Laughing matters: Why there's no comedy genre in video games - AlphaBeatic. Funny titles punctuated the medium’s earlier days, but they’re few and far between in an age where publishers are becoming increasingly risk averse. That’s creating opportunity for daring developers. The only thing funny about this fall’s mega-hit Destiny are its comically large guns. The onset of fall doesn’t just bring a new TV lineup, it also means another huge video game season is here. The run-up to the holidays is the $100-billion games industry’s cash cow, a period that accounts for the majority of many publishers’ annual sales. This year’s release schedule is as stacked as ever with blockbusters. But looking at the pack, one omission is as glaring this year as in any other: Where’s all the comedy?
Humour figures strongly into TV and movie studios’ annual lineups, which is why some of the biggest shows and several of the year’s top-grossing films are inevitably comedies. Not so in video games. Why then, in a medium that’s supposedly all about fun, is there so little funny? Can video games be funny? Zoe Quinn thinks so | The Daily Dot. Zoe Quinn, the developer of indie game Depression Quest, has also spent time on stage as a stand-up comic. Quinn thinks that the lessons she learned as a comedian can be applied to making video games. She hosted a panel on the topic this week at the 2015 Game Developers Conference in San Francisco, highlighting the under-explored genre of comedy games. While there are relatively few entries to the comedy game arena, some recent ones could include Goat Simulator, which has players running around as a destructive goat.
Meanwhile, The Stanley Parable is constantly tearing down of the fourth wall. The game’s narrator yells if the player doesn’t follow their role in the story, as told by the narrator. “You don’t really see many games that stand as a pure comedy games,” Quinn said. “Normally it’s something that a game has some elements [of comedy], but there’s very few games where comedy is their first and foremost thing, which is kind of weird. But that might be easier said than done. Alan Jack's Blog - Funny Games: Comedy (and Horror) through Gameplay. The following blog post, unless otherwise noted, was written by a member of Gamasutra’s community. The thoughts and opinions expressed are those of the writer and not Gamasutra or its parent company.
The notion of games as a comedic medium is not completely foreign - companies like Lucasarts and Sierra managed to create comedy extremely well in some of their adventure games, a spirit which then fed into Double Fine and Telltale Games. Other games attempt to create a "comedic tone" through art styles (MediEvil, Borderlands and Bulletstorm spring to mind).
The secret to these games, it seems, is to create a simple, light gaming mechanic, and apply absurdist comedy through the graphics and dialog. To understand how we can create comedy that comes from gameplay, we need a better understanding of the art of comedy itself. Comedy, like anything in drama, arises from a form of tension. Take a look at this shot. Well, that wasn't what we expected! Of course this joke exists only to the player. Talking Firewatch, Tequila, and Crossword Puzzles with the Voice of Delilah. Firewatch’s Cissy Jones chats with Game Rant about her character Delilah, crossword puzzles, and two years of recording sessions that went into Campo Santo’s debut game. Firewatch is a game that is all about character, so obviously recruiting top tier voice talent was a major concern for Campo Santo. The game is all about firewatch volunteer Henry’s summer in the woods and his walkie-talkie conversations with his boss, Delilah, are the game’s driving force.
The chemistry and tension between the Henry and Delilah are crucial to Firewatch’s success and luckily both the actors that Campo Santo recruited nailed their performances. The playable protagonist is voiced by Mad Men’s Rich Sommer and the female lead is performed by The Walking Dead’s Cissy Jones. We had a chance to chat with Cissy a few days before Firewatch’s launch and talked about the unique recording sessions, working with Rich, and the game’s branching dialogue trees. Cissy: Hi! GR: Of course. Cissy: Awesome. GR: Sounds scary. AdventureX 2016 - Writing for Games (Panel) Untitled. The Witness has now been on sale for a week, so it seems like a good time to post a financial summary. Often, independent developers find these kinds of numbers useful in making their own plans, and the general public can find them interesting too. There is a wrinkle, which is that I can’t be too precise about the sales results on specific platforms, because often when we sign a deal with a particular store, we agree not to reveal their sales numbers.
I am actually not sure at this time which stores we are allowed to be specific about and which we aren’t, and I would have to dig up and sort through a number of contracts to be sure about it; but that is not a good use of time right now, since I am spending most of my day supporting the users who have technical problems (shipping games on PCs these days is really not fun). Finally, I want to make clear that we did not make this game in order to make money. Okay, so here’s what I can say: So, the game is doing great. AdventureX 2012 - Dave Gilbert (Wadjet Eye Games) "Learning from my mistakes"
Double Fine Adventure! EP01: "A Perfect Storm For Adventure" Kickstarter Lessons for Indie Game Developers. Classic Game Postmortem: Myst. Designing for Exploration and Choice in Firewatch. Designing for Exploration and Choice in Firewatch. Episodic Gaming For Indies. The Hand of Fate: Authorial Voice in Game Design. Empowered by Digital Distribution: From Innovative Developer to Independent Publisher. The Walking Dead: Crafting a Stylized World for the Mature Franchise. The Walking Dead: Crafting a Stylized World for the Mature Franchise. Saving Doug: Empathy, Character, and Choice in The Walking Dead. Pursuing Interactive Suspension of Disbelief. Characterization, Purpose and Action: Creating Strong Video Game Characters.
Unleashing The Wolf: Adapting Fables, Creating The Wolf Among Us. Unleashing The Wolf: Adapting Fables, Creating The Wolf Among Us. Classic Game Postmortem: Broken Sword. When Story is the Gameplay: Multi-Genre Writing for Telltale Games. Warren Spector's Blog - Telltale May Not Make Games, But They Do Make Magic. The following blog post, unless otherwise noted, was written by a member of Gamasutra’s community.
The thoughts and opinions expressed are those of the writer and not Gamasutra or its parent company. This is my first blog post on Gamasutra. Everything I post here will be on my own blog, too: But, my own blog will feature additional items that interest me but aren't necessarily Gamasutra-worthy. Enough prologue, let's get to blogging. I wanted to start my Gamasutra blogging career with something that's been on my mind for a while (since GDC, for sure, and long before that, truth be told). "At GDC, I was at a panel about Telltale’s games – a bunch of their writers were speaking.
Truth be told, the guy was right. Now, before people get their shorts in a knot about this, let me say a couple of things: Second, I love Telltale’s work. That last one is the most important to me, personally, something to bear in mind here. Magic? Pretty damn rare. Q&A: Turning a Telltale game into 'a Telltale experience' With multiple hit titles under its belt and four projects currently underway, The Walking Dead developer Telltale Games has become something of a powerhouse for story-rich adventure games. But what makes a Telltale game a 'Telltale experience,' and what makes its narratives 'just work'? Speaking with company co-founder and president Kevin Bruner, director of design Ryan Kaufman, and series writer Pierre Shorette, Gamasutra probes about new directions for Walking Dead's second season, the challenges faced by The Wolf Among Us, and what's on the horizon past Telltale's upcoming Borderlands and Game of Thrones adaptations.
Gamasutra: Starting off with the second season of your Walking Dead series, one of the things that is very different this time around is that the player is put into the shoes of a child, Clementine, rather than an adult. How did that affect the negotiation of agency or player empowerment? Pierre Shorette: It's unique too. Bruner: Yeah, it's an issue. Bruner: Yeah. Telltale Games: Bringing Great Stories to Life. At 3PM on a Friday afternoon in a small conference room in Moscone West, in San Francisco, off a hallway shaded from the bustle of the Wondercon comics convention, Telltale CEO Dan Conners stands before a small crowd of journalists and comic fans in cheap suits and rickety chairs for his panel, named 'Telltale Games: Bringing Great Stories To Life'.
He comes with awkward tidings: Sam & Max creator Steve Purcell, billed to back up the panel with his star power, has run into some complications. Today it will just be Conners, his companions, and the audience. A couple of people leave. Most stay. Conners introduces his compatriots, Heather Logas and David Bogan – designer and art director, two out of thirteen team members originated from the LucasArts pool, and collectively a tenth of Telltale's entire team. Reflecting back a year, Conners recounted the fan reaction at the last Wondercon, when he first announced Bone. Substance of the Game "The characters are great, so we'll explore that. Telltale Tells All (Pt. 1) - An Interview with Dave Grossman.
Telltale Tells All (Pt. 1) - An Interview with Dave Grossman By Frank Cifaldi Dave Grossman is the Senior Designer at San Rafael, California-based Telltale Games, currently serving as Lead Designer on the upcoming Sam & Max: Season One, the license for which was recently acquired by Telltale after the IP's previous video game treatment, Sam & Max: Freelance Police, was cancelled by its publisher, LucasArts. Prior to Telltale, Grossman provided design and programming work on a number of high profile games, including classic adventures The Secret of Monkey Island, LeChuck's Revenge: Monkey Island 2 and Day of the Tentacle at LucasArts, the Pajama Sam and Freddi Fish series for former Lucas co-worker Ron Gilbert-founded Humongous, and most recently provided contract work on a variety of games, including Voodoo Vince for Microsoft Game Studios and a number of serious games projects. Gamasutra: What exactly is your role on Telltale's treatment of Sam & Max?
DG: That is true. DG: Yeah. DG: Yeah. Josh Bycer's Blog - Tracing my Troubles with Telltale Games. The following blog post, unless otherwise noted, was written by a member of Gamasutra’s community. The thoughts and opinions expressed are those of the writer and not Gamasutra or its parent company. Recently I started playing the latest game from Telltale: Batman. But going through it, I'm finding myself getting more annoyed than interested in seeing it through. Telltale has changed a lot over the years, and I'm wondering if they've gone too far away from what drew me to them in the first place. Telltale's Transformation: Telltale is a studio that changed itself multiple times over the last decade. While GameTap did not last, Sam and Max proved to be their first big mainstream hit with gamers. Telltale was positioning themselves to be the adventure game successor to Lucasarts by combining great writing and storytelling with challenging puzzles.
Sam and Max Save the World was Telltale's first major hit among old-school adventure fans Going Soft: Playing a Story: Choosing the Future: Video: How Telltale adapted Fables into The Wolf Among Us. Telltale Games has made a name for itself as a creator of story-driven games based on established franchises, among them The Walking Dead, Game of Thrones and Tales from the Borderlands. So how, exactly, does the studio go about adapting and synthesizing an established work into their unique style of choice-heavy games? At GDC Europe 2014, Telltale's Chris Schroyer explained exactly that in a talk about how Telltale Games followed up on the success of its Walking Dead game by setting out to reimagine the "Fables" graphic novels as an interactive experience: The Wolf Among Us. It was a fun and intriguing talk that's worth watching, so if you missed it in person don't miss your opportunity to now watch the entire talk for free over on the official GDC YouTube channel.
Gamasutra and GDC are sibling organizations under parent UBM Tech. How is Telltale reinventing the Batman mythos with its new game series? Licensed games can be a tricky beast sometimes. You have to either adhere closely to the licensor’s standard and effectively make a spin-off game, or get a chance to go wild with creative freedom—at the risk of alienating potential players. So how do you walk that line? Telltale Games certainly has developed a formula for doing just that, and their latest entry Batman: A Telltale Series, takes possibly some of the biggest leaps with the Batman mythos that have been on display in years. Since Telltale launch Episode 3 just yesterday, we decided to take the game for a spin and see what it does well in adapting the story of Batman. As our own contributing editor Alissa McAloon points out, the game does a strong job of subverting expectations about Bruce Wayne’s family, and borrows some tricks from theatrical set design to guide players through a high-stakes adventure and help reintroduce them to familiar characters.
Video: How Telltale designs narrative-driven games. It's easy to talk about games as "narrative-driven" experiences, but much more challenging to actually design and create one that guides players through a good story while still affording them meaningful choices. Few studios spend more time mulling this problem over, collectively, than Telltale Games. From Jurassic Park to Game of Thrones to Tales From The Borderlands, designers at the studio have learned lessons about good storytelling in games from a wealth of different experiences. At GDC 2015 some of them shared those lessons in a panel moderated by writer Tom Bissell. It played host to some interesting conversations about creating stories in an environment where the process of writing and game design have increasingly become one, and if you missed it in person you can now watch the entire panel for free over on the official GDC YouTube channel.
Gamasutra and GDC are sibling organizations under parent UBM Tech. Wes Platt's Blog - How to write an adventure game with just one ending. The following blog post, unless otherwise noted, was written by a member of Gamasutra’s community. The thoughts and opinions expressed are those of the writer and not Gamasutra or its parent company.
No one makes you sort through inventory puzzles to make the chandelier fall during The Phantom of the Opera. You don’t have test your key-tapping skills to get to the helicopter scene in Miss Saigon. You’re not expected to defeat quick-time events to learn Willy Loman’s fate in Death of a Salesman. These would just be distractions from the real experience. Knee Deep is more interactive than these remarkable shows, yet our game is inspired from such an intense focus on characters. Set in the backwater Florida town of Cypress Knee, the game has you investigating a curious suicide as three characters: gossip blogger Romana Teague, local reporter Jack Bellet, and private investigator K.C.
I’ve written a broad script that affords choice, but characters have marks they’re going to hit. A guide to create the ideal adventure game - Feature - Adventure Classic Gaming - ACG - Adventure Games, Interactive Fiction Games - Reviews, Interviews, Features, Previews, Cheats, Galleries, Forums. What is an ideal adventure game? The answer to this question has eluded adventure game designers, developers, and players. Many so-called adventure games of today have blurred the line that, in the past, has so clearly defined the adventure genre of yesteryear. Recently, I have taken an interest in the issue, mostly to see if it is possible to reestablish this missing line. The goal of this article is to outline the elements that I think are required to create the ideal adventure game.
Although this topic is obviously very subjective, I hope to share with you something that I think you can at least accept as good guidelines for designing adventure games. Defining the adventure game Before we can consider what makes an ideal adventure, we must first lay down some ground rules as to just what constitutes an adventure. There seem to be fewer adventure games being produced lately, even from the traditional adventure producing companies such as LucasArts and Sierra On-Line. Storyline Definition. Dan Marshall's Blog - How to Design Brillo Point and Click Adventure Game Puzzles. In The Games Of Madness: 4-Layers, A Narrative Design Approach.
Astroblog. Traditional Adventure Games Are Rubbish | Extra Punctuation. Seven Deadly Sins of Adventure Games. How to write... an Adventure game. How to make an Adventure Game. Gamedevelopment.tutsplus. Where Are the Funny Video Games? Can a Video Game Ever Be a True Comedy? Adventure Author context paper. Adventures in games research - Feature - Adventure Classic Gaming - ACG - Adventure Games, Interactive Fiction Games - Reviews, Interviews, Features, Previews, Cheats, Galleries, Forums.