The Myth of Global Games, National Games, and the Folkloresque: Reflections from Brazil

This paper challenges the "global games" myth by arguing that national and regional cultures continue to shape how games are made, marketed, and read. Drawing on close analysis of Brazilian indie titles, the author introduces the "folkloresque," a term for commercial appropriation of folklore that retains a sense of authenticity, as a lens for understanding these dynamics. The central claim is that the boundaries of what counts as a "regional game" are more complicated than either universalist or nationalist framings suggest, since developers may either foreground or deliberately conceal their Brazilian origins.

The study's most distinctive contribution is its typology of how Brazilian games handle national identity. Some titles, such as Vengeful Guardian, Horizon Chase, and Mullet Madjack, obscure their roots through fictional worlds or genre conventions, while others, including 171, Árida, and Gaúcho and the Grasslands, make Brazilian culture explicit, sometimes leaning on stereotype or assuming insider knowledge. Dandara receives particularly close attention for its engagement with Afro-Brazilian history, folklore, and contemporary social life, reading as a meta-commentary on present-day Brazil. Chroma Squad is examined as a case where visible Japanese tokusatsu and super sentai influences mask hidden Brazilian roots, including gambiarra (improvised, makeshift problem-solving), humour, and the Brazilian television tradition of broadcasting tokusatsu programmes in the twentieth century.

The analysis concludes that cultural meaning depends not only on how creators borrow from other traditions but on power relations and on the divergent interpretations of insiders and outsiders. A legal dispute with Saban, owner of Power Rangers, pushed Chroma Squad toward an explicitly American-centred frame that obscures the direct Japan-Brazil popular culture exchange, illustrating how commercial and legal pressures shape cultural representation. The work's scope is thus a Brazilian perspective on international game culture, situating national identity within broader transnational flows of influence.