I was wondering, do you think that comedy works in games?
I’m not sure (heh) if it’s just me but I’ve never really felt that games have been very successful at comedy.
I know that there’s been LOTS of comedy games before (Bard’s Tale, Conker’s, Postal, Goat Simulator, Might and Magic, South Park). And while they’ve been mildly amusing, none of them seem to stack up against the film greats such as Young Frankenstein, Life of Brian, Modern Times, and so on.
I don’t know if it’s the medium or if it’s just because nothing has stood out enough as really great so far.
Usually when games attempt comedy it seems like they go for one of three things:
The absurd over the top approach, like a singing pile of feces in Conker’s or the cat silencer in Postal 2. Which really only elicits one laugh, but quickly over stays its welcome because assets cost money damn it!
The referential approach like in Duke Nukem 3d, where you just throw a bunch of pop culture references at it. Which is just lazy and is a mighty dry well these days. I mean MAYBE in the mid 90’s it was mind blowing to have a video game character reference an obscure Carpenter film, but not so much anymore.
And to top it all off, there’s a fine line between referencing and stealing hoping no one knows what it’s from, but if they do you can always say you were just referencing it (This should be called the Seth MacFarlane approach, btw).
But, point in case. Can anyone even tell me what line from Duke Nukem is lifted out of what John Carpenter film? I bet almost no one knows at this point and the game now over shadows the movie.
The broken mechanics approach like in Octodad or Goat Simulator, where the point is that the fact that it’s broken makes it funny. This is comedy gold! When it’s not deliberate. Like getting hit by a giant in Skyrim and going into orbit? That’s HILARIOUS! But making a game where it’s deliberately broken? Not so much. It’s basically the same as these deliberately bad movies like “Sharknado”.
Gunpoint had some very funny (to me) writing in it. It should be noted that the dev came from a background of being a professional writer and is, going by his gdc talk, a genuinely funny guy in general. This isn’t the kind of stuff I’d expect anyone to be able to pull off without significant prior writing experience. Also Gunpoint also has other legs to stand on. The mechanics felt fairly unique, the theme isn’t overused, the plot was interesting and I think even non-linear. “Comedy Game” doesn’t sound like a great goal for a game to me, but that doesn’t mean a game can’t be funny as a bonus. Bulletstorm had me laugh a few times too, but that doesn’t mean I’d call it a comedy game. Over the top action is still the main ingredient of it.
Portal was halarious (when I wasn’t throwing the controller at the wall). There are a few takeaways you can use.
The game wasn’t epic in scope. It’s hard to joke when the fate of the world rests on your shoulders.
The characters had a set of consistient values and motivations, that were very different from our own.
Everyone was slightly crazy.
Some other games I’ve seen humour done well in is the lego series. The games don’t take themselves too seriously. Which allows all sorts of funny little skits to go on.
Then there is humour inherent in multiplayer. My seven year old and I spent a good hour in stitches playing Minecraft. I hit her with a pork chop. She chased me with a sword. I put out all the torches in the cave so she couldn’t find me. She responded by leaving the cave and blocking the entrace behind her. That kind of silly antics went on for a while.
I miss the old Lego games, back when they had their own stuff. Lego Alpha Team, Lego Racers, Lego Island 2, Legoland. Now it seems like they only release licensed games (for properties I’m not particularly interested in).
It’ll mostly work in point and click adventure games (Space Quest, Legends of Kyrandia, etc), occasionaly pops up in RPGs (Fable?) and other genres, even in shooters (MDK2, for example).
Centering the whole game around comedy will be very hard.
Of course comedy is funny, like duh. It’s just that… many developers don’t have a good enough sense of humor or ability to implement it in a game. Some games are humorous. Very few make me laugh out loud. I wish there was more. In a way though, comedy often kind of is the antithesis of games, I think its because lightening up causes you to not be able to take the game seriously, and games are usually all about trying to buy into a fantasy and take it seriously. So it sort of bursts the bubble and throws all the rules out the window. But I think you can strike kind of a balance, like one that comes to mind is Monkey Island which was humorous. For me I don’t think I’ve seen hardly any games that are really outrageously hilarious. I wish there were more. ‘Fun’ and ‘Comedy’ are closely related. A few moments in Plants vs Zombies I think made me laugh, the cut-scene dialog bits mostly. I prefer more visual humor.
I remember finding humor in the Earth Worm Jim Games. I mean just the concept in general is humorous and the animations really portrayed the comedic bent well. An earth worm in a robot space suit that uses its own entire body as a whip, and propeller. It was entertaining at the very least if a person could look past the laggy controls (also a result of the excellent high frame count animations).
Names of characters in the game
Psy-Crow
Queen Slug-for-a-Butt
Evil the Cat
Bob the Killer Goldfish
Major Mucus
Robot Chicken
Doc Duodenum
And funny named levels with matching aesthetics
New Junk City
Andy Asteroids?
What the Heck?
Down the Tubes
Snot a Problem
Who Turned Out The Lights?
For Pete’s Sake
Intestinal Distress
Buttville
In the second game Jim is aided by a sentient amorphous green amoeba names Snot! And anytime you can give eyeballs to a pile of snot - it’s going to be a fun experience!
Actually now that I remember, Deponia was very funny. It wasn’t just the writing either. The art style and the character animations and such were amusing, if such a thing is possible.
At least until the third game where everything got really, really weird.
Portal is definitely one of the funniest games of all time.
But I’m not sure (gotta stop doing that) if I agree with your conclusions.
Lots of great comedies had an epic scope. Dr. Strangelove was set in a war room in the middle of a impending nuclear war. Guardians of the Galaxy’s best moment was when Starlord attempted to do a dance off with the bad guy just before the world was destroyed.
Woody Allen’s character in Annie Hall went through an entire story arc and I think a lot of what he said was very relatable. The scene where he was in line at the movies and there was a loud mouthed pseudo-intellectual spouting off was extremely relatable.
Sometimes dry comedy is the best kind of comedy.
I’m more inclined to say that the reason Portal worked is because it knew when to work the rhythm of the jokes and it placed them in spots that wouldn’t force you to hear them again and again.
Those two seem to be two GIANT obstacles for doing comedy in games.
If you control the flow of the game then you control the flow of the jokes and that can break the comedic timing.
And if the developers put time and money into assets for a game they’re going to beat you over the head with it until you regret ever laughing at it in the first place.
Portal worked because it would save, do the schtick, then move on the the next player sections, and save again.
If you die, you’re not sitting there hearing the same material a second time.
Nothing wrong with disagreeing with me. In fact I’d be quite concerned if you blindly followed someone who’s only claim to fame is having a bunch of forum likes.
Guardians of the Galaxy probably illustrates my points. Especially when you compare it to the rest of the Marvel movies.
None of the characters are heros, they just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. They don’t actually set out to save the world. Compare this to the somber attitude of most of Captian America’s lines.
Their values and belief systems are consistient, but different from ours. Look at the character of Drax. A significant portion of the jokes involve metaphors that go over his head due to cultural differences. It’s not just him either, it’s a device used throughout the movie.
And everyone was definitely slightly crazy.
There are as you note dozens of different style and ways to produce humour. But humour frequently starts when we stop taking ourselves so seriously and examine the inherent ridiculousness of situations.
There are a lot of games with hilarious writing. The good old point’n’clicks from LucasArts had a lot of humor, like Monkey Island, Full Throttle, Day of the Tentacle, etc. Portal managed to do the same, thanks to some great writing from the team.
I thought South Park was hilarious. It was pretty much like playing a long episode of the show, so if you like the show, that is probably up the same alley…
It seems to me, you have a very distinct taste in comedy, Not_Sure. A lot of great examples of classic comedy on your list - I suspect it might be the change of both tone and media, that makes you feel that few games have great comedy. And I do agree, there is not a lot of comedy games out there, but there are some.
While I was late to the party, and didn’t really enjoy The Stanley Parable, you might want to check that out. I liked
Dr. Langeskov, The Tiger, and The Terribly Cursed Emerald even better, and that’s free, so be sure to check that out too. It does have some of that dry humor you might enjoy.
Monkey Island and other Lucas Arts games are pretty funny. But humor in games tends to be relatively mild. Generally suitable for all audiences. And the story telling pace is lost in gameplay … which waters down the potential punchlines.
Also humor often relies in current events, pop culture, and a game can’t be released fast enough before all that stops being funny.
So humor in game must be timeless, for all ages, and must no rely on certain pace to keep it funny. And not have bugs while at it. That’s tough.
Games focus on entertaining and providing challenge, while the humor is there to spice it up. Could it be the other way around? I don’t know!
If your comfortable with objectifying women and beta shaming men, Leisure Suit Larry (2D titles not 3D) were humorous and had bed pan type humor to them.
I wasn’t really looking to get a grocery list of comedy games (and I have played every game suggested so far). I was really trying to examine why comedy struggles in games, relative to other mediums.
I REALLY want to argue with this, but I can’t argue that one of the great things about South Park (TV) is that it has episodes coming out days (DAYS!) after a current event.
In my opinion the majority of people who think they are funny - really aren’t, Although I’m hilarious!
And of those who are truly funny and can write humor well - have good paying jobs in other industries.
Slap stick is one humor element that is under utilized in games that could be entertaining and wouldn’t require a well written ‘funny’ script.
