Comedy in gaming

[Bug MuIdoon]

Salutations!

I grew up in the 'golden era' of comedy point 'n click adventure games. Some of my most fondest gaming moments come from titles such as Monkey Island and Grim Fandango. Sure, I liked the puzzles and the game mechanics, they appertised the left side of my brain. Yup, I liked the characters and stories, they engaged me. What I loved most however, was the humour. That dry, sarcastic (dare I say, almost British) wit is what I still remember and reference to this day.

Now, I don't want to say that games aren't fun nowadays, this is not the case. However, games that would sit comfortably in that 'comedy' genre are far and few between. There still exist humour within many genres, I don't deny that. Often your gun-toting FPS protagonist will clamor some Schwarzenegger'esque one liner after removing an enemy's manhood with a buckshot. But, comedy as the main element is quite rare. Think of a game. Now imagine that said game was a movie. What predominant category would you place that movie under? Chances are slim that it would be comedy.

Humour is of course completely subjective, what I find funny may seem trite to others and vice versa, so it's really hard to pin-point exactly what humour actually is. Heck, There's probably people out there who even find Scary Movie funny, but, for arguments sake, I'm talking in a fairly broad sense. When someone says "comedy film" everyone generally has a good idea of what to expect. I also want to point out that I'm not talking about the 'bad-funny' either, in-game bugs/glitches and plots so bad they're good are of course hilarious [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ITOrKb5HP6s] but they're not intentional humour.

The current trend of AAA gaming, mainly with the popularity of FPS games, is heavily focused on action. Even the more popular indie games tend to delve down the artistic/emotional level route. There are of course thousands of indie games out there, and I'm sure many of them are piss-pooled-pant wettingly funny, but I'm mainly talking about the popular games that sell and appeal to the masses. I'm not sure how accurate the info on this link [http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/gaming/news/a450921/top-100-best-selling-uk-games-2012-only-black-ops-fifa-sell-1-million.html] is but I think it should suffice for my point. Out of the 100 top selling games of 2012, barely any would be classed as 'comedy,' while most of them have very little to no comedy factor at all. So what is it that's made humour feature less in our games even though we all like a good laugh? Is it because of humour's subjectiveness and that it's harder to cater it towards a bigger audience, whereas 'action' is more of a general 'love it or hate it' affair and we can all relate to 'feels.'
But if this is the case then why does it still sell so well in other mediums? We have a regular influx of popular comedy films and books each year, even ones that are destroyed by critics; yet these mediums are still willing to make comedy despite failures. so why does it not translate so well in to games?

I'd like to mention that I enjoy action, and games with 'feels' too. This is not a rant, just a mere observation that's up for discussion.

As a side note, what are you're favourite 'comedy games' of all time?

 

[Yuno Gasai]

I haven't played very many games which have actively tried to be comedic/funny.

So, the only two titles which make my list are Monkey Island and Lollipop Chainsaw. ^.^

There have been the odd moments in other games which I've found hilarious, but I'm struggling to think of any off the top of my head.

 

[Eleuthera]

My favourite comedy game (and favourite p&c adventure game) is still "Day of the Tentacle".

As for comedy modern games... I can't think of any. Sure usually there's some humour hidden away as Easter eggs, or there might be some funny situations or lines. But full comedy games... I got nothing.

 

[Tom_green_day]

I've never laughed out loud at a game, mainly because I've never found any that funny. Saying that, I only laugh at loud at comedies that are actual comedy, not just another genre with comedy lines- for example Friends or The Hangover or any Pegg/Frost film. The comedy is the main point of the film, and anything else is a setting. In games the setting is more central, for example a fantasy world or action shooter. Therefore comedy can't be most important, as comedy isn't a style of game.
I prefer comedy in games where it's not actual comedy, just light heartedness. Extra points if things are meant to be tense- Citadel (Mass Effect 3 DLC) ? Enjoyable because everyone lightened up. Brutal Legend? Enjoyable because it was set in a hellish world with a ridiculous setting, but the setting wasn't played for laughs.
So to conclude, games are only funny when they try not to be.

 

[Chris Tian]

I prefer comedy in games where it's not actual comedy, just light heartedness. Extra points if things are meant to be tense- Citadel (Mass Effect 3 DLC) ? Enjoyable because everyone lightened up. Brutal Legend? Enjoyable because it was set in a hellish world with a ridiculous setting, but the setting wasn't played for laughs.
So to conclude, games are only funny when they try not to be.

You're saying Citadel DLC did not try to be funny? Then I think I played a different DLC because my Citadel experience was filled with funny, campy over the top moments and silly comments from everyone all the time. And i'm pretty sure all that was intended by Bioware.



OT: Comedy is probably the toughest thing to build a game around. Most games are about conflict and have fighting as a core gamplay mechanic in some way or another, and those are both inherently unfunny.
I'm not saying that you can't or shouldn't make a funny game about fighting/conflict, I'm just saying that sincerity comes to those things more natural than comedy.

 

[Maximum Bert]

Yeah Monkey Island was/is amusing (only played the first) throughout so was Lollipop Chainsaw to be fair and thats what kept me playing both of these games because the gameplay wasnt great.

Lots of games have funny moments or subfuse themselves with humour (worms for example) but (as OP says) few are funny throughout as I think thats pretty hard to do games are pretty long after all and you cant control as much.

Disgaea 4 (and the others to a lesser extent) did a pretty good job though I think some bits werent as funny as they maybe thought they were but its humourous throughout in its entire tone. It also had me actually laughing at some bits which is very rare for a game usually they just raise a smile or chuckle if anything at all.

 

[DoPo]

Magicka is awesome. Every aspect of it is a comedy, all throughout. It starts with Vlad narrating, who is NOT a vampire. Then you start the game and at the very beginning of the tutorial, you get this brilliant line "The safe word is BANANA!". Yeah, if you want to skip the tutorial, you have to hit escape and go to the BANANA?! option. But the tutorial itself has its moments, like when you meet the imps from Dungeon Keeper and later when you meet the first boss - a friggin' beholder

Spoiler

who doesn't attack you and after you defeat it, it turns out it was actually friendly.

The game relies heavily on subverting and exploiting tropes from other games - you find a woman with a giant floating exclamation above her head - she tells you she has problems with rats only for you to be attacked by goblins. Her reaction? She goes "Oh, I guess rats weren't a problem. Now I need to find a way to get this exclamation mark off". This gives you the achievement for completing all sidequests. The heroes themselves never speak - they pretty much do what a lot of action adventure games would have you do - just go and kill stuff, progress, repeat. This is played for laughs, as a lot of the bosses you fight you were sent to talk to originally. And it's great.

All of it is great. It's among my favourite games because it does so much great stuff.

 

[Tom_green_day]

I prefer comedy in games where it's not actual comedy, just light heartedness. Extra points if things are meant to be tense- Citadel (Mass Effect 3 DLC) ? Enjoyable because everyone lightened up. Brutal Legend? Enjoyable because it was set in a hellish world with a ridiculous setting, but the setting wasn't played for laughs.
So to conclude, games are only funny when they try not to be.

You're saying Citadel DLC did not try to be funny? Then I think I played a different DLC because my Citadel experience was filled with funny, campy over the top moments and silly comments from everyone all the time. And i'm pretty sure all that was intended by Bioware.

I can see your point, but I think they carefully avoided slapstick humour, or anything too over the top- I don't think I would have got any of the jokes if I hadn't played the trilogy beforehand. There were points where it went overboard and I found them less funny, and had completely forgotten them.

 

[Chris Tian]

I can see your point, but I think they carefully avoided slapstick humour, or anything too over the top- I don't think I would have got any of the jokes if I hadn't played the trilogy beforehand. There were points where it went overboard and I found them less funny, and had completely forgotten them.

So i had to google "slapstick", because as you might have noticed, english is not my native language. And wiki says:

"Slapstick is a type of broad, physical comedy involving exaggerated, boisterous actions (e.g. a pie in the face)"

I think that kind of humor is hard to pull off in video games, where a lot of the facial and gesture animations are still very superficial and/or deep in the uncanny valley. That might be the reason why game devs rarely try their hand at such humor.

Also "too over the top" is a very subjective term, i know a lot(ish) of people who thought Citadel was too over the top with the main bad guy being who he is and whatnot.

 

[Boris Goodenough]

Bulletstorm, I laughed more or less all the way through and not because I thought it was bad.

 

[Soviet Heavy]

Portal 2 is a comedy, and a damn good one at that.

 

[Baron_Rouge]

True, it seems there are fewer comedy games nowadays, and I long for games like Monkey Island, but there are some pretty hilarious ones in modern gaming too. Shadows of the Damned was rather funny, but the real star of this generation in terms of comedy has to be the Ratchet and Clank series for me. I think they've been consistently funny throughout, from the PS2 days through to All 4 One (I haven't played Q-Force yet). I mean, they can be emotional, but they have some of the finest comedy moments in a video game I've experienced.

Also, I though Deathspank was hilarious.

 

[IronMit]

This was way before it's time. You see comedy like this becoming popular again in stuff like portal and borderlands...

 

[GothmogII]

I can see your point, but I think they carefully avoided slapstick humour, or anything too over the top- I don't think I would have got any of the jokes if I hadn't played the trilogy beforehand. There were points where it went overboard and I found them less funny, and had completely forgotten them.

So i had to google "slapstick", because as you might have noticed, english is not my native language. And wiki says:

"Slapstick is a type of broad, physical comedy involving exaggerated, boisterous actions (e.g. a pie in the face)"

I think that kind of humor is hard to pull off in video games, where a lot of the facial and gesture animations are still very superficial and/or deep in the uncanny valley. That might be the reason why game devs rarely try their hand at such humor.

Also "too over the top" is a very subjective term, i know a lot(ish) of people who thought Citadel was too over the top with the main bad guy being who he is and whatnot.

Very true. But I think though that Team Fortress 2 pulls that kind of comedy off with aplomb. The developers realised how a lot of FPSes, serious FPSes devolve into the kind of potentially hilarious chaos quite naturally once you add the multi-player element, so they embraced the slapstick.

 

[suitepee7]

i found bulletstorm to be completely cheesy humour, and loved it for it.

but my favourite comic game(s) would be simon the sorcerer I & II. both were hilarious, especially II with the unfunny jester.
"what do you call a man, with a shovel on his head?"
"... i don't know, shovelhead?"

 

[King of Asgaard]

Portal, both of them.
Some of the funniest black humour I've ever heard.

 

[josemlopes]

Eat Lead: The Return of Matt Hazard and the sequel had comedy going for it, the games themselfs werent that good (the sequel actually was a very good Contra-like game though) but the humor was nice.


Then you have the Double Fine games, the Saints Row series, and also the GTAs for a more subtle "not in your face" humor.
Far Cry Blood Dragon is also very comedy focused, the main reason for advancing in that game is for the next joke.

Its hard to have comedy as a focus for a game since most games can be funny even if they are usually very serious (Red Dead Redemption and GTA IV for example or even most Tom Clancy games and the dialog from the enemies). Movies cant pulloff this as well as games do because their pacing has to be more linear and focused, in games you can be playing Condemmed and teabag the face of a hobo if you want adding an element of comedy into a horror game.

As for the funniest game, I'll say either Conker Bad Fur Day, Psychonauts or Timesplitters Future Perfect, but probably Timesplitters, just look at those animations:

 

[shrekfan246]

Sixteen posts in and nobody mentioned Psychonauts?

Anyway, yeah, full comedy rarely works in the setting of a game -- especially non-adventure games -- because most games don't engender themselves to the tone that is usually required for comedy. It's arguable that games could do the Pulp Fiction/Snatch style of dark comedy really well, and I'd agree with that but I don't think video game writers are at that level yet.

It comes back to the discussion that pops up every now and then around here of a game feeling like a game or an interactive movie. Comedy in video games would be highly reliant on writing, which would more often than not translate into something the player can't interact with. Even in Portal and Portal 2, GLaDOS, Cave Johnson, Wheatley, and the defective personality cores all have what I would consider to be rather humorous writing, but it's just something that happens around the player as you go through the game. Whether or not that's enough to carry the game anyway is also debateable, because it's a rather subjective topic.

 

[Bostur]

Well how much comedy was released in 1990-2000? I think that Tim Schaefer was one of the few designers talented enough that he could actually make a game funny, and he still attempts to do that, Psychonauts is quite amusing for instance. But those classic comedic games was the exception, they weren't typical for games back then.

In most games now and then comedy is not the main theme but a side dish.

My favourite comedic game is probably Grim Fandango, probably because it's not all funny it's also serious and 'feely' an important element in comedy. There is a deep sadness within the Land of the Dead that acts as a good companion to the humour.

Edit: Just to add one more example of comedy. GTA is primarily a comedic game.

 

[Chris Tian]

I can see your point, but I think they carefully avoided slapstick humour, or anything too over the top- I don't think I would have got any of the jokes if I hadn't played the trilogy beforehand. There were points where it went overboard and I found them less funny, and had completely forgotten them.

So i had to google "slapstick", because as you might have noticed, english is not my native language. And wiki says:

"Slapstick is a type of broad, physical comedy involving exaggerated, boisterous actions (e.g. a pie in the face)"

I think that kind of humor is hard to pull off in video games, where a lot of the facial and gesture animations are still very superficial and/or deep in the uncanny valley. That might be the reason why game devs rarely try their hand at such humor.

Also "too over the top" is a very subjective term, i know a lot(ish) of people who thought Citadel was too over the top with the main bad guy being who he is and whatnot.

Very true. But I think though that Team Fortress 2 pulls that kind of comedy off with aplomb. The developers realised how a lot of FPSes, serious FPSes devolve into the kind of potentially hilarious chaos quite naturally once you add the multi-player element, so they embraced the slapstick.

I have never played TF2 (I'm not big on MP or FPS so thats not my cup of tea) so i can't really comment on how they pulled it off.
I just thought about some of the awkward mass effect animations (e.g.: Shiala whispering in Shepards ear, shepard's facial expression when he gives Dr. Chakwas the Brandy) and how they where unintentionally funny. And that intentional humor based on those mechanics would be very hard to manage.
From what i know the art style, graphics and animations in TF2 a very cartoonish, and thats probably the best style, at the moment, for games that want to be comedy, or slapstick in particular. It comes right out of the gate with "this is not to be taken seriously" and the style is better suited for the animations one would need.