Nier: Automata and the Art of Subversion in Game Design
Channel: The Game Overanalyser
Date: 2020-09-04

The Designer of Nier: Automata, Yoko Taro, crafts games to subvert players expectations, to upend their existing beliefs about the way the world works. This video examines Yoko Taros subversive design philosophy, and how it was applied to the mechanics and themes of Nier automata. However, Nier is only one of a lineage of games that revels in subversion, from bioshock to spec ops and undertale, which are in turn a part of a broader category of metafictional games. Ultimately, designing and playing games are bound by the magic circle of play, a force that allows us to play a part in changing the world around us. 

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Sources

-Making Weird games for weird people Yoko Taro GDC 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OO_d3fwTNPo

- How we made Nier Automata GDC 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jKbH9i5axxU

- Narcissistic Narrative

- Occult game design GDC Jeff Howard 
https://www.gdcvault.com/play/1016657/Occult-Game-Design-An-Initiation

- The Puzzle Instinct  Marcel Danesi

-Uncertainty in games Greg Costikyan