I was thinking, there are rarely games out there that include much comedy. In my current project I am going to include much comedy in the game (not to overdo it though) to make the game ''fun''. Is this a wise choice? I''m sorry but I''m not going to give any details about my game as I''ve had a few ideas of mine stolen.

the monkey island series.....play them.......might help

[edited by - AcRiD_aCiD on June 9, 2003 5:28:54 AM]

Well I''m the sort of person that will laugh at anything - so will love it, but the vast majority of the population have a fixed sense of humour. Adding comedy that you find funny might cut out 90% of your potential market.

In particular beware of the male/female humour divide. (Maybe not an issue in these still male oriented gaming times).

I think the problem with comedy in games is the same as tv, very hard to get good writting. Even with good writting sometimes it only appeals to a certain type of people as mentioned in an above reply. I think you might want to approach it like tv get a team together to write the comedy in your game. That way you can contantly tweak the humor. Only let in trusted souls or your ideas may become stolen again j/k . I see no reason why you couldn''t succeed, i''ve played all the monkey island games for the humor so you''ll have me as a customer.

Farts are funny, ever played MDK2? lots of farts in that game =) lots of comedy to!

The trouble with comedy in games is it''s difficult to know whether the humour will be lost on someone playing in a different language or with a different cultural background. A joke that may work well in English may not work at all in French, for example. Jokes about geordies or scousers probably mean nothing to someone from California. Publishers are looking to cover as many territories as possible with minimal extra work to the game.

That''s not to say this is a bad idea, though. I''d love to work on a game with an element of comedy involved. Possibly a symptom of too many games taking themselves too seriously, where the bad guy always has some kind of gizmo poised to bring about the end of the world. Again.

I have yet to see a cartoon-like first person shooter, where the weapons are huge mallets, boxing gloves on the end of expandable wooden extenders, dynamite, 100 ton weights, etc.

When a player hits a wall too hard when running, they could go flat and fall backwards, make pits in the ground if they fall too far, etc.

Of course, the better sound effects need to be accompanied with the various events.

I have no idea how well something like this would be received, or how long the game would be fun before it wears itself out. It was an idea that fished around in my head for a little while. It''s easier to come up with ideas when I''m spending time with a group and it feels like they are enjoying a certain kind of thing, and I would enjoy it with them.

I think comedy by itself is a great thing to include as long as it is well complimented by other elements. No One Lives Forever had good elements of comedy to it, but a lot of other things as well.

@Waverider -

You could be onto something great there

Honestly, the few ideas you''ve mentioned got me thinking about all the funky cartoon comedy stunts and ways they could be done into a FPS game.

Off the top of my head...

quote:
...boxing gloves on the end of expandable wooden extenders...

I instantly realized how interesting this idea could be used as either the ''sniping'' weapon of the game or the typical hard-hitting rocket launcher (non-homing version?).

One thing I thought of (IMHO, the most common ) is using anvils. The best I could come up with is ''Anvil Mines'', where you place giant Xs in spots and whoever steps in one recieves a pinochio lump on their noggin

There are a couple of issues to consider though, one being the smoothness in animation people would expect in the game, another is having enough solid and fresh character to get into the game (read no copyright infringements with WB, etc.), and finaly another is determining if this would be a reasonable venture into FPS style gaming (will common FPS player be inclined to play or would it be made _too_ childish? Too kiddie-like?).

I don''t know if this pertains to the original thread or not but if you want to continue this discussion, I''d suggest a new thread or something. It''s a good start, IMHO, and I''d like to help with what I can if you wish to persue it

- Christopher Dapo ~ Ronixus

I''m not daring to dive into any real development of game ideas right now, as I''ve been in a long re-evaluation of what I want to do with myself, and I don''t want to get involved in something I''m not sure about.

However, if you''d like to start your own thread, I could toss in more ideas as the discussion develops.

Waverider: i got this game called "cell damage" for the x-box, it uses cell-shaded cartoon characters in a racing/deathmatch type game. basically, you drive around (trying to win the race, get points by harming other drivers, or collecting flags) while bashing the other cartoon people with baseball bats, boxing gloves on springs, cartoony grenades and stuff like that. it is very silly and quite fun