Comedy in Games Article by Simon Benichou, Illustration by Vivian Pham
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issue_01 2019 2019 STAFF MEMBERS Editor’s Note Thank you for picking up this book. This issue is the result of sev- Editorial Staff eral months collectively clicking away at our computer screens.. Amanda Leiserowitz As the Editor in Chief of Play! Magazine, I’m immensely proud of WRITING AND DESIGN my staff and contributors for coming together to help make this happen. I’m thrilled to have been given the opportunity and sup- Collette Quach port to incubate this project and see it through to fruition. WRITING Janel Catajoy You could say that this magazine was catalyzed by my six year ART AND DESIGN old self getting her hands on her first digital drawing software, pen and tablet, and never letting go. It has always been my dream to Lily Li create an art book, and the Creative Entrepreneurship Internship ART AND DESIGN (CEI) Program at UC Santa Cruz gave me the resources to finally Simón Benichou make my dream a reality. I delved deeper into my interest in print media at Funomena, during my mentorship under Art Director WRITING AND DESIGN and children’s book illustrator, Glenn Hernandez. I continued to Tristan Burnside explore print media at Chronicle Books with the help of fellow CEI DESIGN AND PHOTOGRAPHY intern, Shimul Chowdhury. When I brought this knowledge with me to UCSC, I encountered great interest, so I gathered a team of talented students ready to make this project happen. Editor in Chief In a world where the arts are serially undervalued and underfund- Reshma Zachariah ed, the intention behind Play! Magazine is to further our education as visual artists, and push for a more holistic education in digital artistry on the UCSC campus: to provide room for growth, a safe space for feedback, and an outlet for inspiration from fellow peers. This magazine seeks to provoke the mind while showcasing our talented contributors. We represent a new generation of artists and thinkers united under the belief that all media can be consumed through a critical lens. Together, we seek to create a space where students can inspire one another while honing our craft. This project was supported in part by a Creative Entrepreneurship pro- Special Thanks: gram grant awarded by the Arts Division of the University of California, Marcelo Viana Neto Santa Cruz. Yethzéll Díaz All images contained within are copyright and property of their respective owners. Articles represent the expressed opinions of individual writers UCSC Art & Design: Games and Playable Media and not necessarily those of the Art & Design: Games and Playable Media Department, UC Santa Cruz, or the University of California. Danette Buie Center for Student Success, Opportunity and Equity Glenn Hernandez Funomena vii PRESSPRESS PLAYPLAY //// TracklistTracklist 2 // Comedy in Games article by Simon Benichou, illustration by Vivian Pham 6 // Pixel Art pixel art by various artists 8 // Kilngods ceramics by Evie Chang 10 // Zeno Clash article by Kelly Lallemand 12 // Tension illustration by Morgan Tomfohr 13 // Evening Fog photography by Pace Mendoza 14 // Genre Euphoria article by Reno Rivera, illustrations by Erika Dunn 18 // 3D models by various artists 22 // A Treatise on Powergaming article by Reno Rivera, illustrations by Erika Dunn 26 // Serpent illustration by Sarah Bayrouk Gutierrez 27 // Ascending illustrations by Brandon Leung 29 // Wired illustration by Lily Li 30 // The Impkeeper illustration by Reshma Zachariah 31 // Sorcerer illustration by Janel Catajoy 32 // Learning Hmong article by Hughe Vang, illustration by Sarah B. Gutierrez 34 // Traditional Art paintings by various artists 38 // Post-Game Saudade article by Hughe Vang, illustration by Reno Rivera 43 // Sunsets illustrations by Brandon Leung and Reshma Zachariah Variant Covers by: Ari Liu, Brandon Leung, Erika Dunn, Janel Catajoy, Reno Rivera, Reshma Zachariah viii 0-N1S // Janel Catajoy, UCSC ‘20 viii ix 2 Writing // Simón Benichou, UCSC ‘19 Illustration // Vivian Pham, UCSC ‘21 COMEDY IN GAMES Comics // Richard Grillotti, UCSC MFA ‘20 From the witty writing of Portal 2 to the surreal gameplay of Katamari Damacy, games have various ways of allowing us to experience humor. But what makes a comedy game stand out? What makes you remember the hilarity, or make you want to go back and play it, finding humor despite already having experienced it? Let’s explore the different ways that games make us laugh. Playing along with Writing doesn’t treat you as an audience member, the game treats you the way it should, as the main character. In games, we find that the easiest form of delivering Most of the jokes are about you or directed at you comedy is through good writing. Take the Portal and your actions. The game has you participate in games, for example, namely Portal 2. You have the comedy. By making you the main character in not only some wonderfully eclectic writing, but the situational comedy show that is Portal 2, you you have the hilarious Stephen Merchant bringing feel like you are not only surrounded by comedy, immense life to the character of Wheatley, an you’re a part of it. apprehensive idiot who tries his best to make it seem like everything is going exactly as planned. Gameplay There’s a part where Wheatley is about to kill This leads us to our second method of comedy, you. After (not so narrowly) escaping his death actually doing something funny. The premise of trap while he monologues, he begs you to come a game often dictates its gameplay. Last year’s back. You have a choice here, to keep moving Genital Jousting, offers a ridiculous premise of (the most logical action), or to actually go back putting a penis inside another penis. Naturally, this and see what Wheatley has to say. You are then premise lends to humorous gameplay. But it’s not rewarded, not with points or a power up, but with always that simple. Take Octodad: Dadliest Catch, humorous dialogue that you wouldn’t get if you the premise of which is you are an octopus posing as were to continue on with your escape. Wheatley is a suburban father and husband. You are in charge surprised you came back, and begs that you kindly of controlling each of Octodad’s appendages jump into the deadly pit before you, offering all kinds separately, resulting in you sneaking around like a of ridiculous reasons why you would definitely want sloshed Solid Snake. The wonky controls have you to jump into this pit. The cherry on top to this whole flopping around, no matter how hard you try to act charade is that if you do jump in the pit, you get an normally. It’s exactly how an octopus would move if achievement, Pit Boss “Show that pit who’s boss.” it was posing as suburban dad. Young Horses (the dev studio behind Octodad) had many options in tackling how the game would play, but the bumbling Here, Portal 2 exhibits what you could call movement and awkward controls mesh perfectly to interactive comedy. The game sets up the joke, and create an outlandishly humorous game. Not only you perform the punchline. The game makes you is the premise humorous, the gameplay is as well. be funny. This further cements the power of Portal The gameplay informs the premise, which is not 2 as a comedic piece and a video game. The game only important for comedy games, but all games. 2 3 One of the most beautiful pieces of surrealist A less morbid example lies in the Scribblenauts comedy, and a key example of humorous series. The game presents you with puzzles to gameplay supporting a ridiculous premise is Keita solve, and you can write anything into your little Takahashi’s Katamari Damacy. The game is about notebook and it’ll appear. Now if the puzzle involved rolling up stuff into a giant ball, and when I say stuff, you transporting a man across a body of water, of I mean everything. But the comedy in this game course you could just write “Boat,” but what if you isn’t found in individual jokes, the whole game is wrote something like “Giant Winged Lizard.” Both a joke. “This is ridiculous, I can’t believe I’m doing would get the job done. this!” you say to yourself after rolling up your fifth human child. The game juxtaposes a relatively Games with dynamic emergent gameplay normal environment, featuring relatively normal like these (other examples include The items, with a ridiculous mechanic. You find Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild yourself rolling a giant ball of stuff through and Metal Gear Solid V), that is a normal Japanese town, and the game to say, games that you give you treats it as such a casual occurrence. problems and offer a variety of This is the essence of surreal humor, solutions, can give way to very subverting expectations and creating an funny moments. The game unpredictable and illogical world, while doesn’t necessarily prompt juxtaposing it against a seemingly normal you to be funny, or reward you environment, something that Octodad for making the most humorous does as well. And the video game, as a choice but very well gives you the medium, can place the player at its center, option to do so. The player finds a making them the star of the show, and the comedic solution to the open ended driving force behind the comedy. problem, and creates a funny moment within the game that they’ll remember. And maybe the Emergent Comedy next time they play the game, they find a different So the pattern we’re finding with the last three solution, perhaps more humorous than the last.