Basic Trope: A video game that explores common gaming mechanics and/or storylines through a critical lens.
- Straight:
- In Quest For Troperia, doing sidequests turns out to be a waste of time that brings about the bad end by letting Emperor Evulz win.
- The plot of Quest For Troperia deconstructs the typical Power Fantasy structure of adventure games; being some nobody who started out at level 1, trying to be a hero only gets in the way of more experienced characters. If you keep at it as opposed to going home and leaving crimefighting to the professionals (ie: switching off the console), you end up irrevocably ruining everything. Plus if you resort to mindlessly slaughtering foes, especially if it's to grow stronger and catch up with competent characters, everyone treats you as a monster. The narrative frequently chews you out for your mentality, forcing you to ask yourself what you truly want from playing these types of games - good results, or a mere ego boost.
- Exaggerated:
- If you die even once, that's it. Game over. You can't respawn, return to your last save point, start a new game, or (somehow) even buy a new copy of the title.
- The villains remembered to level grind, and the first mook battle turns out to be a Hopeless Boss Fight. Making the game Unwinnable by Design and only five minutes long.
- Downplayed: For the most part, tropes are played straight, but certain minor mechanics are mocked on occasion (eg. if you smash a pot, you have to pay for a replacement).
- Inverted: Quest For Troperia deliberately celebrates and romanticises common video game tropes, for better or for worse.
- Subverted: It's set up to be a deconstruction, but it turns out it's the player character who's a Loser Archetype, and they're treated as separate from the actual player behind the screen.
- Double Subverted: The player gets called out for playing a Loser Archetype in the first place.
- Parodied: The violence and subsequent guilt-tripping are way too over the top to take seriously.
- Zig-Zagged: The game is a Decon-Recon Switch.
- Averted: The game doesn't deconstruct its tropes.
- Lampshaded:
- "Where were you while the world could still be saved? Gathering flowers for people too lazy to do it themselves? Real good job there."
- "When are you going to quit trying to be the hero and let us do our jobs? What is this, some game to you?"
- Discussed: "It's mind-boggling to think that if this were an RPG, we'd be encouraged to rob the same villagers we're trying to help. As opposed to, y'know, getting kicked out and arrested."
- Conversed: "Oh come on, all these so-called "down to earth" games are getting insulting, not to mention frustrating as hell. Everyone knows game mechanics aren't realistic, they're called Acceptable Breaks from Reality for a reason."
- Invoked: Emperor Evulz is Genre Savvy and doesn't let you rely on typical mechanics.
- Enforced:
- The devs overall enjoy games, but are sick of certain tropes they see as ruining them.
- Outcry against games and gamers reaches such a point that even devs wonder if the haters are right.
- Defied: "I don't care if shitting on games and gamers is all the rage right now, I'm having no part in it, the rest of society already does enough of that. Plus, as a dev, wouldn't that make me a hypocrite?"
- Deconstructed:
- Reconstruction Game. For the first example of Played Straight, Emperor Evulz grows stronger from people's despair, so helping others with sidequests actually weakens him and makes him easier to defeat. For the second, the player character is professionally trained, the veterans are willing to help you grow stronger, and you, like the rest of the party, have unique strengths to bring to the table. You only fight when necessary (some enemies can be reasoned with), and training halls/simulations exist, so you don't have to kill people in order to level grind.
- Meta example: The work fails because people find its condescending tone to be off-putting, and/or its "realistic" mechanics to be just plain aggravating.
- Another meta example: Conversely, the deconstruction works too well, to the point that the vast majority of players quit gaming altogether, or Moral Guardians use it as "proof" that gamers really are terrible dangerous people and succeed in getting video games banned. The company that made Quest for Troperia ends up going bust.
- Reasons for wanting escapism/power fantasies are portrayed in a sympathetic light; the player character may be misguided, but if they hadn't joined the adventurers, they'd still be stuck with their Abusive Parents or in a demeaning social role.
- Reconstructed:
- Quest for Troperia goes and deconstructs your reasons for wanting a reconstruction, taking the stance that only an egomaniac would go out of their way to justify the typical hero's journey.
- The work manages to be entertaining in its own right. For example, instead of "turn off the console" being the only way to win the game, you can get an actual good end by befriending the enemies instead of killing them. As for deconstruction of mechanics, the criticism is specifically aimed towards common but unpopular ones.
- The deconstruction causes certain genres and tropes to fall out of favour, but new ones emerge to replace them.
- Even if the player's motives are recognised as valid, poor coping techniques are called out and the consequences are depicted realistically.
Back to Deconstruction Game, so you can see past the pixels to what it really is.
