Putting the 'role' back in role-playing games since 2002.
Donate to Codex
Good Old Games
  • Welcome to rpgcodex.net, a site dedicated to discussing computer based role-playing games in a free and open fashion. We're less strict than other forums, but please refer to the rules.

    "This message is awaiting moderator approval": All new users must pass through our moderation queue before they will be able to post normally. Until your account has "passed" your posts will only be visible to yourself (and moderators) until they are approved. Give us a week to get around to approving / deleting / ignoring your mundane opinion on crap before hassling us about it. Once you have passed the moderation period (think of it as a test), you will be able to post normally, just like all the other retards.

Decline where do all the comedy videogame gone?

HoboForEternity

sunset tequila
Patron
Joined
Mar 27, 2016
Messages
9,176
Location
Disco Elysium
Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
It seems comedy videogames is in stroke induced coma along with adventure games. We used to have hilarious shit like monkey island, sam and max hit the road, hell even telltale sam and max was pretty funny. ace attorney is also hilarious VN/adventure game hybrid thing and i love them all. in 90s, comedy ish shooter was also in, with the serious sam, duke nukem games

In 2000s Occasionally, we got non adventure comedy games like saints row, but the series is dead, and went downhill after 2 anyway, which is like what? Psychonauts was brilliant and funny too. Portal and portal 2 was great too, too bad valve is too busy snorting steam money now.

It is in 10s when gritty, serious shooters began to take hold, comedy videogames has been declining so much in quantity and quality. I dont remember any good comedy game that came out in the last 3 years. South park stick of truth and fractures butthole is the closest videogame i remember that fully commits to being comedic.

West of loathing is supposedly good too o guess.

Other than that, i dunno. I want to laugh like the first time i saw el pollo diablo in monkey island.
 

ColonelTeacup

Liturgist
Joined
Mar 19, 2017
Messages
1,433
It seems comedy videogames is in stroke induced coma along with adventure games. We used to have hilarious shit like monkey island, sam and max hit the road, hell even telltale sam and max was pretty funny. ace attorney is also hilarious VN/adventure game hybrid thing and i love them all. in 90s, comedy ish shooter was also in, with the serious sam, duke nukem games

In 2000s Occasionally, we got non adventure comedy games like saints row, but the series is dead, and went downhill after 2 anyway, which is like what? Psychonauts was brilliant and funny too.

It is in 10s when gritty, serious shooters began to take hold, comedy videogames has been declining so much in quantity and quality. I dont remember any good comedy game that came out in the last 3 years. South park stick of truth and fractures butthole is the closest videogame i remember that fully commits to being comedic.

West of loathing is supposedly good too o guess.

Other than that, i dunno. I want to laugh like the first time i saw el pollo diablo in monkey island.
The "comedy" saints row were an insult to the series. They took what was originally used in the series as a means to lighten the darker story and characters with doses of ridiculousness, and pure pulp. The execs in charge and possible whoever took over for saints row 3 did not understand the delicate balance in saints row 2 between serious themes and moments of ridiculousness to offset those aforementioned moments of seriousness. Saints row 2 tried to do things similar to metal gear solid, by using comedic moments to lighten its darker elements in the series. Saints row 3 however went full tilt on the stupidity and did its predecessor a disservice as a result.

In relation to your question however, most companies are too scared to be comedic as comedy is often offensive by default and abrasive as well, which would not fare well for the company in question during our time of extreme political correctness.
 

Jokzore

Arbiter
Joined
Mar 18, 2017
Messages
623
What do you mean? There's some hilarious games being released.

Fallout 76 is like the largest scale practical joke I've ever seen, it's an endless source of humor.
 

HoboForEternity

sunset tequila
Patron
Joined
Mar 27, 2016
Messages
9,176
Location
Disco Elysium
Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
Saints row 2 tried to do things similar to metal gear solid, by using comedic moments to lighten its darker elements in the series. Saints row 3 however went full tilt on the stupidity and did its predecessor a disservice as a result.
yeah. In 2, we still got some serious moments, and real character development despite you can spend time spraying shit to houses. The chemistry, and balance between joking and earnest bonding between crews is the best thing about SR 2
 

ColonelTeacup

Liturgist
Joined
Mar 19, 2017
Messages
1,433
Saints row 2 tried to do things similar to metal gear solid, by using comedic moments to lighten its darker elements in the series. Saints row 3 however went full tilt on the stupidity and did its predecessor a disservice as a result.
yeah. In 2, we still got some serious moments, and real character development despite you can spend time spraying shit to houses. The chemistry, and balance between joking and earnest bonding between crews is the best thing about SR 2
And many of sr2s staples were constantly being copied into the future titles. Like the singing that the boss and pierce do in sr2 is copied over in 3, and personally, I found it weak due to diminishing returns. The second was far more impactful. Also, yeah, the bonding meant more in the 2nd, I agree. As an example, spoilers:
In 2 carlos torture and death is dealt with far more seriously and somberly than Gats death in 3, which almost seemed irrelevant to the boss, despite Gat being his/her best friend and longest time partner in crime. The boss showed more emotion for carlos than he/she did fucking gat/
 

CryptRat

Arcane
Developer
Joined
Sep 10, 2014
Messages
3,548
- Detective Gallo is alright, it's a bit short but it's certainly funny and I would recommend it.


- Paradigm is funny, a bit easy but funny.


- The same can be said about Viktor a Steampunk Adventure.
V38uTwz.jpg
r8tSYB4.jpg
- You probably played Heroine's quest, but you can check Crystal Shard's little games, from which I could recommend Infinite monkeys which is free and which I haven't managed to beat yet and Quest for yrolg.
Oceanspirit Danish is silly, but it's straightforward and then not as fun to play as the others. It's also free.



- Captain Disaster in: Death has a million stomping boots is decent, not great but not terrible either.
- The recently released The Knobbly Crook is weird and often absurd, and it's free.
- Lupus in Fabula is a fun game, it is a puzzle adventure game with plateformer controls (there's no plateforming challenge).

The following one are parser-based text adventure, so ignore them if they're not your thing :
- I recommend Thaumistry: In Charm's Way, it's fun and funny.
- The Guttersnip trilogy (fist one is here) is funny, I thought the two first games were better, and the second one would be the funniest one, you play as a street urchin escorted by her scholar rat.
- In The Wizard Sniffer you play as a sniffing pig escorting a knight.
 
Last edited by a moderator:

schru

Arcane
Joined
Feb 27, 2015
Messages
1,131
Red Seeds Profile (Deadly Premonition) can provide superb comedy, although it's hard to say if it was intentional much of the time. It's not an ironic recommendation, it's a truly special game.
 

Freddie

Savant
Joined
Sep 14, 2016
Messages
717
Location
Mansion
Before asking what happened to comedy games I wonder what happened to comedy?

If I think of films and TV it's like something happened in the 90's. It's difficult to explain but like too many people started getting things that weren't meant to be serious, seriously. But there's something else. Like there's something quite sinister lurking somewhere and current demands to be Political Correct to absurd standards is just a symptom.

Games draw their influences from several other media and trends. I think they are in the best place to try something in comedy genre, but I think perhaps studios feel risks are high. I never played Saints Row 2, never get it to work, but I really enjoyed SR3 which I think won a lot of audience from GTA series (after GTA 4, which IMO is a fine game, but not what I expected after GTA: SR) so it might be risk worth taking if you have something existing to build up from, familiarity with subject to deconstruct it, and money and marketing behind it all. That's actually quite a tall order.

If I get back to films and TV and critics of these days, and try to establish some sort of link from 90's to this day, it's like there's a common pattern. What is funny is defined like trough some sort of rule set. What if most of this whole 'why you don't think this or that' is just artificial facade?
 
Joined
Aug 10, 2012
Messages
5,871
Writing comedy is very hard. Talent is rare and especially in short supply in a bloated industry like modern videogames.

Often when a medium gets too big the first thing to go is humour. It's a sign of the times and of decline. I remarked this to myself back when adventures 'died' (notwithstanding their undead status since the late 90s).

Now, everything takes itself too seriously (despite being shit) or the very rare attempts at humour fall flat because there's no talent involved. It's not really different from, say, modern standup or late night television.
 

Morkar Left

Guest
the two South Park games
the latest Leisure Suite Larry
3030 Deathwar Redux
Frayed Knights already a long time ago

And in general most game developers nowadays seem to think that cutesy graphics are better than humor or is the humor...
 
Self-Ejected

aweigh

Self-Ejected
Joined
Aug 23, 2005
Messages
17,978
Location
Florida
dude, we just got The Quiet Man and that shit was the best comedy in years.

...oh, you mean intentionally funny? ;)
 

Raghar

Arcane
Vatnik
Joined
Jul 16, 2009
Messages
22,507
Drakensang has few funny scenes like:
Rufus there is happy he survived...
But master I'm not Ruffus, I'm Mathey. Ruffus was previous apprentice.
Oh poor Ruffus, he ended stretched from top of that 5 meter tower from top to the bottom.
No master Ruffus was apprentice from even before.

Or, well it's kinda funny when you think about it later, but you probably will not notice at first.
Party goes through a cave, and notices lot of strange looking rocks like animals and goblins in movement...
Then they find archmage inside cave. He discovers he forgot himself and apprentices are worried about him.
He goes out of cave...
And you deduce that he went in and did enemy jumping at me... flesh to stone (concentration version). So he had nice walk through dangerous cave and everything that looked funny was turning into stone around him. Then of course when he went out he dropped the concentration, because why keep these nice animals frozen?
And all these animals and goblins around thawed out.

If you have sense of humor, you might view P5 cat behavior as funny. (When it doesn't want you to do something.)

I actually never met my father how was he.
I remember him, I remember how we found a spaceship with old cans and your father said, it's only 7 years past date, it would be fine. We never before had so harsh dirrhaea, as we had that week.
"Actually nobody told me how he died."
"Mammoth fell on him."
You can guess the game, not all parts are as funny, but when they are it's bright part of that game. (Also play it on easy.)

What's your status? (Worried comrades)
Situation is diseasterific. (Three girls hanging each holding ankles girl above.)
Diseasterific isn't a word. (Grammar is obviously more important.)


The first time I heard someone say that, I shot him. But it turned out he was right.

(Actually nowadays this might be somehow problematic to show in a game... or movie... or a book.)
 

Raghar

Arcane
Vatnik
Joined
Jul 16, 2009
Messages
22,507
the two South Park games
the latest Leisure Suite Larry
3030 Deathwar Redux
Frayed Knights already a long time ago

And in general most game developers nowadays seem to think that cutesy graphics are better than humor or is the humor...
Don't forget Disgaea, and first Deponia.
 

Siveon

Bot
Joined
Jul 13, 2013
Messages
4,509
Shadorwun: Hong Kong
I hear... Borderlands was supposed to be a comedy. You didn't hear that from me, though.
 

As an Amazon Associate, rpgcodex.net earns from qualifying purchases.
Back
Top Bottom