COMEDY GAMES

The rpg that I found the funniest is : The Sword and The fish (except the end). I don't beleive you could make an fun rpg based solely on humour, I love humour (and more than that!), but it has to be in a context to be funny, and the context is a story, the atmosphere and the "take" of that story. I've of course played dozens of really bad and not funny at all rpgs that were supposed to be essentially that (funny). I think humour is really funny only if it's a +, and being funny, really funny is not given to every one. You're not funny because you decide to be funny, that's my view on the subject.

Barkley Shut Up and Jam: Gaiden comes to mind. That game had the most ridiculous premise, characters, plot twists, everything. But it played it all straight and took itself so seriously that it almost didn't get old. I say almost because I eventually did grow weary of it, but from the outset it was hilarious.

I agree with most of what Shinan said. Comedy games are hard to pull off. If you're tossing in obvious jokes or lots of swearing for humor's sake, the end result is usually the opposite. I think humor needs more subtlety to work in game-form. It's not a stand-up act, it's a video game. It requires different delivery.

The original Disgaea is a great example of how to make an extremely funny game that also has a real plot. It creates these utterly ridiculous situations, like Flonne, an adorable innocent angel girl who gets sent to assassinate you (the prince of the underworld), but then decides to be your friend instead because she realizes assassination isn't very nice. And it treats them as though they're completely seriously. A lot of the humor comes purely from how over the top the game is, as well. But then as the game continues, after having drawn you in and hooked you with the humor, the over-the-top plot and action actually start developing into something really interesting and semi-serious while you're not looking. And before you know it, you actually care about the characters and their plight, and the story has turned into something legitimately dramatic.

It's a very different approach than, for example, Earthbound, which barely has a real plot at all, even at the very end. Earthbound's approach gives only a token effort to the drama; nothing but the humor ever leaves an impression. Not to say that it doesn't have any non-humorous parts, but the non-humorous parts are still far from serious. It essentially alternates between comedy mode and LSD mode, so none of the plot really makes any sense. The final boss of the game turns out to be your obnoxious, spoiled porker of a next door neighbor, floating around in a tiny flying saucer with a smug grin on his chubby, beady-eyed face. And you don't even get to properly defeat him, he just puts up an impenetrable bubble around himself and then can't figure out how to deactivate it so he's stuck inside it forever. That's seriously the climax of the story, and is probably the most dramatic moment in the game. Yeah.

I will say I don't like Earthbound's approach nearly as much. It is still pretty funny, and is almost certainly easier to do, but the game just doesn't resonate with me as much because none of it really leaves a lasting impression. Disgaea was one of my major inspirations for the approach I took with the humor in Vindication, though I won't claim to have done it anywhere near as well.

I think part of the reason that Earthbound's "pure comedy" approach doesn't work very well in a game is that a game is usually extremely long compared to other types of fiction. I definitely love nonsense, and will gladly watch an hour and a half long comedy movie like Spaceballs or Monty Python, but I can't take 30 hours of nonsense. It's really hard for something that has no real continuity to make me want to come back to it day after day; it won't really be the same thing, after all. So the part with continuity is what makes me come back to the game, if that makes sense. So it has to be done well. I usually quit playing Earthbound around Threed; not because the game gets any worse, but because I start to become aware that nothing I'm doing or have previously done actually matters.

What's with all the "comedy is hard to pull off" talk?
All I do is think of games like Legend of the Mystical Ninja or Zombies Ate My Neighbours or Sakusaku Daigoutou Returns Metal Slug. Inspiration immediately comes to mind.
If you're trying to do biting modern political comedy, George Carlin style, THEN you may want to try a different medium :x

There's a lot more to writing comedy in a game than gratuitous swearing and lame pop culture references. Comedic timing, wordplay, and subtlety are key. It helps to actually be a decent writer if you're going to try to make a comedy game.

As far as you want, as long as it is humoristic. Why would you want to limit yourself ?

author=LockeZ
It's a very different approach than, for example, Earthbound, which barely has a real plot at all, even at the very end. Earthbound's approach gives only a token effort to the drama; nothing but the humor ever leaves an impression. Not to say that it doesn't have any non-humorous parts, but the non-humorous parts are still far from serious. It essentially alternates between comedy mode and etc

I somewhat found Aptos Adventures series by Nickmasterx somewhat Earthboundish. We need more games like that.

author=chana
@ZPE : Zephyr Skies actually made me laugh out loud, but that's another thing with humour : what makes one laugh will not always make the other laugh.

I thought I got trolled after it wasn't a serious game. But it was fun.

Are comedy games in the majority here? I never noticed.

Can you elaborate on that? Do you mean like joke games are games that aren't serious/meant to be taken seriously whereas a comedy game is a game that takes itself seriously and yet promotes laughter?

There are also games that return to tropes in a post tropes way, like say, Hero's Realm, or The Realms Shattered, Generica, etc. But I wouldn't classify those as joke or comedy games.