While humor exists in some shape or form in many video games, unlike in film and literature, come... more While humor exists in some shape or form in many video games, unlike in film and literature, comedy is not considered an established genre of its own in video games. One of the challenges in defining what constitutes comedy in video games, however, is in identifying the elements that contribute to such comedy, particularly with the inclusion of interactively as a fundamental aspect of video games. In this paper, we use the concept of ludonarrative-i.e., ludic (gameplay-related) and narrative (story-related) elements-as the basis for analyzing comedy in video games. We categorize the existing methods of incorporating comedy into ludonarrative elements of video games into three primary and five secondary methods, which we refer to as comic enhancers. We also illustrate the use of these methods through examples of existing video games, and provide a summary of our analyses and their implications.
Although humor is a prevalent component of numerous video games, thus far it has not been convert... more Although humor is a prevalent component of numerous video games, thus far it has not been converted to an established genre of its own. Comedy—the deliberate act to harness and perform humor—represents one, but an important segment of the emotional range that games should aspire to cover in order for them to be considered an artistic medium. This study examines the prospects, but also the challenges, that interactivity introduces to comedic narratives. The theoretical substructure of this thesis comes from the academic field of humor studies, and from various expert opinions as well. Ludonarrative comedy is approached through examples that illustrate trends that can be discerned from games that introduce humor through their narrative and gameplay-related, i.e. ludic, elements. The findings confirm the initial hypothesis that there are enough conventions present for ludonarrative comedy genre to surface. As a conclusion for the findings, a proposition for a general framework for defining comedic video games is presented.
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Papers by Oskari Kallio