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[Zaphos]

I've been thinking about about games like The Big Adventures of Owata's Life, I Wanna Be The Guy, and whatever this Japanese game is called.

I tend to think of them as defining a sort of 'ultra-difficult' game genre, but now I think they're actually as much about comedy as they are about difficulty.  There's a really nice humor in the way that they constantly find new ways to shift the mechanics of the game world to cause surprise death.

So I was wondering: could this kind of physical comedy be separated out from the ultra-hard nature of these games, to make something which is purely a gameplay-driven comedy?

And also, have you seen other games which achieve comedy through their gameplay mechanics (as opposed to writing or art)?

[Hideous]

I don't have anything to say, except that the japanese game is called Syobon-action.

[Jimbob]

I'm sure Sexy Hiking can be classed as some sort of physical comedy...

[Saint]

This might be stating the obvious, but the way Syabon and IWBTG creates humor is by being unexpected; You have a lot of intuitive knowledge of how some games (platform games in this case) are "supposed to work", and the humor comes from being surprised when they don't work that way.

It would be hard to make an easy game whose main purpose is to punish the player for having preconceptions, so if you want to take inspiration from those games you might want to make the punishment near-nothing. Another way of approaching the problem would be to look at other common ways of creating comedy and try to apply it to interactivity, but I'm not sure to what extent this has been explored already.

[Ivan]

SUMOTORI DREAMS!!!!

[fish]

SUMOTORI DREAMS!!!!

[gummikana]

Also Stair Dismount!

[Zaphos]

This might be stating the obvious, but the way Syabon and IWBTG creates humor is by being unexpected; You have a lot of intuitive knowledge of how some games (platform games in this case) are "supposed to work", and the humor comes from being surprised when they don't work that way.

It would be hard to make an easy game whose main purpose is to punish the player for having preconceptions, so if you want to take inspiration from those games you might want to make the punishment near-nothing.

Does "being surprised when they don't work that way" require the game to punish players?  It seems like surprises could just as easily be positive or neutral.  To give some (perhaps weak) examples: what if Mario ran in to a goomba and he ... gave you candies?  Or if you were expecting a boss and you got an anti-climactic empty room instead?

SUMOTORI DREAMS!!!!

Haha, I had forgotten about these games!  But it seems Sumotori Dreams is almost just straight slapstick comedy, without really taking advantage of the interactivity side of things, especially since half the humor is in just watching the characters try to stand up after the match ...

[Saint]

Does "being surprised when they don't work that way" require the game to punish players?  It seems like surprises could just as easily be positive or neutral.  To give some (perhaps weak) examples: what if Mario ran in to a goomba and he ... gave you candies?  Or if you were expecting a boss and you got an anti-climactic empty room instead?

Not sure, I don't think you could keep the provocative nature of the jokes without actually abusing the player, and it would be a different kind of humor without Schadenfreude.

Also, a game that behaves unexpectedly is harder by definition so it wouldn't be so much about making the surprises themselves easier to deal with rather than to make the entire game easier.

... But you might be on to something. Syabon takes a lot of advantage of situations where players are used to feel safe due to artificially created "rules" that no longer apply, for example; if there is a way to enter a pit without dying, there is a way to get out. I guess you could create comedy by disabling rules that artificially raise the difficulty; for example locked doors that never can be opened without a key, bosses that can only be hurt at their one "weak spot", arbitrary time limits etc.

[Hideous]

I want a physics pie throwing game. That's comedy right?

[Radnom]

I want a physics pie throwing game. That's comedy right?

here you go:
http://fun-motion.com/physics-games/i-hate-clowns/
"The premise of I Hate Clowns is simple: You throw metal pies at clowns who are being inexplicably launched into the air like skeet shoot targets."

[Hideous]

... Everything has been done -.-

[deadeye]

Personally, I think anything with ragdoll physics is inherently funny.

[shinygerbil]

That little 1v1 level in Unreal Tournament 2003 with the pit in the middle full of random struts and bars was awesome.

On the subject of making a comedy physics-y game, it might be helpful to look at the masters of physical/visual comedy - silent movies. Imagine, say, Buster Keaton's The General: The Game.

[Alevice]

I remember a small GM mario parody game where Mario would always get killed no matter what.

[fish]

sumotori dreams is seriously one of the funniest things ive ever seen.
me and my friends laughed our asses off solid for like an hour when we first discovered that little gem.

its physical comedy GOLD.

also, games arent funny.
in general.
any kind of funny.

[GP Lackey]

The better the graphics get, the more amusing stuff like

is.

[Derek]

HERMES!

http://forums.tigsource.com/index.php?topic=485.0

[Hideous]

A physics game that didn't do a single attempt to remove any glitches could be funny (Of course glitches that crash the game would be gone.). Like, stuff like that crysis thing could happen more often and such.

[Melly]

A physics game that didn't do a single attempt to remove any glitches could be funny (Of course glitches that crash the game would be gone.). Like, stuff like that crysis thing could happen more often and such.

I think it'd lose the fun in it a lot if it were that way. What makes those Crysis glitches so hilarious is the fact they are supposed to be rare and difficult to happen in a game that strives for realism and perfection. then again, I could be completely wrong.