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Humor in Games?
commiesubverter writes "Slate.com has an article up about humor in games. It's a decent summary of where the gaming industry has been and is going with its humor. From the article: 'Comedy is typically marginalized into background sight gags and interstitial cut scenes. Even games that generally strive to be funny incorporate humor into window dressing: In Grand Theft Auto, you can sow mayhem while listening to a mock-NPR that's broadcasting a roundtable discussion on violence.'"
Nothing beats the Monkey Island series!
That sounds to much like real life.
Dashboard Widgets
I remember countless adventures from Lucasarts where the principle element is pure comedy. From Monkey Island to Day of the Tentacle to Sam and Max, these classic games were both funny and fun. They don't make many games like those any more ever since FPS's became popular (and hence, more profitable for the majority of game studios to develop).
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The Monkey Island series was one of the funn(i)est things I've seen in my life.
Computer games are less funny because they're interactive, and that's hard to do for comedy.
For the simple reason that the first couple of times you play it a joke is amusing, the 200th time you play, its a worn out fucking nuisance.
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To make a good game that is genuinely funny the whole way through would take a LOT of work - and frankly, I'm not even sure it would be possible.
Sigh, youngsters nowadays are so deprived. You've never played "Monkey Island" I suppose?
Maybe the reason games are low on humour is because most jokes are only funny once or twice, whereas a game needs to be playable many, many times. If playing the game a second time is like watching reruns of Fresh Prince in Bel-Air, I'd rather not.
Of course, there is comedy that will always be funny, such as Monty Python, but who dares create a complete game hoping that all or most of the comedy will last?
The Incredible Machines and Day of the Tentacle are two of my favourite old games with lots humour. But I think the reason I still like them is because I haven't played them for a long time.
"Stop failing the Turing test!" -- Dilbert
... so why does humor seem like a distraction? Maybe it's because the game designers aren't comedians, they're geeks? Geeks can be funny, as seen on these very pages, but to step out and design a game that tries to be funny is way too risky. What if someone buys the game and doesn't laugh? Bad news.
Comedy takes a certain mindset. You have to program the user with a setup, then redirect them to the punch line. That's a different plot than blowing up an alien mother ship or whatever.
Comedy is usually only funny once. By the time the designer has seen it for the six hundredth time, it's not funny to them any more. By the time the user has seen the gag a few times, they're bored with it. By contrast, I still pull out Doom 2 now and then.
sigs, as if you care.
Surely this depends on what you personally find amusing? I have fond memories of Dungeon Keeper & DK2, which I thought were wickedly funny... torture, anyone? Similarly, Carmageddon & Carmageddon 2 had me laughing out loud as zombies exploded around me whilst pulling off utterly insane stunts. A whole bunch of LucasArts games (Sam & Max, Day Of The Tentacle, etc) are funny. Grand Theft Auto's gouranga bonus. Simply playing Unreal Tournament and for example, jumping at an oppenent, emptying a weapon at them, completely missing, and they pick you off with one shot... I find that funny (or maybe I suck at UT ;)). Max Payne. Countless sub/side games in countless titles.
Maybe I'm just twisted.
I don't think traditional comedy will work in games... you tend to get in-jokes in games, which is ok because those playing the games will usually get it. Jokes that are scripted and get forced at you again and again as you replay, whilst they may have been funny the first few times, they almost certainly aren't after a few dozen.
In my opinion, scripted humour can not replace gameplay touches that allow the player to make their own fun.
Don't forget Leisure Suit Larry 1 through 7. The new LSL Magna Cum Laude is horrible however, very disappointing.
Straight up comedy games ala the original Lucasarts ones wont work now. A lot of those were filled with injokes and specifically geeky jokes. Now that the demographic has changed to the non-geek and general populace they don't work. Not only do they not work, but to create a game that would the humor would have to be so broad as to be either unfunny or work once.
I have seen some humor left but it is either background, in jokes, or specific. Case in point, alot of the quest givers in WoW have some funny stuff to say and the voice emotes are a riot but the game itself is pretty serious.
One thing that people fail to mention is the switch in humor in the games has worked. People are buying these games or subscribing to the serives in record numbers even in this declining economy. Weither or not any of us agree with humor in games in its current incarnation it moot really. Pander to the lowest common denominator and make lots of money. Sad but true.
The writing and voice acting in that game were priceless. Every gaurd you snuck up on was in the middle of a hilarious conversation. Dozens and dozens of times I found myself sitting in a shadow waiting for them to finish before I killed them. (Strange sentence.) The cut scenes, general camp of the game and some of the in game details were well done too. All in all, probably the best combination of comdey in an action game that I've seen. (Also one of the most amazing games I've ever played. Why this didn't do better I'll never understand.)
Tons of interactive user-created violent slapstick occurs in FPS/action games, especially during multiplayer. Everything from some guy rocket-jumping and exploding on impact, to accidentally driving the Hellbender off a cliff when two other teammates are riding on top is FUNNY. It's just very unsophisticated humor, which is part of what the article is complaining about.
Sadly, I always sucked at the funniest games - even Monkey Island had me reaching for a walkthrough every ten minutes or so, because while the game is brilliant, it's a little *too* brilliant for me to solve half the puzzles on my own. And being frustrated, or "cheating" are not so much fun even when you can appreciate the game's humour.
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Space Quest and the Quest for Glory series are what really got me into gaming. Some of the later Icon based Sierra games were half-way decent, but in my mind the text-input games were the ones that really shined.
I haven't played these ones, but I don't suppose they were very interactive, free-roaming do-what-you-like games like GTA, were they? You can make a traditional quest funny, that's right, but the truth is noone wants to play quests anymore (or so it appears from the sales charts).
Frankly, one could make a GTA with all cut-scenes remade as comedy, not gangsta/mob films, but they they would be so out of sync with the gameplay itself. Jokes are something you create, not something that emerges from the gameplay (unless you are talking about "once-in-a-while" accidental funny moments that could happen even in Quake).
So a comedy game requires that you script it from the beginning to the end and that no traditional gameplay is possible. Because if you allow driving a car in a comedy game, you need to make it funny too, regardless of where you go. If you don't, there will be conflicting expectations from the gamer - do I want the driving to be cool (then why do I need all the jokes) or do I want it to be funny (then someone needs to create a lot of them)?
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The author of the article probably has not experienced "emergent comedy" in a game. Take the Sims, for instance as a recent example -- it's funny when your party guests get stuck in a corner, fall asleep and urinate all over themselves. No, but being a writer for Slate, the author probably has only gone to real parties of this type.
... Let's make a reality show game!!" Which would then, of course, be designed with a linear storyline :)
What do you bet a producer somewhere is reading this and saying "A-ha! If unscripted comedy is funny
That's OK. They'll come out with a special Eurepean version where you run over Jews. It'll be a big seller in France.
Go ahead. Accuse me of generalizing about whole nations based on the bigoted words of a few. I dare you.
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Space Quest by Sierra was a funny game. You're travelling around in the crazy future universe that's kind of an odd combination of every future universe you've seen in movies and films. You'll occasionally see a Star Wars ship thrown on a trash dump or a reference to a Star Trek charachter.
The games were also very self referential. In one game (SP3) you had to save thinly veiled versions of the two guys who wrote the game. In another (SQ4) you travelled back in forth in time within the Space Quest series jumping from the original game into a game that hasn't yet been made like Space Quest 14).
My favorite line came from a moment when you asked to "get" a ladder and the game responded. "You get the ladder and put it in your pocket... Ouch."
Ah, the memories. That's some good abandonware.
--
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The first thing I thought of when I saw this was the old king's quest games - I miss the old school sierra pythonesque humor.
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Worms! If the idea of a worm with a bazooka isn't funny enough, you can blow up the other team with a sheep or banana bomb or the Holy Hand Grenade... not to mention the insane chain-reactions where you meant to kill the other guy's worm but ended up blowing up about three or four of your own instead, and then he finishes you off with the Prod.
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