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.
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| 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.
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| 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.
