An element lacking in Galloway is the distinction of a game’s self-awareness, of its willingness to show the player that it is merely a game, yet Galloway gives us the framework to readily identify this phenomenon. It’s easy to see how weighted Fantasy Wars is towards non-diegetic action. Fantasy Wars doesn’t seek to immerse the player by minimizing non-diegetic actions, it instead revels in it by almost incorporating non-diegetic action into what Galloway would initially define as the diegetic space (where the narrative lives). There is no distinction made between the rules of the game and the rules of the universe in the narrative. Basically, the game becomes self-aware of its “game-ness.” All cutscenes are done within the main game’s graphical engine on the exact same terrain that is playable during missions (not just the same places, but the same set of digital models in the exact same scale – as inaccurate as that scale may be at times). The cover art exemplifies this attitude: it’s a traditional fantasy scene of an orc lording over a battlefield, but the game’s hexes are present in the tableau. The orc and destruction fits neatly into the game’s hex-grid pattern, just as they do within the gameplay. The typically non-diegetic mechanical rules of wargaming are part of the physical rules of the game’s diegetic space. This is similar to the webcomic Erfworld, which is explores the question of “if the world operated by wargame rules, what would it actually be like?” Fantasy Wars could easily be Erfworld as a game.

This sense of the game’s self-awareness can at least engage the player, if not actually immerse the player. Once it’s accepted that the game rules are part of this imaginary world’s physical rules, the distraction normally offered by overtly interacting with the non-diegetic rules element is drastically reduced. When the player accepts that that unit of pikemen represents people who live or die based on the player’s commands and the physical rules of this new universe, rather than being simply an arbitrary icon in a set of wargame rules, a connection is forged on some level. Not being a psychologist, I can’t truly explain it, but that’s been my experience with the game. That connection can be exploited by the game to generate emotional reactions: relief when the unit escapes a tough situation, triumph as it gains experience and new capabilities, pride as the victorious army swells, a sinking feeling when the player is forced to give an nigh suicidal order for the sake of the mission, and some regret when that unit is finally murdered by overwhelming tides of foes. These are not necessarily strong emotions, nor will they be experienced to the same degree by different players (each play experience is different, and players bring their own perspective and history to the battlefield), but the game is capable of producing them despite its blatant lack of traditional immersion.

Contrast this self-aware approach with a game like Civilzation 4 (CIV). CIV is even more non-diegetic than fantasy wars. Everything is conducted at a level of abstraction beyond the setting of the game. Moving units around the map might be the only diegetic action within CIV (push a key, unit moves in the signaled direction - a move act). Instead of making the rules of the game the rules of the game’s universe, CIV attempts to convince the player that this is a rough simulation of reality with the game’s heavy emphasis on real world history and historical development of civilizations. This falls down rapidly when the game is examined as a simulation – just like Fantasy Wars would fall down as a simulation of war – but CIV doesn’t address it. It may be telling that the most common complaint about CIV is that it’s too dry, which usually is elaborated to say that there is no connection between the player and the virtual citizens that the numbers and symbols are intended to represent. I have never felt regret after ordering yet another unit of riflemen out to die in CIV, aside from regretting that I’m going to lose the (ultimately abstract) game. It's also worth noting that Fantasy Wars puts more emphasis on ambient animation than CIV does (an example of a diegetic machine act), with more micro-detail that would be present in reality, and thus does a better job of legitimizing the idea of the game rules as part of this imagined space.

I have no hard facts (no studies) to prove that my interpretation is common, but that’s not really the point at this stage. This is simply my experience of playing these two games, with some anecdotal evidence of other gamers’ paralleling that experience, which Galloway has allowed me to define and articulate. His theory allowed me to examine a game in a new way and discover something about it that I might not otherwise have noticed: a technique for engaging the player in an overtly rules-heavy game.