish that they aren't part of something "in universe."

>>4809815
>>4809801 is my first post in this thread.
I couldn't say if there's a plausible in universe explanation for why the mentat follows your cursor around.
I believe the programmers simply put it in there as a little joke or easter egg or whatever you want to call it.

The character select screen in Donkey Kong 64. Characters would be trying to get your attention, they'd get happy when you highlighted them and get bummed out if you highlighted someone else. Then there was Chunky who'd get scared and whisper for you to pick Tiny instead, and get relieved when you highlighted someone else.

>>4809883
Well, based on the dialog it seems like the player could be controlling the "character" of the leader, with the mentat as your character's adviser. Maybe moving the mouse is meant to represent something like pointing your character's finger at places on a map. In that case, the eye movements could be construed as in response to some (unseen by the player) in-universe action.

In games like RTS where the player doesn't necessarily "role play" as a character, it's harder to define what "breaking the 4th wall" even is, since the player interacts directly with the fictional universe (controlling units, buildings, etc. in a godlike manner). It's certainly not "breaking the 4th wall" for units to react to the player's orders, that's just part of the game.
In other types of games where the player directly controls an on-screen character represented by a visible sprite, I think it's more clear that acknowledgement of the player by that character constitutes a break. Dialog between the player and the character isn't part of the game in that case--it's like the difference between controlling Ash directly vs using your direct control of the trainer to instruct Pikachu to use thunderbolt.

Of course it's all up for interpretation, and none of this pedantry matters one bit. But somehow my gut tells me that pic related is not "breaking the 4th wall," while >>4806710 or >>4809683 is.

>>4809983
This example is interesting, because it is part of the menu rather than part of the game. There's no "in universe" excuse for the menu existing in the first place, but I don't know whether that matters. The closest analogue I can think of in another medium would be like the characters from a movie addressing the audience before or after the film itself. Does "That's all folks" break the 4th wall? Often this question is avoided, because works that use that trick often include more direct 4th wall breaking in the story itself.

>>4810507
>It's certainly not "breaking the 4th wall" for units to react to the player's orders, that's just part of the game.
In Warcraft III, units get annoyed or say funny lines if you select them many times in a row. One of the human footman's lines goes something like
>The iron hand in the sky commands it
That's a reference to your cursor, of course. I think that could serve as an example of breaking the fourth wall because, even though units acknowledge commands from the player in some fashion, it is usually understood that in-universe, there is not actually a giant iron hand floating above their heads.

These arguments are all a little silly.

If the game presents you with the protagonist's perspective, as is the case with Duck Hunt, or any RTS where you are playing the role of commander, it is not 4th wall breaking unless something is specifically done to address you as a player, instead of addressing your character. (The hunter or commander in these instances)

If you are controlling an avatar from an outside perspective, and a character addresses the screen, it is breaking the 4th wall.

This of course doesn't include cutscenes where the avatar's perspective is used, but I can't think of many 3rd person perspective games that switch to 1st person for the cut scene. Maybe some JRPGs.

>>4810553
That's an interesting borderline example. It suggests an awareness of the cursor, but it's described in terms that are appropriate "in universe." Maybe the fact that RTS units usually respond as if they have been given a verbal order provides necessary context to establish that the "iron hand" is a deliberate reference to the player. I guess since video games are already inherently interactive, the 4th wall itself is a little fuzzier than it is in linear media.

>>4810559
Of course it's silly, but at least somewhat amusing. At first I was strongly of the opinion that the dog laughing at you in Duck Hunt is an example of 4th wall breaking, but I can't fault your logic. I argued something similar myself. In "God" games you are often given at least the vernier of a character, like in SimCity you are "Mayor whoever" and in Civ you might be Gandhi or whoever. Duck Hunt doesn't even give you that, and the player physically holds the gun, so I'm not sure a 4th wall even exists. There is no attempt to distinguish the "universe" of the game (media) from the "universe" of the player (viewer/consumer), which I think might be necessary to construct a 4th wall in the first place. It's not a break when the host of a live TV program addresses the audience.
I think the argument that Duck Hunt contains an unseen "hunter" character that acts as the player's agent is an equally valid interpretation though. It's probably not answerable one way or the other, because nobody was thinking about how literary criticism could be applied to NES games when they were designed.

On the one hand, death of the author. On the other, intentionality and tone matter a great deal in how these little jokes are interpreted. Conker is already a sarcastic, self-aware game, so breaking the 4th wall occasionally seems natural (c.f. Deadpool, I guess) while Duck Hunt is a straightforward toy that should probably be taken at face value.

What about in Yoshi's story, when you sniff for items and he looks at the screen, haha

>>4809782
>A character moving it's eyes isn't breaking the 4th wall
>It remains completely false that eye movements have never been used to break the fourth wall in a video game
If you can't understand the difference and why yours is a straw man you might be a retard

>>4811005
Really splitting hairs here m8. No, a character moving its eyes isn't necessarily breaking the 4th wall, but it can be.

>>4811005
A character moving its eyes can be "breaking the 4th wall." The first statement in your post is false, and the second is true. The truth of the second is not what disproves the first, but the first is false on its own.

>>4811013
>she isn't blonde
>no, but with a little bleach she could be
That's splitting hairs

>>4811014
Your strawman-fu is not strong. Keep failing sperglord.

>>4811513
No, that's literally two different scenarios altogether. And you're going to complain about a strawman the next line down? Either your reading comprehension is lacking or you're being intentionally obtuse. A character simply moving their eyes left to right wouldn't be breaking the 4th wall, whereas moving them to a spot where they appear to be looking at the viewer could be. In both cases it's still "a character moving its eyes".

>>4811513
Saying "strawman! Strawman!" over and over again doesn't make a lie true. You are actually right, there is a difference between saying "eye movements have never been used to break the 4th wall" and "the 4th wall has never been broken in a video game," but both statements are still lies. Your original post was so vague that I believed you were taking the stronger "4th wall never broken period" position. Pointing out that I said a true thing that does not directly refute your argument (which I also have refuted directly) doesn't make your argument true. Your argument remains false.

You have fallen for the fallacy fallacy. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_fallacy

>>4811526
I'm intentionally pointing out how silly you're being to say I'm "splitting hairs". I've never seen any breaking of the 4th wall by only moving eyes and never heard anyone except OP claim it has been done.

>>4811536
And both statements are still thing's I've never said. That's exactly what a strawman is failord. The only thing I've fallen for is making fun of an aspie who's afraid my facts and logic will derail his hurr durr "moving eyes is breaking the 4th wall" meme attempt.

>>4811761
>I have not said eye movements have never been used to break the 4th wall.
Ok, what did you mean by this?
>>4807232
>In fact it'd[sic] never been done. A character moving it's eyes isn't breaking the 4th wall.

>>4811513
>That's splitting hairs

Funny comedy joke

>>4811809
I have no experience teaching English to special needs kids. See if your teacher can help you.

>>4813143
Original question:
>how common is it?
Meaning of your response:
>It is not common at all.
>It had never been done.
You are slipping from one tense into another. I suspect that you meant to type "it's" as in "it has never been done," but you can't even admit that. Do you think making one small typo (between two letters next to each other on the keyboard, even) is so shameful that you need to lash out with insults?
Throughout this thread you have been exhibiting this unstable behavior. It doesn't sound like you are enjoying it, so it's actually rather sad that you can't stop.