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[Ridley]

I pretty much just had a few questions, as I wanted to share all of the flavor/examination texts for my game but there are several hundred objects, and I don't really feel comfortable just literally sharing the entire planning document. But a lot of them are just references anyways. Here's some of my favorites:

Dog: “Man’s best friend. Careful, he bites.”
Mole: “The Gardener’s mortal nemesis.”
Goblin: “These spineless creatures nibble on rats and lurk in dark caves. They aren’t too bright either.”
Sand Worm: “The descendants of ancient basilisks, they feed on bandits and the occasional hapless hero.”
Spider: “It would be silly of you to expect normal-sized spiders.”
Mimic: “Creatures rooted in deceit and avarice. They eat everything from treasure to those who hunt it.”

Gate: “Wrought iron divides the rich from the poor.”
Ladder: “Also called the Ascension Device (Patent pending.)”
Pot: “An adventurer’s most valued commodity.”
Barstool: “It’s made of a very light wood. Almost as if it were meant for weaponizing.”
Vase: “A priceless work of ceramic. You’re going to smash it, aren’t you?”
Pipe Organ: “An essential for sinister ambience.”
Tent: “There’s no rain here. Here people shelter themselves from the sun.”

Sorcery Potion: “Always the color blue. Blue is a magic color.”
Grain: “A nutritious dietary supplement for all walks of life. But not edible in the context of this game.”
Feather: “Bestows the power of flight on the user. Just kidding.”
Spider Egg: “Spiders are the most anatomically versatile animal that comes to mind, having an unsettling number of both limbs and eyes.”
Leather: “The result of bovine sacrifice.”
Lumber: “The most abundant resource in Miscellania. Or at least, it used to be.”
Bottle of Sand: “What possessed you to scoop up sand? Are you just bottling everything?”
Basilisk Hide Cape: “The sound it makes on the wind is not unlike a snake lunging through the grass.”

I'd like to discuss flavor/examination texts in general too, and how they contribute to a game. But just feedback is also nice.

[solkar]

May be if you narrow your question it would be easier to give you some feedback. I guess the mood of the game is comical,isn't ?

[Capntastic]

Flavor text can work wonders to instill texture and tone into things that would otherwise be sparse.  They also do this in a totally unobtrusive way that the player can sink into if they wish, or ignore.

Katamari Damacy's flavor text for all of the items in the world, written from the perspective of The King of the Cosmos adds a lot to his character, which in turn informs the player of their motivations because the King is essentially the main questgiver of the game.  You see things simultaneously from his alien perspective and from your own, as the player, and this meshes to create the point between them- what the Prince's character knows secondhand from The King and what they are experiencing first hand.

Rain is free water from the sky.

[Evan Balster]

I recall being very amused with the Dungeons of Dredmor flavor-text; give that game a look if you want some inspiration.  Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup has a more neutral tone, often using historical quotes or passages of poetry, though it too has the occasional joke.

Personally, if your tone is humorous I'd try to make a good joke of everything.  Don't be afraid to occasionally get a bit long-winded in the name of silliness; if the player doesn't want to read, they won't.

[Ridley]

That's very interesting about the King of All Cosmos. I never owned any of the Sony consoles, so I missed out on a lot of alleged classics like Silent Hill, Final Fantasy VII, Wild Arms, and Katamari Damacy. That last is probably the one I'm most eager to play, if only for how unique it is (also its absurdity value)...maybe I'll run it with an emulator someday, or pick up a used PS2.

On another note, is it alright to mix tones? Does a game have to be devoted to 100% comedy/genre satire, or can some parts of it be actually thought-provoking or genuine?

This sounds strange because that's a jarring transition to take on by itself, but I often times use something that blends well to either tone--like the description for "Beam" (Wooden column): “In theory, they’re holding up the roof.” You can smirk at it if you can imagine that in actuality they're useless, or it can cause concern for their structural integrity. The meaning is open to interpretation, and is mostly triggered by context.

Other things, like the Tent and Gate above, comment on the nature of their surroundings in a serious way, others hint at lore or biology...and so on. Some are really just simple descriptions of what is an unordinary object, like Pew: “A long, ornate bench.”.

This goes beyond flavor text, so it's doubly important. Is it okay to mix tones carefully, or not make a joke out of everything? I feel like things then lose that feeling of the occasional joke, sarcasm, or reference being special.

EDIT: And I have another important, broad question, that's unrelated--but I'm nervous to start another topic so soon after creating this one. Would that be okay?

[Evan Balster]

Don't feel afraid to "mix" humor and seriousness -- just be consistent in your tone and style of writing.  If you're really trying to build a world, make sure all those little snippets of text contribute to the feeling of that world in a desirable way, as your Gate, Tent, Lumber and Pillar do.  The set of jokes I would make in the context of more serious writing, for example, would differ from the set I would make if everything was a crack.

Feel free to start another topic.  The writing forum tends to be a little dead for my taste and I wouldn't mind seeing it liven up.

[Graham-]

Those flavor texts are interesting and funny.

Starting new topics is fine. "Writing" is dead as Balster says.

There are no rules for mixing style. What you want is for the experiences your players goes through to connect somehow. If the player is like totally invested in the dramatic nuance of your character's emotional trauma, then a joke is bad timing; it breaks the flow.

You can create any pattern you want, switching from seriousness to joking, and there will be _some_ player who enjoys that. But, you have to consider what experiences people normally find acceptable, or risk alienating too many people.

Find patterns in media that you find engaging and do not. How do they place the humor? When does it work/not work? Apply these patterns to your own work. Look at how people normally behave. Do couples want to laugh in the middle of a fight? Do they want to after recovering from the end?

I think you can train a person in any style if you work at it too. Great writers (etc) build expectations in the audience.