Blips: Raggedy Dismount

Source: Why are ragdoll physics so funny?
Author: Dan Solberg
Site: Kill Screen

In my most recent piece for Kill Screen, I focused my thoughts about the virtues of physical comedy in video games onto one particular element: ragdoll physics. Essentially, when game design moved into a polygonal 3D space, a more realistic physics engine was also needed to make characters and objects more reactive to one another –more able to negotiate and interpret contact and what occurs afterward on a relational basis. Since many games still had such a large emphasis on killing enemies, death animations we actually rather prominent. Ragdoll, where a regular human figure turns into a boneless, floppy mass, was born out of this situation. Though ragdoll has gotten better over the years, it still often shows its flaws in moments where body parts can't find a settled resting place and spasm in perpetuity.

Finding humor in all this is definitely morbid, but ragdoll animations are so ridiculous, it's kind of difficult not to laugh. Lucky for everyone, games that focus primarily on ragdoll humor are more prominent than ever. I looked at Turbo Dismount for my article, which is basically the premise for a series of fatal Jackass stunts, complete with variable ramps and obstacles to hurl your crash-test dummy protagonist against. That said, I do think the scoring system in Turbo Dismount works against its humor to a certain degree. The funniest crashes aren't necessarily the highest scoring ones and repeating a level over and over to try for a better ranking eventually dulls the joke's edge. While there is still some good laughs to experience playing dedicated ragdoll games, I think my favorite instances of ragdoll are usually when they pop up unexpectedly in games that aren't trying to be funny.

Blips: Clumsy Controls

Source: Why Are Clumsy Games Like Octodad and Flappy Bird So Big?
Author: Janine Hawkins
Site: New World Notes

Let's keep the humor game train rolling with a piece by Janine Hawkins that discusses how the "bad" controls of Octodad: Dadliest Catch are actually a great thing. Well, I should hope so anyway; that entire game hinges on them. If you're not familiar with Octodad, it's a game where you play an octopus in a suit that is trying to pose as a normal human father. Of course he has tentacles instead of human limbs, so the results are less than graceful. Octodad is unweildly, but that's the point, because humor is the point, and as you struggle to get a grip on the game's controls, you end up causing some hilarious collateral damage. I got to play some Octodad on a PS4 back in November and greatly enjoyed my time with it. Yes, I was actually laughing aloud.

I find these physical comedy games usually make me laugh much more than scripted comedy writing in games. And, just like comedy movies, the audience has a lot to do with the enjoyment. Playing CLOP and Get On Top with someone else produces even more riotous results than it would otherwise. Local competitive multiplayer games have this ability as well, even when they're not setting out to be funny. Nidhogg isn't a comedic game, but I found myself laughing quite a bit in the social situation in which I played it, perhaps I found my own poor luck amusing, given the low stakes of a tournament with nothing on the line. Perhaps it's not even that physical comedy is necessarily more effective at generating laughs in games than scripted scenes, but that in many cases, these physical comedy games encourage an audience of more than one, which acts in the humor's benefit.

Blips: The Joke's On You

Source: Polygon Cartoons: Humor and Sadism in Video Games
Author: Pauli Kohberger
Site: Madam Stardust

As I'm currently working on a piece about physical comedy in games as it relates to something like Turbo Dismount, I was pleased to find Pauli Kohberger's piece that approaches video game comedy from a slightly different angle. Kohberger's starting point is a little-known (I'd never heard of it) PS1 game called Welcome House, which is setup as a slapstick comedy where a nephew goes to visit his uncle. The uncle has laid out a bunch of booby traps and sight gags that pummel the nephew, presumably for laughs, but according to Kohberger, it's not all that funny. There is a fine line where physically harming a character can be interpreted as funny or mean-spirited, which has a lot to do with the power dynamics between the characters. Kohberger draws the comparison to Bugs Bunny and Elmer Fudd, and how there was a mandate that Bugs always had to be provoked before pranking poor old Elmer. Spy Vs Spy is also brought up, with an interesting backstory that I'll leave for you to check out for yourself.

I think these comedic virtual characters have very doll-like quality to them which can make them fun to torture, knowing no one is really being hurt. It's the same instinct that prompts children to blow up action figures with fire crackers, but in a game, there's no physical danger and you always have a fresh doll to use, no matter how many times you've blown it up. On the other hand, this can also make video game physical comedy seem too fake, since the lack of consequences are so instantly apparent. In comic strips, you have to at least wait until the next day to see the characters reverted back to their default selves. I think this is why some video game physical comedy can feel more violent than in other media that feels more grounded in reality. Then again, Elmer Fudd has been shot, crushed, and electrocuted, and no one was under the impression that was real either. I don't have a resolution on this yet –just something I've been thinking about.