So in our current project, the main idea behind it is humor. I put up a picture of Portal 2 because it's simply one of the funniest games I've ever played. From Wheatley's stupidity to GladOS's dry delivery of dark but hilarious comments, the game is coated in a layer of Valve-y humor that isn't seen much elsewhere. What's key here is that it isn't all necessarily the dialogue that makes it funny (although that's a big part of it), it's the things you actually do that make it funny. There's a part in it where you receive a Companion Cube, but before you can even pick it up GladOS fizzles it. "Oops. Must have fizzled it on accident."
Stuff like that is pretty hilarious. Take a game like Frog Fractions. The game itself is pretty crazy and is littered with non-sequiturs and just crazy surreal humor, all while "teaching" kids fractions. What I hope to capture in Iron Boot and other games eventually is a combo of situational (like Portal) and surreal (like Frog Fractions) humor that plays nicely. I'm not going into any specifics, but maybe every now and then, you'll see an Estebee. And perhaps there will be a philosophical snail.
What I really, really want to try to do is make interactive humor. The idea behind interactive humor is that the player discovers a comedic situation through their interactions and playing the game. This has been a real challenge to design, because the interactions in Iron Boot are pretty limited: Moving and jumping on stuff. So that leaves me to make little jokes or visual gags with a very few instances because there's not a whole lot you can do with the Boot. But the ones I have come up with are pretty funny, in my opinion, but I can still improve and add upon them, so that's my next big challenge after designing the levels themselves. So keep checking in, and y'all have a good day!
P.S. If you have any ideas or comments about humor in Iron Boot or in any other games, let us know in the comments! Sorry for the novel of a post, but I enjoyed writing it, and I hope you enjoyed reading it. Special thanks to Extra Credits with their ideas on comedy in video games!
-Squabb
Stuff like that is pretty hilarious. Take a game like Frog Fractions. The game itself is pretty crazy and is littered with non-sequiturs and just crazy surreal humor, all while "teaching" kids fractions. What I hope to capture in Iron Boot and other games eventually is a combo of situational (like Portal) and surreal (like Frog Fractions) humor that plays nicely. I'm not going into any specifics, but maybe every now and then, you'll see an Estebee. And perhaps there will be a philosophical snail.
What I really, really want to try to do is make interactive humor. The idea behind interactive humor is that the player discovers a comedic situation through their interactions and playing the game. This has been a real challenge to design, because the interactions in Iron Boot are pretty limited: Moving and jumping on stuff. So that leaves me to make little jokes or visual gags with a very few instances because there's not a whole lot you can do with the Boot. But the ones I have come up with are pretty funny, in my opinion, but I can still improve and add upon them, so that's my next big challenge after designing the levels themselves. So keep checking in, and y'all have a good day!
P.S. If you have any ideas or comments about humor in Iron Boot or in any other games, let us know in the comments! Sorry for the novel of a post, but I enjoyed writing it, and I hope you enjoyed reading it. Special thanks to Extra Credits with their ideas on comedy in video games!
-Squabb