In my brief career as a hobbyist independent game developer/producer I’ve encountered one area that I like particularly. It’s not the tired old seeing-the-whole-thing-come-to-life cliché, or even the watching-the-royalties-come-in part; no, instead I’ve come to realize that the best part of developing a game is writing the dialogue. Writing humorous dialogue in particular.

I’ve come to realize that my English is fairly decent for a non-native speaker and that I write dialogue in a fluid and relaxed style, filling my characters’ sentences with wit and occasional panache. Oh, and I’m modest too! But all is not well in the land of writing… Even if I disregard the fact that my storylines are haphazardly and organically evolved rather than thought through and planned (I need to work on that), there’s another problem that’s slowly starting to become more and more opaque:

My sense of humor isn’t good enough.

Oh, don’t worry. I’m not on some self-doubting angst trip here. I know full well that I have my brilliant moments and that I produce good stuff. But lately I’ve started to analyze the jokes in sitcoms and I see no reason whatsoever that independent games shouldn’t have the same intelligent jokes that sitcoms have.

“Did I hear you right,” a few of you exclaim. “Did you just say that sitcoms have intelligent jokes? Dude, it’s just a bunch of TV shows! Mass-produced garbage!”

I disagree! I’ve plowed through a number of complete series, and I’m pleasantly surprised by the brilliant jokes I’ve seen. Malcolm in the Middle, Seinfeld, 30 Rock, Scrubs, The Office, Two and a Half Men, Frasier – there are heaps of excellent comedy series one really ought to analyze if one wants to become a better humor writer for games. Before you question my sanity and/or taste in humor, and claim that shows like Family Guy or Saturday Night Live should also be part of the list of series to analyze, I have to mention that there are a few reasons I chose the series I chose as examples.

• First of all, the shows I mentioned have a great sense of continuity. There are references to earlier episodes, and the shows rely on a strong cast of well-known characters to bring forth the humor. In fact, a lot of the humor stems from knowledge of the characters. This is all very suitable for a game.

• Secondly, the shows mentioned have a great sense of inner logic. They may be surreal at times, but they follow more-or-less believable plots and act consistently and rationally within the internal boundries. One might argue that, for example, Family Guy also acts rationally within its defined set of rules: it has a rule that states that it will include random absurdities. But that’s more of a meta-rule in my view – it basically states that “the rule of the show is that it must break the rules” and I prefer to not judge that as rational reasoning and internal consistency. Even if it technically is.

• Thirdly, the series all rely on well-known settings. The hospital in Scrubs, Charlie’s place in Two and a Half Men and so on. I find this very suitable for humor in independent games where budget constraints makes it impossible to constantly include new locations.

• Finally, the jokes are often very verbal in the shows mentioned. Verbal humor relies more on good writing than on an actor’s individual quirks and delivery. This is a pretty weak point since most sitcoms do rely on individual actors, but I find that a lot of the humor is in the dialogue itself despite this. One just have to disregard the gags that aren’t applicable.

However, one thing that’s common not only for the shows that I mentioned, but for almost all good ones is that they aren’t written by a single person. The reason I feel that my writing is particularly inadequate in comparison probably stems from the fact that I’m a single person trying to come up with stuff – I lack the synergy of having a bunch of other people to bandy ideas with. If I want my games to be better I just might have to look for someone to co-write dialogue and storylines with.

Who knows, maybe I’ll find someone in time for Spandex Force 2.

This entry was posted on Friday, January 16th, 2009 at 12:53 pm and is filed under Indie Games, Observations. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.