Claude Jerome, Lauren Scott, Kaitlin Tremblay, Ziz Simoens, Jacob Garbe, and Liz England
Our focus for this paper is on providing a usable framework for designing for mechanical comedy, based on analysis of games that have humorous interactions for players to perform, whether intentional or not. When we say âmechanical comedyâ, we are creating a distinction from written or auditory humour by focusing instead on the comedy that arises from the interplay between player actions and intentions, and the gameâs mechanical and thematic affordances.
Put another way: mechanical comedy is when players are performing the joke, rather than reading or hearing it.
An important part of this discussion was to acknowledge the variety of humorous genres and the differences between them. For example, slapstick comedy has different affordances to it in a mechanical sense than say dark comedy would or does. Both can create humorous outcomes, but are experienced and constructed differently. Alongside the different types of humour that exist, we acknowledge that the goal of mechanical comedy is multifaceted, including the ability to delight, to surprise, to subvert, to challenge, amongst other motivations. The point being that humour has different goals and different types of expression, so therefore as designers we can utilize different mechanical âcomponentsâ to achieve this range of comedy. The bulk of this framework will be analyzing a selection of these identified components, so itâs important to note that the list is not exhaustive, but rather illustrative of the range of approaches available to designers when designing for comedic interactions with their players.
Mechanical comedy is worth exploring and discussing for a variety of reasons, all dependent on how you as a designer wish to incorporate humourous interactions into your game. Mechanical comedy can provide different tools to your audiences to enhance and complement player expression. Humorous interactions can also allow for different explorations of experience and story co-authorship with your players. Comedy also traditionally provides opportunities for delight and levity, even in more serious games, when timed and constructed thoughtfully. Mechanical comedy can also be used to subvert or create space for cultural commentary. Whatever your goal for wanting more comedic interactions and mechanics in your game, for these to work effectively, we should be intentionally aligning your gameâs tone and the playerâs available tools.
This paperâs primary audience is designers who want to produce more crafted instances or available space for mechanical comedy in their games. Primarily being a framework, this paper provides examples and instances to kickstart the process of intentionally aligning tone, goals, and available affordances. Of course, this paper is also for anybody who is interested in how mechanical comedy is produced.
To be clear, this paper is a framework, not a âhow toâ. The framework in this paper (a series of mechanical components mapped to different levels of player agency in expressing humorous interactions) is how we organized the discussion we had when we started analyzing the range of mechanical comedy, from single player physics games to large-scale multiplayer games with humourous mechanics that taunt the edges of the gameâs world. Think of this paper more like a set of tools, a starting off point for finding what sorts of game elements can help create which types of funny. Weâre not experts in mechanical comedy, just engaged with exploring game affordances for a specific outcome, so these components are ways to jumpstart thinking and design processes.
As a group tackling the subject of mechanical comedy, one of our first steps was to compile a list of games that fit our definition – players invited to perform a joke through gameplay mechanics – and compare them with each other. Our goal was to tease out what makes these similar or different from each other, how comedy is expressed in different ways, and what role the player, genre, setting, or specific mechanics had on that comedy. We did a few different mapping exercises before settling on one that we felt best represented our understanding. That is the framework we’re going to present with this paper.
Our framework focuses on co-authorship of jokes between the player and the game (or the player and the designer). The game provides a set of rules and affordances that allows players to perform certain types of comedy, and different design decisions can constrain or open up the game to allow a narrower or wider range of comedy than others. You can think of this as the designer creating a stage and props with which players can perform comedy. Some games are very good at letting players perform very specific kinds of comedy and may even funnel players into performing very specific jokes, while others provide a much larger set of tools and more of the comedy comes from a player’s inventiveness and less from the game itself.
A game that allows for a wider set of comedic actions is not necessarily better or funnier, just that the relationship between the game and player is different.
A framework for understanding mechanical comedy in games
For the scope of this paper, we decided to focus on games that centered around the middle and avoided the extremes at either end of this spectrum. We did not want to focus on games that are not built for comedy, as players can always find comedy in anything they play (often “fun” and “funny” are used interchangeably), and we also did not want to focus on games that had very specific, authored one-off jokes with less room for player expression.
Below we’ll look at left, right, and center regions along this axis.
Notable games: Surgeon Simulator, Octodad, Getting Over It with Bennet Foddy, The Stanley Parable, What the Golf, Trombone Champ, Twister, Peak, Space Team
Another way of thinking of these games is that the designer has a specific joke that they want to make the player perform through gameplay. The jokes are pre-determined by the game but incomplete until a player comes along to tell the punchline.
For a famous example, in Portal (video) the player is given a Weighted Companion Cube to use to help them solve a series of puzzles, using dialogue to emphasize the emotional bond between the test subject (player) and the cube. To complete the level, the player is asked to incinerate the cube – essentially, kill an object of affection. This joke works best because the player has to commit to that final act and kill their companion (which is, to be clear, a metal cube with no other properties than a heart painted on its side). The entire level leads up to this action that is predetermined, but the punchline is incomplete until the player commits the act.
One-off jokes as used in Portal or The Stanley Parable are very close to authored jokes where the player is the audience rather than a performer. For this whitepaper, we chose not to focus too much on games where the jokes are this highly authored, but they still fit well within the definition of mechanical comedy because they require players to engage in gameplay mechanics to complete the joke.
Moving out of the extreme and more toward the center leads us to games like Trombone Champ, which still has a specific joke the game wants the player to tell (the comedy of playing a loud, unwieldy instrument poorly while acting like a rockstar), but this is the core of the gameplay. Instead of a single joke told once, it is a joke told over and over again. Many games in this region of our framework are similar: there’s a strong fantasy, such as playing as an inept surgeon or a mischievous goose, and the game asks the players to take on this narrow role and perform it. One way to picture this is that there is a simple gameplay loop that can be mapped 1-to-1 with a comedy loop, that the joke players tell over and over again is the same as the core gameplay actions in the game.
Notable games: Destiny, Call of Duty, Dark Souls, Death Stranding, GTA Online, Dungeons & Dragons, Tears of the Kingdom
In these games, the comedy does not come from the player performing a specific authored joke, but rather players using the game as a stage to perform their own jokes. The game and its mechanics could be thought of as a stage and a series of props but players have to bring much more of the comedy into the game themselves.
On the far end of the spectrum are games that are not explicitly designed as stages for comedy but nonetheless players find a way. This is especially true with multiplayer games, where players can assert their own rules, roleplay unique situations, or tell jokes to each other regardless of the seriousness of the game itself. While Call of Duty or Destiny are, in general, not considered “comedy” games, players can find opportunities to tell jokes within its framework. We do want to avoid making too many assumptions about the design intentions of these games, but for the sake of this whitepaper we wanted to focus on games that are more obviously designed with comedy in mind.
Other games that are not considered comedy first but provide ample opportunities include sandbox games like GTA Online or Dungeons & Dragons or Tears of the Kingdom. These games can have more intense or serious moments, but it’s hard to play them without running into the comedic elements.
Notable games: The Sims, Sea of Thieves, Scribblenauts, Jackbox, Pictionary, Charades
Right in the center of our framework are games where the comedy comes in equal measures from the player (who brings with them their own creativity and sense of humour) and the game (which provides situations, opportunities, and verbs). These games tend to be more expressive than those that rely on more authored jokes, but are also more obviously marketed and presented as “comedy” games to players than those where the player is the main source of humour.
Several of these games rely on a prompt, an empty slate, and tools for players to provide comedy – Jackbox games, Charades, and Scribblenauts all have this in common. Party games asking for player creativity give lots of opportunities for groups to revel in their shared sense of humour. As opposed to more neutral or serious sandboxes, games like The Sims lean more heavily and explicitly into comedy and light-heartedness.
As we started mapping games along our axis, we noticed some trends emerging.
Notable games: Peak, Space Team, Among Us, Helldivers 2, Honey Heist
These games tend to have simple goals (“climb” “steal honey” “run a spaceship”) and rely heavily on multiplayer interactions to provide ample humour during play. They tend to bunch up on the left-hand side where the comedy is more authored/controlled by the game and players are invited to perform the jokes pre-established by the game. One potential reason we see these on the left side of the spectrum is that simple, pre-authored comedy set-ups make it easy to have humourous gameplay sessions with your friends. Players don’t have to work as hard to provide that humour themselves. The ease with which comedy emerges from these games likely has an impact on their popularity among streaming audiences.
Notable games: Dwarf Fortress, Hitman, Tears of the Kingdom, Dungeons & Dragons
Simulation sandbox games provide a very large stage and emergent situations that allow players to riff on the gameplay in order to create humourous situations. Sometimes these are cascading comedies of errors or pyrrhic victories that come from trying to master the simulation and failing, and others can be the unexpected, delightful juxtaposition of procedural generation or systems chaos. Sandbox games often ask players to form their own goals, and players who enjoy telling their own jokes may be drawn to games that allow them such fertile ground.
We explored other lenses for understanding mechanical comedy, but did not use them for this whitepaper. We present them here for others in case they provide some valuable insights that speak stronger to you or present ideas that we overlooked.
These frameworks include:
You’ll find elements of these alternate frameworks emerge in the different components below.
After considering how different games balance developer-driven and player-driven comedic moments, we turned to thinking about comedic affordances, and how those game moments were brought about through a set of abstracted, common design approaches. After creating a rough list, we focused down into a small group of components for this paper. What follows is a series of those components, along with thoughts on design tradeoffs, executional notes (such as âknobsâ designers can tweak to different effect), and some light design analysis.
The way we relate to the motion and physicality of our avatars and their physical representations can also contribute to the way we perceive comedy in game worlds. In this component, we explore the impact of using the organic and believable dynamics that we get from leveraging high fidelity physics simulations in gameplay.
Emergent physics refers to game mechanics and systems where physical simulation (kinematics, rigid body dynamics, collisions, procedural animation, cloth/soft body dynamics, joint articulation) combine with player input and environmental interactions to create procedural, systemic, and often unpredictable behavior. Physics-based animation is a subset of this dynamic whereby the animation of the character is somewhat or entirely procedural as a function of a backing physics simulation driving the movement of subsections of a character (ragdolls, procedural joints, dynamic limbs reacting to forces).
These systems allow for rich, dynamic, unscripted outcomes determined continuously and procedurally that reflect player input from a variety of factors (controller input, physical properties, kinematics, physical interactivity between actors, etc.), the outcome of which creates a dance between the simulation and the control layers. A seamless choreography between player intention (control), avatar representation/performance mapping, and systemic simulation response (physics/game rules). That choreography constitutes a kind of performance art: the player performs via control, the system performs via simulation, the avatar performs visibly.
In the comedy frame, emergent physics allows for surprise, subversion of expectation, exaggeration of movement, chaos managed by rules (e.g., when an avatar leaps in an attempt to escape danger and collides and limbs flail. That visually communicates an exaggerated failure state and gives further weight to the possibility of a comedic failure or unexpected triumph.).
A multitude of inputs also serves to create such a wide possibility space of outcomes that it’s near impossible to predict which elicits a sense of joy from discovery (and a bit of mastery) when an unlikely circumstance emerges. The path of discovery is also an aspect of the expression. The steps and choices along the way, the harmonizing and overlap of emergence, the narrowing likelihood – it feels like the unique story becomes your own. It creates a sense of authorship and ownership to the stories told (“The devs gave me this voice but I told this story”).
As such, this component seems to best serve a more embedded performance role – more of our choices being reflected in body language creates a tighter relationship between the way I express myself and how reactive the avatar is to those expressions as stimuli.
Physics-based dynamics also carries with it a unique capacity for relief as it relates to dangers of our physical world that are possible, predictable, and yet completely out of our control. There is a relief and catharsis in exploring the possibility space of outcomes that are possible in our real world but otherwise dangerous, risky, and, therefore, unwanted. We get to simulate these anxieties and explore their outcomes in a safe way which is further reinforced, satisfied, and released by seeing them rendered in a low-stakes light. Throwing a couch out the window to get it onto a loading truck in Moving Out is a hilarious exploration of what would otherwise be horrible to imagine.
Consider as many systemic layers and parameters to physical performance as you can manage (mass, friction, collision fidelity, animated articulation, physical properties per object, abstract gameplay properties for additional influences and conditions, etc.) such that the interplay exponentially expands with each element included in a given interaction. Tuning these spaces with intention for expression makes the outcome space large, unpredictable, and meaningful which supports humor via surprise, novelty, and unexpected moments.
We can further maximize the possibility for discovery by tuning these relationships to be intentionally âplayer intent lossyâ. Lossy conditions for player intent through the simulation creates a wider range of outcomes, the unlikeliest of which can often be the most delighting or comedic (the comedic satisfaction from this only increases with familiarity to the ‘norm’ of said dynamics). This shows up in cases where there’s âcontrolled loss of controlâ – a set of consistent but modulating influences on player intent that either exaggerate or lessen its effect (having a high degree of restitution on a bounce, extra loose springs on a motion model, low friction or low gravity environments, etc.).
The unpredictability of performance in high dynamic physical environments begs further inspection, engagement, and participation of the actors involved which can, in turn, create more meaning and opportunity in the moment for comedic potential to leverage. It also contributes to a high degree of mechanical expressivity which, with it, comes the ability to further relate to and identify with your avatar in a way that reflects who you are more genuinely (both to yourself and to others).
This same notion of high-input systems driving expressiveness toward potential for humor extends into how we look at the richness of the physics-based animation layers as well. We can enrich the expressiveness of the character to further embed them in the world and layer the performance with meaning, history, and influence. Specifically, this influence comes from inclusion of systemic pieces like:
For physics based animation in particular, there is embodiment and mechanical satisfaction fulfillment in the overlapping layers of performance that reflect player choices. This can often create a positive combinatorial effect on comedy potential due to overlapping factors like:
Tradeoffs
A high degree of uncertainty in performance outcomes also detaches the player from any expectation of precision in control, which can isolate your game from anything trying to feel reliable enough for high consequence contexts. Too much unpredictability can cause a player to feel disconnected from the mechanics. The comedic moment can thereby be flattened by confusion or frustration rather than a comprehendible outcome or surprise. High stakes environments like competitive games, lossy progression systems, and mastery-driven games demand mechanical trust â consistency, predictability, determinism â all of which is directly challenged and dissonant with an intention-loose presentation model like physics-based animation.
When leveraging loose procedural character animation more liberally, there comes a strong influence on tone. As the number of inputs that contribute to unpredictable outcomes increases, so decreases the sense of seriousness one can attach to the experience (not always a bad thing! Especially with respect to comedy). Conversely, overly rigid physics constraints and limited factors of systemic influence/input decreases the potential for the surprise element of humor to emerge. With highly dynamic procedural animation, we must also consider how it affects overall clarity of character state and player intent. If it’s too muddy, the sense of randomness hurts autonomy and self-expression which limits the potential for personalized humor performance and relatability.
Lastly, rich physics simulations can be costly to set up, tune, and maintain (creating a consistent continuum of physical properties between objects and interactions such that a player can more organically intuit outcomes). If this balance is disturbed due to bugs or inconsistent execution to the point of heightened unpredictability, then it can also have the opposite effect (creating a perception of bugginess or cheap outcomes) that lessens interest in exploration or autonomy.
Knobs
Dependencies
Other Considerations
Executional complexity refers to the challenge posed by the player’s control interface with a given game – their input resolution and fidelity, margin of error for success, and the complexity and range of overlapping systems or contextual interactions with player expression and agency. This component centers the question of how much skill, coordination, timing, precision, or âfinesseâ the player must bring (or learn) in order to execute a desired outcome through the gameâs mechanics. We’ll examine here how executional complexity shapes the possibility space for humor due to comedic tension.
Executional complexity spans both the control layer (number of control inputs, analog/digital fidelity, input translation, player verbs) and the mechanical and/or systemic layer (how those various inputs translate into outcomes given the gameâs rules, physics, interactions, and constraints). When execution is âdifficult,â this may mean high resolution controls (fine aiming, many simultaneous inputs, analog sticks, or timed sequences), high atomic expressivity or wide mechanical possibility space (many ways to fail or succeed), or high systemic interdependence (where multiple gameplay subsystems influence the result and, therefore, demand a high degree of peripheral awareness and control from the player to direct outcomes in a given environment).
Humor that revolves around achieving objectives can be a powerful source of relatable and performance-based comedy. While there is humor in various mechanical expressions that don’t necessarily relate to objectives or strategic value, humor tied to the pursuit of a goal can resonate more deeply with our psyche, evoking a more personal tone of amusement. Therefore, considering how mechanical complexity enriches the possibility space with meaningful outcomes related to success can be quite beneficial to creating intentional room for comedic co-authorship.
Below is a chart describing the relationship between the full range of mechanical outcomes (gameplay possibility space), the range of attempting/intentioned execution paths that lead to successful outcomes (solution space), the range of attempting/intentioned execution paths that lead to unsuccessful outcomes (the spill zone), and the range of execution paths that lead to comedic outcomes (comedy of errors).
The Gameplay Possibility Space
The Solution Space
The Spill Zone
The âComedy of Gameplay Errorsâ gold mine
Famously in QWOP, and more recently, in Baby Steps, ludicrously difficult controls with highly granular skill tests for precise limb placement to enact basic movement (one key controls one leg, etc.) creates a dynamic where the massive mismatch between the playerâs intention (ârun straightâ) and outcome (âfall down, flail wildlyâ) reliably yields comedic results. These games push hard on mechanical friction for highly atomic behaviors to create a rich degree of performances possible, nearly all of which are hilarious because of the context.
Overcooked doesnât fall into hyperÂ-precise controls, but strongly features cooperative interdependence and executional complexity (timing, coordination, multi-tasking, etc.), and flawed execution leads to hilarious chaos (broken dishes, burning food, falling off platforms, etc.).
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Gifs showing the breadth of action-oriented gameplay in What the Golf?
While What the Golf? creates humor through the authored and absurd mechanical presentation in the game, there is also humor in asking the player to deliberately consider the constraints added by the twist of controls, spatial dynamics, and/or physical properties of what becomes the “golf ball” in every level. The difficulty is a direct mapping to the properties of the absurd mechanical presentation.
The Death Stranding franchise features a highly physics-based main objective, lugging around heavy packages that greatly affect your balance and agility, thus resulting in a rich possibility space for meaningful outcomes – many of which are often very humorous in the context of their glorious physical representation, systemic justification, and material impact on gameplay.
Execution notes
Finding humor in gameplay verbs takes more than just the pure presence of mechanical possibility, however. There are a number of executional design factors to consider when considering exactly how players will interact with the overall possibility space:
Difficulty balance becomes an overarching design burden when leaning on the pairing of executional difficulty and rigid goals – we can very easily increase frustration along the way. As such, balance is critical: too much difficulty/control complexity often leads to frustration which can turn the humor into irritation if the player feels the systems/rules are unfair or too opaque. On the flip side, too little difficulty/complexity yields fewer accidental/mishap moments. Essentially, less gap between intention and outcome creates less comedic tension.
Gameplay clarity, as it relates to understanding what is at stake, measuring success, and understanding which elements influenced the resulting outcomes, is always critical for giving players the tools they need to understand the core gameplay loop. In the context of mechanical comedy, however, we can also see how critical gameplay clarity is to “getting the joke”. When feedback (visual/audio/haptic) is clear and accurately reflects player/game state, the player is better able to recognize their role or error in the context of the gameplay outcome (e.g., âoh no! I turned around too late!â) which can lead to a more self-aware sense of humor.
When it comes to the role of mechanical expressivity (i.e., the overall depth of player expression via gameplay verbs), there is a strong correlation between an increased personal sense of connection to the avatar via more analog control nuance/expression and a humorous outcome feeling more personalized and contextual. The more analog our systems are, the more tightly coupled they are to player expression, the more personal the humorous tone leans and the greater the opportunity for unique and comedic outcomes to emerge.
Physical controller interfaces may also contribute a great deal to executional complexity and, more importantly so, executional reliability. This can be something to either be wary of or lean into, depending on your game’s goals. The primary consideration being discussed here is the relevance of input device constraints and the limits of human dexterity with a given control interface. This classically emerges in the context of “fuzzier” input devices like motion controls vs more discrete input events like button or joystick actuation on a controller. While input devices with a higher frequency of mismatches with player intent (e.g., Wii remote controls or accelerometer/gyro inputs) can lead to more unpredictability and comedic potential, it can also quickly become a source of overwhelming frustration if the goals/objective targets are too rigid/narrow.
We can break down exactly how these design factors contribute to comedic potential by analyzing the heavy object throw mechanic of Moving Out. With this mechanic, 2 players must coordinate on the timing of a Hold and Release input to swing and throw heavy objects (couches, refrigerators, TVs, tables, etc.)
Two players trying to coordinate to throw a couch in Moving Out
Knobs
Dependencies
How would it not work? / Counterexamples
For props we narrowed our focus to âobjects within a digital game that players can interact with or useâ. Thereâs a rich comedic terrain of props used in TTRPGs for example, but for this particular discussion, weâre interested in thinking about the âgroundedâ design and implementations of objects in digital games. TTRPGâs design and implementation of props is looser and more conceptual, able to change on the fly via the person running the game to suit any emergent purposes. In contrast, propsâ affordances in digital games are typically more locked down and static, and seldom change their qualities during a playthrough.
Specifically, weâre going to focus on two games that take a stance on prop implementation at different ends of our frameworkâs spectrum: developer-driven mechanical comedy, and player-driven.
Untitled Goose Game dresses its levels with scores of props that can be used by the player to a multitude of comedic ends, and the way those props are realized make it a great example of developer-driven mechanical comedy. For some props, the intended comedy comes from changing the context–you can steal a serious manâs hat, pipe and glasses and have them put on a bust instead. Others are used as tools intending to give the players new affordances, such as the walkie-talkie or harmonica, which allows even more noisemaking to startle or misdirect the hapless characters. Untitled Goose Game has a staggering amount of content hidden away, but all the comedic reactions are ones explicitly programmed by the developers: the comedy is intentional and directed. The wide space of meticulously implemented possibilities gives the feeling of emergent, player-driven comedy (and that space is arguably necessary to make the jokes land) but Untitled Goose Game always has its hand on the wheel. This is perhaps most evident in the elaborate system of achievements players unlock, which is the main form of progression signaling in the game. A player may feel like theyâve gotten the game into a strange and hilarious state unintended by the developers, only to be greeted with a popup saying something like âTrap the boy in the garageâ which is then crossed off.
In contrast, the Goat Simulator game series has props galore, but predominantly the prop comedy lies not in bespoke behaviors or content unlocked specifically by different objects. More often than not, itâs simply tied to the delight of smashing and destroying them. Compared to Untitled Goose Game where a convenience store has many different unique reactions and meticulously implemented behaviors unlocked depending on which object is taken and placed where, a convenience store in Goat Simulator exists for one reason: total homogeneously applied destruction.
Because of this, prop mechanical comedy in Goat Simulator is arguably more player-driven in its execution. The developers are giving the players the comedic premise and many props to realize various hilarious goals, but the breadth of those outcomes are beyond the developerâs ability to predict, and relies on the player to come up with how they will make their goat hilarious in a way specific to them.
For mechanical comedy, props are a great way to increase player affordance and augment other key components in our framework, such as Improvisation and Emergent Physics. Specifically for comedy, props really shine when players feel theyâve discovered ânewâ or unintended uses for them (whether or not thatâs true to the developers). The juxtaposition of items in many different contexts can provide a rich canvas for hilarity. Props also donât necessarily have to interact or be tightly tied into other game systems. Simply enabling the picking up and placement of mundane props in unexpected locations or configurations can–in the hands of the right player–result in evergreen hilarious situations shared between others, whether thatâs in a multiplayer setting or even just recorded and shared on social media for posterity.
When looking at the use of props for mechanical comedy in their games, developers should consider if they wish to take on the task of implementing specific, controlled interactions with known effects, or focus more on player affordances and leave the specific situations more systemic and emergent. Of course this is a spectrum and no strategy is a monolith: you may implement all the different ways characters can react to seeing a silly hat, or just make anything capable of being a hat and leave it to players to find the humor, or something in-between. Whatâs important is making sure that the interactions the props afford donât cut against the grain of the design, but augment the affordances you want players to have in general, and what you want players to focus on as the meat of their journey through your game.
Improv has a rich theatrical tradition, but for this paper weâre narrowing our focus to playersâ improvisational performances in multiplayer digital games–whether those happen in contexts set up by the developer, or in a more spontaneous, emergent manner. And of course, specifically weâre going to look at how improv affordances coded by designers enable mechanical comedy.
One platform with no end of improvisational games is Roblox. Games such as Action are explicitly structured around improvisational acting from a script written by the director player, but given the chaotic nature of the playerbase for Roblox, things more often than not degenerate into comedic mayhem. Because Robloxâs default mode is online multiplayer and its primary audience is younger children, any Roblox game can quickly become an improvisational mechanical comedy. Even serious games like Brookhaven RP with high drama situations like emergency room visits quickly spiral into the slapstick as players pretend to have hilarious diseases like their head growing too large, roleplay as callous doctors with ridiculous cures and exorbitant prices, or show up with props from other games (whether through using inter-game Gear objects or the ubiquitous hacking scripts).
These types of improvisational outcomes are made possible both by the explicitly coded affordances in the games themselves, but mostly by the implicit affordances of the platform itself. Roblox is a highly social platform, where players chat with each other either through text or voice, and the default mode of playing is not just âtogether but aloneâ but more of a playground sandbox vibe. Players interact constantly with each other, whether to achieve goals in the game, casually chat with each other, or hawk their wares. Because of this, improv has become a core quality of Roblox games, with many of them designed to put players in situations with simple mechanics, and let the richness of the social play carry the bulk of the gameâs experience.
Social online games for older players also exist, of course, such as Sea of Thieves. In this game, small teams of players work together to sail a ship to collect treasure from islands, or more likely from other ships they destroy, which can be captained by NPCs or other players. This alone perhaps wouldnât be enough to enable improv as part of mechanical comedy, but the feature of proximity chat changes all that. Because players can talk to each other naturally as they become co-located, you give rise to situations like âCaptain, Look!â where two hapless pirates find themselves suddenly outclassed and outgunned, or any number of other roleplay situations such as âtuckingâ (stowing away onboard to steal other playerâs loot).
When talking about facilitating mechanical comedy in games via improv, itâs worth talking about who players are performing for. Thereâs a difference between games that facilitate improv-like experiences amongst players in the same game, and games that facilitate âstreamer improvâ, where they may be playing solo, but performing live for an audience of viewers.
For example, there are whole genres of counterplay videos revolving around Roblox hackers going in and ruining other peopleâs games using various cheats or exploits, such as dropping bombs in the middle of hospitals (where children earnestly roleplay prescribing treatments for a variety of illnessess) or generally running amok. The mechanical comedy of these actions isnât intended for the other people in the game (which the player is actively ruining) but rather for viewers who watch cut together videos of the streamerâs antics after the fact, usually with added sound effects and memes functioning as the more modern version of a laugh track. Examples abound as well for roleplay videos, such as this Sea of Thieves video where the streamer adopted the persona of a pirate undercover as an admiral, joining the crew of two other streamers who even dressed up in costumes in real life to fit the part.
In contrast, performing improv for the benefit of co-players is typically less counterplay and more using provided mechanics and systems as the developer intended, such as for roleplaying. The intended audience of the âperformanceâ players commit are their other players. These types of games like
For improv, the game itself doesnât necessarily need to be designed with it in mind (although since weâre talking specifically about mechanical comedy, it does need to facilitate a kind of physical comedy to qualify). Especially in the context of improv, much of the creativity and hilarity of the scenes can come from re-purposing serious mechanics or props to create funny situations that subvert expectations of the game or genre. One example of this is Grand Theft Auto 5 roleplay servers, where people will roleplay as cops and pull people over for traffic violations, or players roleplay as other things like skeleton taxi cab drivers.
Execution Notes
When seeking to add improvisational comedy to your game, and specifically improv geared towards mechanical comedy, itâs important to think about who the player is performing for, and where those performances are taking place. While chat (voice or otherwise) isnât necessarily a requirement, developers should keep in mind what channels of communication and affordances are available to players, and how players can purpose (or re-purpose!) those in order to pursue their improvisational goals.
Some of the best and most hilarious improv moments emerge from the playerbase doing unexpected things with the mechanics of the game, and developers seeking to cultivate that should be on the lookout for these moments, and lean into those affordances if they emerge. âTuckingâ (hiding on-board another playerâs ship) in Sea of Thieves was an emergent player strategy that came from the affordance of being able to clip into the shipâs geometry when playing certain animations on their avatar, and thus hide from casual sight, but the developer Rare saw what streamers were making popular as a strategy (also known as the âninja pirate metaâ) and provided a series of âhide emotesâ in a content pack to facilitate this type of improvisational comedy (source).
A player who plays multiple games in a franchise (like Zelda or Assassinâs Creed) develops a familiarity with the mechanics and thematic elements of that franchise. This set of assumptions about what normally happens in games within a franchise can be used to create inside jokes, self-referential humor, running bits, and even subversive surprises that produce memorable humor!
The âillusory wallâ mechanic has existed in From Software games as far back as their first Kingâs Field games. Illusory walls are places in world geometry that seem like solid wall, but are revealed by a good whack from a playerâs weapon to be false fronts that often hide goodies or secrets.
The first appearance of the mechanic in the Souls franchise proper was in Demonâs Souls (2009). Over time, the player base became familiar with this mechanic, enough to expect and anticipate it.
What began as a novel secret mechanic transformed over the seriesâ lifetime into a joke that both players and developers riffed on. Players now use the gameâs message system to leave messages near walls – illusory or not – to egg players into attacking walls that are often not secrets at all.
The familiarity that players have with this mechanic allows them to set up attempts at gags that leverage the shared knowledge of the mechanic. The meta joke becomes not even the presence of an actual illusory wall, but the absence of them, and playersâ knowledge that the prize behind a real illusory wall can be so great that players will probably be successfully baited into the gag.
There are various design benefits to having franchise-related humor in your game. It can be a low-lift way to create humor – it allows you to use a known mechanic to set up opportunities for fun.
To utilize this component, there is a degree of developer awareness of the playerbase that is useful to aid in the continuance of a franchise-long âbitâ. If a developer takes note of the things that players are latching onto as jokes, they can be sure to include those elements in subsequent games in the franchise.
The risk with a franchise literacy joke is that if a player is coming to a game in the middle or end of its series (perhaps at its most recent release), a running in-joke may pass over their head. If this sort of joke is a small part of the game as a whole, though, this is quite a small risk. The benefit that it adds to the existing community probably outweighs that risk. It can even pique a new playerâs interest about where the thing that everyone else is laughing at comes from.
Similar to Franchise Literacy, the Genre Literacy component comes into play when a player is familiar with games that have some similarity to yours. Unlike Franchise Literacy, where that similarity is the series that the games belong to, with Genre Literacy, the throughline that allows for the production of comedy is the genre that the game belongs to. âPlatformer,â âRPG,â âroguelike,â and âvisual novelâ are examples of game genres. As the player gains experience with a genre, and builds expectations about what the common traits of that genre are, their literacy in that genre grows. That literacy is something a designer can leverage to produce comedy. You can subvert the playerâs expectation to create satirical or ironic humor, or you can play into those expectations to create heartwarming or resonant jokes.
Undertale is an RPG. The game is a spiritual successor to the game OFF, which itself was a 2008 entry in the genre. Despite its quirky and nonconformist tone, it makes use of many of the hallmarks of RPGs, including turn-based battles, character-focused gameplay, and random encounters.
One mechanic inextricable from the RPG genre is experience points (EXP). Players earn points as they perform various feats, from battles to quests, and they can use those points to strengthen their characters.
Undertale included the EXP mechanic in the game. During battles, players can choose to either end the fight passively, or eliminate the enemy. If they choose the latter option, they earn EXP. This conforms to the playerâs genre expectation, that if they successfully complete a battle, they earn experience.
Undertale takes this assumption all the way through to the end of the game. Near the climax of the game, the game takes this game-long assumption and leverages it into the ultimate comedic reversal: EXP does not stand for Experience Points, as the RPG-literate player would expect. It stands for Execution Points. It turns out that the player has been racking up points not just for objective and hero-like battle âexperience,â but rather the callous and evil âexecutionâ of enemies that they could have easily defeated peacefully.
The joke lies in the playerâs knowledge of the RPG genre, the assumed representation of a common mechanic (EXP), and the subversion of that assumption.
Genre literacy is a component that is more widely available to designers than franchise literacy, because it is not predicated on the knowledge of a specific game series. Thus, designers can more liberally make use of this component, and be confident that there is a higher chance players will âgetâ a genre literacy joke because theyâve probably come across a game of that genre before.
The exception to this is games that donât slot easily into a genre.
To make use of this component, a designer can identify the genre that their game is a part of, identify common mechanics within that genre, pick one to form a joke around, and build either a reinforcing or subversive joke around that mechanic. For example, open world games often encourage exploring the world to find secrets. One such common secret hiding place is behind waterfalls. Is there something you could put behind the waterfall to not just satisfy the playerâs expectation of finding something, but also create humor? Maybe a treasure chest is there, but itâs a mimic-type enemy? Maybe it looks like there is nothing there, but a whack of a slightly-concealed crack opens up a secret room? Maybe thereâs an NPC that tells you âI knew youâd look here, I was lying in wait to attack you!â Using a known genre mechanic to create an in-joke like this is just one of the ways genre literacy can be used in conjunction with a gameâs mechanics to create humor.
“Dramatic irony provides the audience with information of which characters are unaware, thereby placing the audience in a position of advantage to recognize their words and actions as counter-productive or opposed to what their situation actually requires.” –Wikipedia
When applying the concept of dramatic irony to games, you can look at the player as the audience and other characters – whether they are NPCs or other players – as the actors. In this dynamic, the player knows something that the other game actors do not know. This could be because they are an omniscient being (such as a god view in a management game), they have information gleaned from outside of the ‘magic circle’ (such as walkthroughs or exploits), or are simply lying (such as in a roleplaying game or social deduction game).
The player’s wisdom or knowledge allows them to, for example, anticipate an inevitable disaster or see the punchline of a joke or outcome of a prank before it befalls its victims. The comedy often comes from either trying to avoid that disaster or, more often, eagerly anticipating it.
In The Sims, a commonly told joke is to build a pool, wait for your Sim to go swimming, and then delete the ladder. The Sim has no idea what you are planning to do. They express excitement at swimming, making happy noises in the pool, and are blissfully aware that they are soon going to drown. While killing your own Sims can be comedic in its own right, it is this additional layer of these naive, trusting, simple AI constructs happily walking into their own demise that elevates the humour. You can look at this as a very clear form of dramatic irony, where the player knows sometime that their Sims do not.
The Hitman games play heavily with dramatic irony: your goal is to sneak up and kill your target, who has no idea you are intending to kill them. Dressing up as various disguises, like a chef, a DJ, or a clown, allows players to pretend to be something they clearly aren’t, letting them lie to or trick other characters. The fact that the NPCs do not know the player is a dangerous assassin and instead let them pass by unimpeded (or let themselves be lured into a room to be murdered and their clothes stolen) provides a situation of both tension and comedy for the player.
A common trait is a keen awareness on the player’s behalf of themselves as a player in a game, lightly breaking the 4th wall. This can interrupt a sense of immersion for players, especially those looking for more serious roleplaying. Leaning into this too heavily with a game like Baldur’s Gate 3 might interrupt many players’ enjoyment of the game. But Hitman, also a third person game with a strong fantasy, is able to thread this more easily because the gameplay fantasy itself relies on deception and on the player (and the character they play) having more information than the rest of the characters. Games that already have an artificial 4th wall, such as management games like The Sims where players aren’t embodied in an avatar, may be a particularly good fit for dramatic irony.
Stealth games in general provide opportunity for dramatic irony as players are tasked with sneaking, tricking, and observing other characters in the game, which gives opportunities for those NPCs to act out the role of a naive, unaware actor. This is also true in multiplayer situations where one player sneaks up on another, or one group plans for another’s demise. Think of a game like Sea of Thieves, where one crew dutifully collects loot while another crew plans an ambush out of sight. In these cases deception is a key part of the dramatic irony, so multiplayer competitive games are good pairings while multiplayer cooperative games may need to be more carefully considered lest they erode trust.
Another context where dramatic irony is worth looking at are spectator games, where the audience is the livestream viewership. There can be comedy in watching someone play a game and make mistakes leading them to disaster that are obvious to the viewer but which the player is blind to in the moment. Asymmetric multiplayer games like Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes (two players trying to communicate complex information under tension) lend well to viewers experiencing dramatic irony when they have all the information.
When players must manage, direct, or manipulate creatures or characters in a game, it can provide an excellent ground for comedy when those agents are numerous, difficult to control, or have a mind of their own. This is the gameplay form of “herding cats” or trying to juggle an impossible number of items at the same time. A comedy of errors may ensue, as a player tries to gain control over a situation in which they have the disadvantage, or give commands to a creature that obeys imperfectly.
A prior Polaris whitepaper titled Disobedience in Games covers this topic in much more depth and with an eye to dynamics beyond comedy.
In the classic game Lemmings, the players must give simple creatures commands like dig or build, which they will then do until the player tells them to stop. Without commands, the creatures will simply walk in one direction until they hit a wall and turn around. As a result, lemmings notoriously walk off cliffs to their death. The game is an exercise in managing a group of creatures with very simple AI, but armed with very limited commands and precarious situations. When that first lemming splats on the ground, the player knows the rest are soon to follow if they can’t stop them – but sometimes stopping them from falling to their death in one spot leads them to their demise elsewhere.
Many management games that involve people or factions play with this kind of comedy. In Dwarf Fortress, your dwarves notoriously consider your orders more like suggestions, and it’s not uncommon to discover that a dwarf that has been slowly growing more and more unhappy from reliving a previous trauma suddenly start a brawl in your tavern, and next thing you know you have twenty dead dwarves. Tycoon and strategy games often have groups of characters (visitors, factions) that have an attitude toward the player and can create additional obstacles as a way to signal their displeasure and give players more challenges to manage. For example, in a game like Crusader Kings, the player may need to satisfy the demands of several nobles to prevent rebellion, but appeasing some may anger others.
For a very different example, in the game Who’s Your Daddy? (also referenced in Asymmetry of Goals), one player acts as the Daddy who must keep their baby alive, and the other player acts as the Baby, whose goal is to get themselves killed by any means necessary. Tools the Daddy has at their disposal include putting dangerous objects like bleach or knives in out of reach locations or healing the baby when it’s poisoned itself. The player who plays as the Daddy is trying to assert control over the other player by thwarting their goals, but they have limited tools to do it. The Baby acts as an independent agent of total chaos for them to manage.
A lot of these games tend to focus on many independent agents – colonies, armies, followers, herds – rather than single actors. This gives players many objects to manage, but also provides a convenient warning system that things are about to spiral out of control: a single death might be manageable, but it may also be the first of many. Before giving the player the pile-on they might experience when, say, their lemmings all walk off that cliff, it seems prudent to give them a chance to realize it’s going to happen and recognize that tipping point as it occurs.
It’s worth noting that it can be very satisfying to successfully manage multiple objects or tasks at once and it’s easy to lean toward allowing players to develop that level of mastery over a complex game and many strategy games serve exactly that kind of fun. However, if your focus is comedy, players need to feel overwhelmed and challenged to manage a growing disaster. If you arm them with the perfect tools for the job, they’ll overcome this challenge and the tension of managing a growing catastrophe evaporates. If you do want to inject this kind of comedy into your game, it’s important that you allow players to fail, and find ways for even expert players to be overwhelmed and suffer defeat. You can still soften that failure by giving them ways to recover, such as with short session-based gameplay where restarts are normalized or with fail-forward mechanics that allow players to rebuild after suffering major losses. While trying to avoid a dreaded doom spiral, avoid removing the primary source of humour entirely.
Most of the games talked about here are focused around “independent agents” as character AI. In management style games this might center around character or faction attitudes, whereas in strategy games or a game like Lemmings it may focus on character AI pathing and actions. You could, however, extend this concept to non-character systems. Take the classic story of a player who builds their house in Minecraft and then finally lights the fireplace, only to accidentally set fire to their home, their village, and the surrounding forest. The frantic activity of trying to put out the fire with limited tools (a single bucket of water or destroying blocks to create a firebreak) while the fire spreads rapidly is very similar to the frantic activity of trying to protect and save your little lemmings from falling off a cliff.
There are two other components highly related to this: Executional Complexity is another way of thinking about ‘indirect control’ and the friction that difficult controls can provide, and Dramatic Irony describes the dynamic where you, as the player, can see what will happen with these autonomous agents but they don’t know what disaster that will befall on them
Limited Verbs is a component achieved by simply allowing the player a restricted set of actions in the game. Limiting what the player can do forces them to find creative ways to complete their goals. These creative solutions can lead to comedic moments.
Honey Heist is a popular one-page TTRPG in which the players have two potential roles: Criminal and Bear. Anything the player wants to do has to sit within one of those two categories. The situations are framed so that the player must make use of both actions to be successful, but Bear actions may not always be an obvious choice. Because of this, the players are forced into making hilarious decisions.
Untitled Goose Game (referenced earlier – itâs a funny game!) is a game that asks the player to complete complex tasks with very few actions (they are a goose, after all). There are plenty of props and environments to work with, and the player has to figure out how to use them, their honk, their wings, and their wits to complete their task list for being a horrible goose.
By limiting the verbs/actions that your players can take, you force their hand to either enact a joke you have planned or, by being creative, devise their own joke within the restricted format.
Setting the stage is a really important element here. The Limited Verbs of Run/Shoot/Crouch/Stab are not comedic in most games because they feel correct to the setting. Just limiting your verbs is not enough. You need to be mindful of the context you are placing them in.
Now, the use of Limited Verbs is not limited to comedic games. Though you can have comedic moments from these that the developers did not plan. For example, having deep meaningful conversations while always having your gun trained on anyone in front of you.
Limited communication, for our purposes, is when a game mechanically restricts the ways in which players can communicate with NPCs in single-player games or with each other in multiplayer games. This is specifically about the mechanical affordances of communication, and how these limited communication modes can provide grounds for player-led comedy. This limited communication can look like only providing players one word or way in which to speak, or a limited palette of words or pre-written lines to select from and use.
Untitled Goose Gameâs (we canât get enough of this one!) in-game communication is limited to just being able to honk and to aggravate NPCs with shenanigans. But as the goose you cannot rationalize or explain yourself to said aggravated NPCs. Alongside limited communication, you have limited verbs: you can only show through your actions you are either contrite (stop doing what you are doing) or not (continuing doing what you are doing). And you can honk.
This limited communication can be used to allow players to express themselves mechanically, creating moments of hilarity. Players can honk to bully, to tease, to apologize, and when combined with the limited verb palette, creates highly expressive moments of mechanical comedy.
While Phasmophobia does not limit the ways in which players can communicate with each other in game, it does limit the amount of words that ghosts will respond to. Having ghosts to âlistenâ in playersâ voice chat allows these ghosts to be able to trigger haunts and other scary actions based on whether or not players say specific words. A lot of these âtrigger wordsâ are fairly benign and diegetically coherent, such as âShould we leave?â âAre you close?â, and more targeted words for narrowing down your guesses as to which ghost it is, such as âAre you a child?â or âAre you a boy/girl?â The game even acknowledges certain swear words as âtriggerâ words to make the ghost more hostile.
Phasmophobia using a limited range of words that ghosts will acknowledge/respond to can create mechanically funny moments as comedic relief in the otherwise tense horror game. Allowing players to riff on these âtriggerâ phrases provides moments to undercut the tension of the game. Asking a particularly terrifying ghost âAre you a child?â, knowing full well itâs an adult, allows players to claw back some control over the frankly scary scenarios Phasmophobia creates. It also makes use of the element of juxtaposition to draw out funny situations in the usage of words outside of their logical context.
The application of limited communication is not limited to how the game responds to a limited palette of communication methods. As youâll see in our case study of Peak, restricting player-to-player communication in multiplayer games can also create a fertile ground for funny situations. Limiting communication means limiting information, and the ability to properly execute teamwork. This can lead to playersâ goals diverging as they move out of range only to converge with conflicting ones once they find each other again.
Asymmetry of Goals occurs when the players in a game are given different goals to complete. Often players are given directly opposing goals, for example in games such as Among Us or Whoâs Your Daddy.
In a basic game of Among Us there are two roles: Crewmate and Imposter. The Crewmates want to live and kill the Imposters. The Imposters want to live and kill all Crewmates. By setting the stage with these opposed goals, Among Us lets the players create the comedy by adding secondary elements of restricted communication and hidden information.Â
As a player you know that some of the others on this station are Imposters and some are Crewmates but you donât know who is who. An Imposter needs to make sure they are not found out and to do so they will often try to act out the goals of the Crewmates to hide in plain sight.
Another example is Whoâs Your Daddy (also mentioned earlier), a game in which the Babies try to die and the Dads try to stop them. These opposed roles immediately create a stage for comedy.Â
The constant battle between the Babies and Daddies over knives, poison, fire, and more is what sets the stage for hilarity.
This component shines when used in combination with other comedic elements. Among Us shows how restricted communication and hidden information can really take the Asymmetrical Goals to the next level of humor. Where Whoâs Your Daddy makes use of Props and Improv as its stage for comedy to be created.
A lot of the comedy in Asymmetry of Goals depends on exactly what those goals are and if together they create a humorous proposition. Dads trying to save babies who want to die, a stage set for dark comedy. Whereas Among Us relies on the other elements to create a comedic experience, other games have a similar concept but with a more serious tone and more grounded activities they stay away from comedy.
The major risk to this framework comes down to if there is a power imbalance. If it was super easy to spot the imposters, Among Us would fall flat.
Juxtaposition is contrasting two distinct and separate things side-by-side for an effect. Juxtaposition isnât just the purview of comedy writing, but can give space for highly humorous scenarios. In comedy writing, juxtaposition can often take the form of forcing two very separate characters to interact together (i.e. buddy comedies with distinct personalities, villains and hench people with different levels of seriousness, etc.) or putting characters into contrasted situations (i.e. such as an unserious character in a severe world, or vice versa). Juxtaposition is the contrast between the two distinctive elements, and the humour that arises is because of those two elements put into direct proximity with each other.
The Hitman games are a great example of juxtaposition in a mechanical sense. The game offers very serious mechanics (i.e. assassination) but which can be combined with outlandishly silly or cartoonish outfits players can wear to perform these mechanics.
Itâs the juxtaposition between the severity of the world and the ways you interact with the world as a player with the affordances available for disguising yourself. Both are mechanical options available to the player and serve a purpose coherent with the gameâs main ethos and motivation: disguise yourself to successfully eliminate your targets. Players can choose more serious disguises if they wish, or they can choose more outlandish disguises to create humorous juxtaposition. But both are available to the player that contrast against each other to inject levity and absurdity into scenarios that subvert the gameâs more edgy wrapping.
Other games like Surgeon Simulator also employ juxtaposition in their set-up more explicitly: Surgeon Simulator contrasts the seriousness of being a surgeon with operating on unconventional patients with unconventional tools.
Like Hitman, Surgeon Simulator is contrasting a serious tone with silly player affordances to inject levity and subversion into the gameâs overall experiences. Both are designed opportunities (unconventional tools, unconventional disguises) that allow for player expression and humorous co-authorship.
Trombone Champ, on the other hand, uses juxtaposition by contrasting its mechanical affordances with genre expectations of a rhythm game. Injecting absurdly difficult controls into a genre noted for its mechanical mastery with its audience creates humorous scenarios for players struggling to be the Trombone Champ they want to be.
The above examples are so effective because they are subverting or customizing the core player fantasy of each game. With Trombone Champ, we see a subverting rhythm genreâs desire for mastery. With Surgeon Simulator, itâs subverting the fantasy of being a surgeon, a highly precise and technical occupation with caricature and outlandish-ness. With Hitman, itâs subverting the âicy coolnessâ of the professionâs mystique with silliness. The contrast becomes funny because itâs not just two distinct things playing off of each other, but because it resonates with the genreâs expectations and typical player fantasies.
The risk with juxtaposition is if the juxtaposed elements feel too discordant or incoherent, and rather than creating moments of humour or levity, break the overall experience of the game.
Intentionality matters in making it connect for players. Consider why the juxtaposition is funny and what itâs saying about your overall world and game experience. Building the juxtaposition off of player expectations involves players more directly in the experience, as well.
Dark comedy is a genre that places taboo at the centre of its commentary, often using humour to either make light of certain subjects, to make people uncomfortable, or to provide subversive commentary about the topic. Dark comedy can be used in satire, but is distinct from satire in that dark comedyâs focus is on the taboo first and foremost.
Whoâs Your Daddy? is a primarily multi-player game where the core conceit hinges on dark comedy. One player plays as a dad, trying to safeguard his house, while the other player inhabits the baby, who is actively in pursuit of the dangerous elements around them. The conceit of the game establishes the premise, allowing both players to consent into the taboo play of the game, which gives space for the discomfort to become humorous rather than cruel. Then the jankiness of the physics, the competing player goals, allows for players to perform dark comedy to both create levity but to provide commentary on the absurdity and difficulty of parenthood.
Little Inferno uses dark comedy to satirize consumption and consumerism. In Little Inferno, players inhabit a snow-laden world where they are isolated and cold. In order to warm up, the player orders packages from an ever-expanding catalogue, and once delivered, these packages get used only as fodder for your fire. Order more packages to keep the fire roaming, thus keeping yourself warm. It is directly satirizing overconsumption habits, both by showcasing the sort of mindless spending on things we will just immediately destroy and by setting these behaviours against a lonely, frozen world. But itâs also satirizing video games that intentionally waste player time, as well. But Little Inferno isnât just satire, it employs dark comedy in what you can destroy. Itâs not just cute teddy bears youâre setting on fire, but itâs also a school bus, which is full of screaming children when burned, or a mini-nuclear bomb.
Consent matters for dark comedy, especially when it involves player avatars or playersâ psychological safety. In single-player games, players are more able to consent to the dark comedy and taboo-breaking because they are the one in charge, if given enough room to prepare themselves ahead of time to know what they are getting into. In multi-player games, this consent matters just as much since players may no longer be the ones choosing to break taboo, but are rather having dark comedy put upon them. What levers do players have, both in single-player and in multi-player experiences, to give or revoke consent?
Dark comedy is simply not just being âedgyâ for the sake of being controversial, and is not a blank cheque for all kinds of cruelty. The discomfort that arises from dark comedy can risk punching down or perpetuating harm rather than subverting taboo if it functions to reify harmful systems of oppression. This is not just a concern in multiplayer, but in designed interactions in single-player games, as well.
With taboo, being mindful of why and how you are using dark comedy will help it land as intended for audiences. Knowing if you are punching up or down will help make sure your dark comedy is subversive and powerful, rather than just being cruel.
Lastly, weâre going to look at two game case studies that are good examples of mechanical comedy and use multiple components weâve identified in the previous sections. For each game, weâll give a brief overview of the game, talk about how the different components are used, and how it ties into the overarching framework.
Peak is a co-op game in which a player and their friends try to reach the summit of a mountain to escape a dangerous island.
This is probably the most well-known of the comedic components employed by Peak, namely its proximity chat. There is something so incredibly funny about hearing your friendsâ voices fade into nothing while they scream a stream of expletives.
The reason this happens is because of the use of multiple other components.
The above components make it so you are so much more likely to fall off the peak and then say that long stream of expletives while your friends laugh as they try to figure out what happened to you. Or that, if your character goes unconscious, your VOIP is disabled so the others try to find you, often ragdolling and falling off a mountain as again they laugh at you.
Players can chain emotes in Peak to create simple physics jokes by adding ragdoll from one specific emote to other emotes. This is an example of combining two separate components, Emergent Physics and Limited Verbs, into one funny joke!
The emote set is limited, but one emote within that set is weirdly expressive: the Play Dead emote. The physics-based animation opens up the possibility space for the results players can achieve with this emote – but still within the restricted emote ruleset. So, players can get creative and push the boundaries of the emote system using the Play Dead emote as a vehicle, chaining other more-rigid emotes to it to get them to sort of latch on to the formerâs more procedural animations, creating funny unintended results. Players have even created TikTok dances using this emote chaining.
There are a number of items in the game that while having a use also provide comedic effect. The Bugle is a great example of this, it has a farther reaching sound range than VOIP so it can be used to identify where a team member is. However, each time the player blows it it plays a different string of notes that is comically bad. If you cook the Bugle, because you can cook any item in the game, it sounds even worse.
Another example is the Coconuts which need to be cracked open to cook and eat them. One way to do this is to throw it at another playerâs head whereupon it goes BONK and knocks the player over.
Every item has a functional and a comedic use. One final example is the Banana: it can be eaten but you can also throw the peel at your friends to make them slip and, if timed correctly, fall off the mountain.
The Sims hardly needs an introduction – it is a classic simulation game that has deep roots in both mainstream gaming and professional circles. Since its introduction in 2000, it has been a staple that has managed to pierce the global public zeitgeist in a way not many games have. Why is that? Well, one of the aspects that has always shined in the franchise is its humor, which arises very naturally from its mechanics. It has a very flexible and permissive set of systems that allow for all sorts of player expression and experimentation, and that is a hotbed for humorous situations. Its humor is also very easily communicable, since its theme is real life; this allows for funny stories to be shared and thus the game itself proliferated.
The gameâs presentation of comedy is interesting: although some of its content is directly meant to be funny, like its item descriptions and some funny animations, its humor is not always an overt suggestion – the game, after all, is simply a simulation, presenting an ostensibly objective set of discrete elements for the player to use as they see fit – but rather an emergent result of the playerâs usage of mechanics, and the experimentation with their boundaries.
All of these things contribute to making The Sims a compelling game, and illustrate how mechanical comedy can enrich a gameâs player experience. Letâs take a look at some of the components The Sims employs to achieve elements of its comedy.
This article reviewing The Sims in 2000, its release year, sums it up very well: âPlay God, fix toilets.â One of the gameâs strongest comedic elements is its ability to create situations where two contrasting mechanical elements are combined to create a gameplay-based joke. It is possible to dance with the grim reaper after he has claimed a soul. It is possible to have an entire home dedicated to a seemingly normal family – except for the basement, which houses a Sim that is working tirelessly making paintings to fund their life. As the first articleâs sub header so pithily shows, even the gameâs premise is a humorous juxtaposition – you, the player, are the master of these virtual beingsâ lives, but you still sometimes have to reduce yourself to manually addressing mundane details like fixing plumbing.
The potential for this humor arises from the gameâs flexible systems: it allows the opportunity for lots of juxtapositive interplay of many of its elements – even ones that donât seem like they should work together. It allows players to place contrasting items, like an expensive statue and a clogged toilet, near each other. It allows the player to instruct a Sim with the âGoodâ trait to interact with one that has âEvilâ. The combination of the contrasting elements in the game is nearly endless, meaning that the potential for comedy is similarly so.
Another reason juxtaposition works so well is that it actually creates the illusion that the interplay between contrasting elements is not intentional, allowing players to feel deep agency in the jokes that arise.
The Sims demonstrates dramatic irony in the core premise of the game: you are the orchestrator of the Simsâ lives, and the Sims themselves have no idea. The game exists in a wrapper of dramatic irony.
The Sims allows for the exploration of taboo concepts in many places. It is a requirement of its theme: if this is a game about the full human experience, then it has to include as many elements of that experience as possible. Leaving out taboo subjects would make the experience representative, would impact the perception that this is a real simulation of life.
So, the game does include some taboo subjects. It has to ride an interesting line between mass-appeal commercial viability, and the full representation of the human experience. It seems to choose taboo elements that are already widely known – death, sex, cheating. You can play rock-paper-scissors with the grim reaper to bargain for a loved oneâs life. Sex is called âwoo-hooâing and creates a playful, obscuring animation. These direct representations allow players to interact with game-acknowledged taboo elements.
There are some taboo elements that the game affords, but not directly. Murder is one of them. Everyone has heard a story of someone removing the ladder from a swimming pool after instructing a Sim to get in, to watch them tirelessly swim, their needs becoming more and more intense, until they finally expire and are reduced to a tombstone inexplicably erected near the pool (in fact, another component in this very paper references it!). The game does not acknowledge the playerâs real intent here – as evidenced by its continued granting of Body skill points for the Simâs physical exercise. Yet, it also does not prevent it – there could easily have been a restriction on the ladder object itself, denying the player its deletion if the pool didnât have at least one point of egress, or a pop-up warning the player of a Simâs inability to leave the pool. The gameâs seeming obliviousness adds to the humor – the player has âgotten one over on the game,â by achieving a goal that is not allowed for in the defined actions of the game. However, the choice of where and when to be permissive versus restrictive is a choice of the developers. Itâs subtext that serves as a wink and nudge to players that reveals the developersâ true colors with a healthy dose of plausible deniability.
This allows the game to get away with remaining family-friendly, maintaining consent and opt-in-ability as outlined in the Juxtaposition component, while affording players space to play with very taboo subjects.
Taboo experimentations are some of the most frequently communicated experiences, because itâs not openly âdiscussedâ by the game, and so the only way for the stories to be explicitly told are between players. A well-known example of the communication of this kind of story is the Alice and Kev web series, in which a player created two sims with traits and invented personalities to match, exploring themes like homelessness and mental illness, two subjects that are not represented in the game directly but which the player was able to represent in a way they thought demonstrated those themes. The series takes on a more philosophical tone, but is often underpinned by the dark comedic moments produced by the interplay of the gameâs systems amidst the heavy player-invented themes. The creation and communication of these kinds of stories allow the gameâs audience to grow, and allow the game to seem larger than itself.
Of course, a discussion of The Sims would not be complete without a discussion of this component. Itâs another that is baked into the core of the game, and this one is probably the most direct. The Sims is all about indirectly controlling virtual beings. There are examples of almost every humorous element in the component: humor arises when a Sim disobeys a âdirect orderâ; it arises when a Sim obeys a direct order counter to their own self-interest, as with the swimming pool example; it arises when a Sim takes actions of its own accord that lead to mischief, or results counter to the Simâs wellbeing, like getting into a fight because of a systemic trait; it arises when Sims from outside of the home arrive and disrupt the established dynamic. Much of The Simsâ humor arises because its characters are independent agents. There is a constant balancing act the player is conducting to ensure the Sims follow their designs for how they want their lives to play out.
The Simsâ rich pool of systems gives the player a nearly endless toybox to arrange and play with for comedic effect. From intentionally-authored jokes to player-authored subversive humor that the game turns a blind eye to (but still winks wryly at); from slapstick comedy to dark comedy – it runs a wide range of humor, and could comfortably sit along all points in our framework. Itâs a great game to look at if youâre looking for ways to leverage systems for comedic effect.
As we wrap our discussion of mechanical comedy, we would be remiss not to acknowledge the comedic irony enshrouding this discussion itself: that we are attempting to define the elusive and irreverent topic of comedy by way of an academic paper. To pin down what are often moments of spontaneity and joy in (digital) ink. What is the classic saying?: âIf you have to explain it, itâs not a good joke.â
Because, indeed, there is often an intangible quality to humor, a secret ingredient that you can taste but not quite define. We all know some of the best jokes are contextual, instinctual, and you can’t always overplan for them. Even the most well-crafted witticism contains a âreasonâ that it is funny, one that, if looked at too closely, partially loses its luster. (Ironically, I will continue.)
This is why no discussion of comedy would be complete without this final, bonus component: the intangible, undefinable quality of humor. The moment in Lethal Company that your friend sneaks up behind you and says something nonsensical over voice chat, scaring you yet also making you laugh. The hindsight hilarity of being decimated by a Rocketeer just moments before an elevator arrives in Arc Raiders. The time-honored tradition of jumping on other playersâ heads in every multiplayer game with a jump.
Sure, these moments are all likely a confluence of many definable factors, some of which may have even come to mind from components described in this paper. It may be possible to post-mort every reason why a joke was funny. But, in the moment of delivery, there is a spark between player and game that occurs so quickly, it beggars definition in the moment.
It may be possible to use some combination of comedic components to consistently craft that comedic moment. Or, to capture it, it may be as simple as: Donât take it too seriously! Make yourself laugh, tap into that human component of yourself, and allow for some relaxed, mysterious space amidst the rigorous analysis and application. It is possible that some aspects of comedy will always remain unnamed and undefined (and, really, thatâs probably good?).
But! For what can be named and defined, we hope that this paper has provided you with some useful suggestions for how to think about mechanical comedy in games. Our framework can serve to help you place your game (one youâre making, studying, or just enjoying) along a spectrum that can help you consider what types of mechanical comedy mesh best with the overall thematic goal (game-authored vs player-driven). Then, you can dive into our components list and start assembling mechanics to support a goal that you have a point of reference for, or analyzing existing mechanics using the content here as a data point. Finally, after our couple of case studies, we hope that seeing mechanical comedy analyzed from this angle helps you to continue thinking about it in whatever brand of humor is uniquely yours.