A serious look at silly games

I'm going to say it. I don't like humor in games. I understand the hesitation to stand against humor, games are supposed to be fun after all. Some of the most memorable moments in games are the levity injected by a well-placed joke. There are even games entirely built around humor. It's not inherently bad, but jokes are dangerous to add to games. Comedy has many pitfalls that need to be respected before humor is added to a game.

Inherently there is something a little unserious about games. It doesn't take long for most players to recognize that games are an imperfect simulation. NPCs have limited dialog and reactions to the player, often repeating things or ignoring what should be bizarre. Should the player try to test the boundaries it gets more absurd. Jumping on tables during conversation, putting buckets on NPCs' heads, monstrous results from a character creator all pull back the curtain. If it's the player bringing this to the game then it isn't really a problem. It's a voluntary action by the player to expose the fictitious world. But when the player decides to play along and the game can't seem to simulate its own fiction without drawing attention to its inconsistencies and unreality, then it starts to become an issue. It is so hard to create that believability; and misplaced humor can puncture that veil.

That's the secret to all this. I actually don't mind humor; what I really don't like is the inconsistent tone in the world. The premise and setting need to be able to serve the scenarios of the game. Many games that seem funny are actually built on a very serious world. Disco Elysium has a very silly protagonist but the world he inhabits and the task he is given is actually very serious. VtMB has a lot of silly characters; but the World of Darkness is a dark world. When you look at a game like Skin Deep, a fundamentally quirky world, it keeps its absurdity consistent with most of the characters being rather serious. All of these games keep their sincerity. When a world violates its own sincerity everything starts to fall apart. It doesn't reward a player's investment, it mocks them for caring. What might seem like a good joke is actually poison for the game.

This is a pivotal story moment in Skin Deep.

Skin Deep is a good example of a funny game that remains sincere. It's very consistent with itself. All the scenarios are a little bit funny and everything is a little bit off-beat. The player is much more likely to think ‘of course it works that way’ instead of noticing any logical inconsistencies. It's also a very short game. It doesn't try to add deep philosophical quandaries or emotional moments. It keeps it consistently funny, and keeps things tight.

There is always a risk with humor. Jokes create an emotional separation from the scenario as players are looking for the punchline. Players don't want to feel stupid for starting to take something serious and have the rug pulled out from under them by a joke. That just trains players against emotional investment. Remember the Charlie Chaplin* quote "Life is a tragedy when seen in close-up, but a comedy in long-shot." Humor builds emotional distance and asks the player to observe the scenario. But emotional scenes where players are to feel drama and a connection to characters become harder when this distance is built. It's hard to make that context switch and especially hard in games when players can initiate scenes on their own accord. It's not that humor or drama can't mix but it's hard to mix. And games are hard enough to build as it is.
*Charlie Chaplin may not have actually said this.

The medium of games has unique challenges. A good joke is all about timing but players set the pace of a videogame. Players can walk away or be distracted when NPCs are setting up a joke and then get involved in combat during the punchline. Also due to the limited number of dialog lines and players' tendency to quick-save and quick-load things can be repeated a lot. Jokes become stale or unintentional. Often games don't need help making humor when there are enough funny ragdoll positions and emergent behaviors causing bizarre things to happen. Games are already a little bit unstable and trying to add comedy just makes it more difficult to keep everything from falling apart.

I was not quite as enraptured with
Disco Elysium as most people seem to be.

I can be funny sometimes, but when I travel, I don't tell jokes. It's very hard to localize humor and most people won't get my jokes. Worse yet, it's easy for a joke to miss if it feels dated. Some comedy can also become inappropriate as time moves on. Making an out of setting reference or being preachy can take players out of the experience. It breaks the immersion and pulls back the curtain, making it feel like the character stopped speaking and the author has started proselytizing. It breaks the verisimilitude of the fictional world.

A parody is probably the worst kind of game for these issues. It requires the player to know what you are satirizing, recognize the satire, understand what is being broken, and then actually find it funny. All the while you are dodging the question "is this a joke or is this just bad"? A real parody requires mastery of the subject matter. You have to know it better than the creators of what you are satirizing and then competently execute on that vision. Why do something so difficult? And do you think anyone wants to sit through a 40-hour parody?

If a player decides to participate in the fiction of the world that investment should pay off for them. If the humor is respecting the player and accepting them into the shared fantasy of the game it can work well. But it's not easy, even for the funniest people, to make a game based around comedy. I would be very cautious to use humor as anything more than a garnish in a game because it's too easy to mistake trying to be funny with actually being fun.

What is an Immersive Sim?

 I'm going to be making some posts about immersive sims in the future but in order to do so it probably is helpful to define some terms. Notably there are a lot of 'meme definitions' of immersive sims, they has also caused a lot of confusion around the term. But honestly, the wikipedia definition is good enough as a working definition for most people. You can probably skip this entire post if you just want a 'good enough' definition.

But I think the main point of confusion that new fans to immersive sims are the 'meme definitions' like "any game that includes 0451" or "any game you can stack boxes" or "every game is an immersive sim" which are not helpful. They don't help people articulate what they like or find what they want. They are not particularly useful in describing the genre or having meaningful discussions. They function as a thought terminating cliche. And more destructively, it can function as misinformation that creates confusion. Players who might not know what an immersive sim is get confused or start declaring every game they like as an immersive sim and unscrupulous developers will try to use that label to get their games in front of players. Worst of all, anyone wanting to make an immersive sim will have an uphill battle performing their due-diligence before creating that game.

I worry about RetroSpace's inclusion of a spray bottle 
and what it means for the genre.

Normally, I wouldn't really care about this situation but the reality of game discovery has forced my hand. Current digital storefronts use genre tags for users to find games (and for developers to perform analytics). I have a real problem when I try to determine how to budget my game when the best tag for the kind of game I want to make is polluted with farm sims and sports games. Now imagine a developer wanted to get funding; How are they going to explain to business people, who might not even play games, what the revenue expectations should be? If an executive sees that there is no powerwasher in the Immersive Sim their developer is making, how are they going to react to that? Are they going to derail development and design with the insistence it is added to the game (withholding milestone payments; potentially canceling projects)? How can a developer push back against that when the executive can turn around and point to 3 games tagged 'immersive sim' that include a power washer?

I know that sounds hyperbolic and that no executive could possibly be that stupid. But if you are reading this blog you are probably an enthusiast. And what has history shown? What do you think a data driven executive is going to say when some developer says "the data is wrong"? Any reasonable executive would 9 times out of 10 follow the data and replace the developers with someone who will also follow the data and trends like they expected.

I need a Blendo games rest stop before moving
 on to what this blogpost is supposed to be about

This blogpost is supposed to be a foundation for talking about immersive sims, for establishing a foundational definition. But what are the good definitions? I already mentioned Wikipedia, but many developers have also given their own definitions and written on the topic. Any disagreements I have would be minor points. So what is the definition that I use for determining what is an immersive sim?

Drum roll please:

The Immersive Sim is a genre of video game defined by having a player controlled character interacting through systemic gameplay, where the game systems allow for emergent gameplay and player-driven solutions. These games emphasize player agency and intentionality, enabling players to use experimentation to find their own solutions to open-ended problems.

The levels of immersive sims are designed to frame the player's freedom within a simulated environment designed for emergent behaviors. There is a Reactive Narrative such that the game will react to the player's influence, but immersive sims focus more on the interplay of mechanics that encourage player intentionality and emergent gameplay in collaboration with an authored narrative.

Immersive Sims typically pay homage to other games in their genre. They are frequently in the First-Person perspective. They often have some form of stylization to their graphical presentation.

Now that definition has a lot of extra words that probably need some defining to make sense. I would caution against assuming you know what certain terms mean; as many people mistake immersive sims for being any game that is 'immersive' and 'a simulation' (but most simulations tend to be immersive while distinctly not being immersive sims). So here are some definitions:

Player Controlled Character: The player in an immersive sim directly controls a single character at a time. If you are tactically controlling units or strategically controlling armies the game shifts outside of the genre. Now having 'companion' characters that a player doesn't directly control, or the player switching control/possessing other characters I think still keeps the game in the tradition of an immersive sim.

Systemic Gameplay: Gameplay made from interconnected and consistent systems of rules rather than scripted sequences or bespoke game objects. These are typically required to support Emergent Gameplay.

Player Agency: The ability for a player to meaningfully influence what they are doing. Typically by making choices with consequences that go beyond progression. Instead of the game asking 'if' the player can do something, it asks 'how' they want to do something and supports those choices.

Player Intentionality: The ability for the player to formulate plans and implement them within the game (with the reasonable expectation of their success, and the possibility for failure).

Emergent Gameplay: This is complex interactions coming from the rules of the game and the games design affording these possibilities. Typically this means players will be able to create solutions the designer may not have anticipated and the game will allow this to occur.

Open-Ended Problems: These are goals that have multiple solutions that are not prescriptive or authored. If a player must acquire an item/MacGuffin it should be able to be obtained in potentially in multiple ways (ie there is no one way to steal it).

Player-Driven Solutions: The solutions to problems in an immersive sim are to be brought or figured out by the player. They are the ones to dictate how the tools the designer has crafted can be used to bypass the problem. Conversely, the designer does not prescribe a single solution for a problem. The designer may ask for a single output, but provide multiple ways for the player to create that output.

Simulated Environment: A simulated environment is one that is object rich and attempts to be interactive in all ways that a player would expect. An example of this would be the stackable boxes but also the ability to turn off lights and interact with computers.

Authored Narrative (in collaboration): This is also something unique about an immersive sim from other genres. A game must be designed and played as an immersive sim to be an immersive sim. The philosophy must run through all of development and into the player. The genre is a collective experience.

Leave it to the inventors of Immersive Sims
to challenge the notion of an immersive sim can be

And here are some things that are not in my definition that I am not sure about:

Singleplayer (vs multiplayer): I don't think immersive sims make good competitive multiplayer games; but I remain open to being convinced otherwise. I think one of core experiences of an Immersive Sim is the protagonist 'outsmarting the world' and in a multiplayer context this means outsmarting other players. However for the player being outsmarted they are likely having a negative experience. Manipulating NPCs in a single player game is fun, manipulating players in a multiplayer game can be toxic. I will need to expand on this in the future, but for now I advise against it.

Narrative Themes (Romance and Transgression): Some people tend to take a "you can do anything with anything" approach with creative endeavors; I tend to gravitate more towards a "just because you can doesn't mean you should" approach. I wont try to stop people from doing what they want, but I may ask the question "why are you making it hard on yourself"? That being said there is a major theme that I don't think works well with Immersive Sims: Romance. Since Immersive sims tend to have players manipulating systems and NPCs; doing so in a romantic context is exploitative. More specifically I think (or more agree with) the idea that Immersive Sim narratives feel better when they involve transgression of power structures in some form. Mixing that together with romance seems like it easily could be something uncomfortable for the player to experience.

Hopefully I will have time to expand upon so many of the things I have mentioned (and things I have omitted). But for now I think there is enough here for everyone to chew on. With a definition (and a clear rationale for having one) I hope we can get on with the most important part of immersive sims; enjoying them.