What makes games funny? Comedy and humor in video games. Part two
Games with humor have always existed. But at what stage does a fun interactive experience turn an ordinary game into a comedy one?
The first part of the article - by reference.
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Comic effect based on chaos is always a bet on unpredictability. It can occur suddenly, for example, when in the game Trackmania takes you away from the race track, before you could do some mind-blowing (but still unsuccessful) turn. Or when you are seriously calculating during the maneuver in any other action game, dooming yourself to an immediate loss.
By the way, the game Magicka was completely built around this effect. It can combine different elements to create spells, and there are thousands of possible combinations. As a result, the risk of losing control over the situation is so high that many funny situations arise during the game.
At Magicka, a newcomer has every chance of turning his entire team to ashes, hardly having had time to say, “I wonder how this works ...”.
Magicka
On the next attempt, of course, everyone will agree to be careful. But here's the misfortune: your healing spell hit the enemy directly and completely restored his health, the ice mines placed by your friend touched the whole team, and a powerful energy charge released by another comrade blew all of you into the canyon with lava by mistake.
And after that, everyone clicks Start Again, because it was incredibly fun.
From a design point of view, creating this kind of game is a delicate job of keeping the balance between fun and frustration. Looking at similar games (Goat Simulator, Surgeon Simulator, I am Bread, QWOP), you can see that the whole game experience in them is under the power of chaos and unpredictability.
In all these games, there is also a high probability of a quick and sudden loss. When a player dies in Magicka, this is a whole spectacle. When he loses in Trackmania, this is preceded by riding at the speed of sound and attempting to perform another unimaginable trick. Loss in the Kerbal Space Program is often caused by the fact that the design of your massive three-stage rocket has a number of shortcomings, as a result of which it overturns and explodes right on the launch pad.
It is important to note that the loss must always be justified, and its reason is clear to the player. A sudden game player without objective reasons is very disappointing.
With humor in the gameplay, everything is a little more complicated. It is based on unexpected and unique interactive gameplay components that serve to present a joke (as opposed to jokes spoken out loud, which are not interactive). In this case, an important aspect is that you must be active in order to trigger a reaction.
This principle works well in Borderlands 2. A typical task in Borderlands is performed in several steps: get instructions, get to your destination, deal with a bunch of enemies, then, if necessary, find one or more key items and return for a reward.
Image: Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel Ordinary Assignment
Such an algorithm was developed in the first part of Borderlands and was also used at the beginning of Borderlands 2. At that time, players had already developed a habit for such a sequence, which means that it was the right time to break their expectations.
Under such circumstances, the mere fact of a sudden violation of the established algorithm can already cause a comic effect. For example, in a mission called “Shoot that guy in the face”, the player is required to shoot Faith Maksuti in the face. Additional goals include the requirement not to shoot at other parts of the body that are already checked. But these checkboxes can be removed by shooting at the relevant parts. And at the same time the task ends almost immediately after it began.
Image: A Borderlands 2 Comic Task with an Unusual Execution Pattern
Further - more: in one of the tasks required to jump off a cliff and die at a strictly defined point. In the other - for the whole 15 minutes, listen to the monotonous chatter of Granny Flexington. No need to fight with anyone: just listen. It is also impossible to leave (which is not initially mentioned), because she will begin to sob. Finally, when you listened to her and finally strive to leave quickly, she doesn’t calm down and asks you a question about the thousand different little things you just mentioned. One has only to answer wrong - it all starts from the very beginning. Personally, this episode amused me greatly, and I paid tribute to the developers. They jokingly called Granny Flexington the most difficult boss in the game.
So pay attention to the patterns that exist in your game, think about what expectations players have in this regard, and turn those expectations upside down. The mission, the whole essence of which is reduced to listening to the interlocutor, is by its nature much more ridiculous than any simple mission with shooting.
It also makes sense to sometimes replace the usual actions in the game with other, atypical ones. For example, in Portal 2, Wheatley asks you to answer him by pressing the spacebar. In general, you can not speak, but when you press the spacebar, your character starts to jump, to which Wheatley notices that the action is wrong. In Borderlands in some situations, you can give five other characters using the same combination of buttons as for a melee attack. Similarly, you can slap others. Following the same principle, many other unusual things can be done in the game, which we will not dwell on in detail.
There are many easy ways to bring more humor into the game. But you should not use them aimlessly; it is necessary to strive at their expense to increase user involvement.
And remember: even if you try to avoid it, players will surely find a way to distort your serious game and make fun of it. Therefore it is better to accept this fact and try to turn it to your advantage. Perhaps you will benefit from this.
The first part of the article - by reference.
')
Chaos and confusion are also funny
Comic effect based on chaos is always a bet on unpredictability. It can occur suddenly, for example, when in the game Trackmania takes you away from the race track, before you could do some mind-blowing (but still unsuccessful) turn. Or when you are seriously calculating during the maneuver in any other action game, dooming yourself to an immediate loss.
By the way, the game Magicka was completely built around this effect. It can combine different elements to create spells, and there are thousands of possible combinations. As a result, the risk of losing control over the situation is so high that many funny situations arise during the game.
At Magicka, a newcomer has every chance of turning his entire team to ashes, hardly having had time to say, “I wonder how this works ...”.
Magicka
On the next attempt, of course, everyone will agree to be careful. But here's the misfortune: your healing spell hit the enemy directly and completely restored his health, the ice mines placed by your friend touched the whole team, and a powerful energy charge released by another comrade blew all of you into the canyon with lava by mistake.
And after that, everyone clicks Start Again, because it was incredibly fun.
From a design point of view, creating this kind of game is a delicate job of keeping the balance between fun and frustration. Looking at similar games (Goat Simulator, Surgeon Simulator, I am Bread, QWOP), you can see that the whole game experience in them is under the power of chaos and unpredictability.
In all these games, there is also a high probability of a quick and sudden loss. When a player dies in Magicka, this is a whole spectacle. When he loses in Trackmania, this is preceded by riding at the speed of sound and attempting to perform another unimaginable trick. Loss in the Kerbal Space Program is often caused by the fact that the design of your massive three-stage rocket has a number of shortcomings, as a result of which it overturns and explodes right on the launch pad.
It is important to note that the loss must always be justified, and its reason is clear to the player. A sudden game player without objective reasons is very disappointing.
Materials: article Subversive Humor in Games
Humor in the gameplay
With humor in the gameplay, everything is a little more complicated. It is based on unexpected and unique interactive gameplay components that serve to present a joke (as opposed to jokes spoken out loud, which are not interactive). In this case, an important aspect is that you must be active in order to trigger a reaction.
This principle works well in Borderlands 2. A typical task in Borderlands is performed in several steps: get instructions, get to your destination, deal with a bunch of enemies, then, if necessary, find one or more key items and return for a reward.
Image: Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel Ordinary Assignment
Such an algorithm was developed in the first part of Borderlands and was also used at the beginning of Borderlands 2. At that time, players had already developed a habit for such a sequence, which means that it was the right time to break their expectations.
Under such circumstances, the mere fact of a sudden violation of the established algorithm can already cause a comic effect. For example, in a mission called “Shoot that guy in the face”, the player is required to shoot Faith Maksuti in the face. Additional goals include the requirement not to shoot at other parts of the body that are already checked. But these checkboxes can be removed by shooting at the relevant parts. And at the same time the task ends almost immediately after it began.
Image: A Borderlands 2 Comic Task with an Unusual Execution Pattern
Further - more: in one of the tasks required to jump off a cliff and die at a strictly defined point. In the other - for the whole 15 minutes, listen to the monotonous chatter of Granny Flexington. No need to fight with anyone: just listen. It is also impossible to leave (which is not initially mentioned), because she will begin to sob. Finally, when you listened to her and finally strive to leave quickly, she doesn’t calm down and asks you a question about the thousand different little things you just mentioned. One has only to answer wrong - it all starts from the very beginning. Personally, this episode amused me greatly, and I paid tribute to the developers. They jokingly called Granny Flexington the most difficult boss in the game.
So pay attention to the patterns that exist in your game, think about what expectations players have in this regard, and turn those expectations upside down. The mission, the whole essence of which is reduced to listening to the interlocutor, is by its nature much more ridiculous than any simple mission with shooting.
It also makes sense to sometimes replace the usual actions in the game with other, atypical ones. For example, in Portal 2, Wheatley asks you to answer him by pressing the spacebar. In general, you can not speak, but when you press the spacebar, your character starts to jump, to which Wheatley notices that the action is wrong. In Borderlands in some situations, you can give five other characters using the same combination of buttons as for a melee attack. Similarly, you can slap others. Following the same principle, many other unusual things can be done in the game, which we will not dwell on in detail.
Materials: Hideo Kojima - Tactical Action Comedy
Lecture How to Make Your Game Just Completely Hilarious from one of the creators of the game The Stanley Parable William Pugh
Conclusion
There are many easy ways to bring more humor into the game. But you should not use them aimlessly; it is necessary to strive at their expense to increase user involvement.
And remember: even if you try to avoid it, players will surely find a way to distort your serious game and make fun of it. Therefore it is better to accept this fact and try to turn it to your advantage. Perhaps you will benefit from this.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/314250/
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