Funny Game Where With Floppy Charatcers

The hugger-mugger to writing a truly funny game like Guardians of the Milky way? Vulnerability, tragedy, and free beer

Would Curiosity'southward Guardians of the Galaxy have been so funny without free beer? Mary DeMarle, executive narrative manager at Eidos Montreal, reveals all.

Curiosity's Guardians of the Milky way is funny. A funny game! There aren't that many of those – not really. Gaming famously tries a bit too hard when it comes to comedy; a quick look at Knuckles Nukem, the latter Borderlands titles, and fifty-fifty that Activision-backed Deadpool game prove that. The games that practise genuinely manage to enhance a smirk from players are usually steeped in satire, mocking other games and poking fun at archaic formulae in mechanics and storytelling alike (here'due south looking at you lot, Conker).

And then what does it have to make a game – and an activeness game, at that – actually funny? Curiosity's Guardians of the Galaxy launched in 2021, and quickly became historic for its stellar writing. Our ain Alex Donaldson even said it was one of the best-written games of the year in the headline for his review. You couldn't avert the quality of the writing in Eidos Montreal's Marvel debut, even if you tried; it was right at the core of the experience. So how did senior narrative managing director, Mary DeMarle, and her team pull it off? Well, first of all, they came in without whatsoever one-act feel.

"When we first got the project I remember there was a chip of a struggle of readjusting our mentality," DeMarle tells me. "For me, it was especially like 'oh, you want me to write one-act?!' That'southward really scary to me. I do accept a sense of humour, but my sense of sense of humor tends to be a little more than dark… and when you're looking at something like Guardians of the Milky way – where it's very low-cal-hearted – I was just like 'oh my god'."

DeMarle tells me she complained to artistic director Jean-Francois Dugas nearly the one-act aspect of it a lot. She tells me she complained to many people about it a lot. "Knowing, when y'all're working on a game, that it'south a long procedure and you're gonna be hearing these jokes again and once again… and you oftentimes become into the situation where it was funny the first time you heard information technology, but non the 15th time. I was very intimidated by it."

Star-Lord takes center stage in the Guardians game – and he's a more comlpex character than you'd expect.

So she got to work building a team; a crack team of writers that would all sit down in a writers' room and bounce off each other. From what DeMarle was saying, it sounds like the Guardian of the Milky way writing sessions worked much in the aforementioned way you lot hear classic comedy testify sessions working; this could have hands take been The Simpsons or Fraiser in its setup.

"When the comedy comes from the characters, it's like you lot're non trying to make wisecracks – you lot're just trying to be completely true to who these characters are, and the one-act comes from that," DeMarle explains. "And once nosotros realised that, and we realised the strength of the team – where one person would throw at a joke and then someone else would exist similar 'no, no, no this!' – information technology all builds from in that location."

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DeMarle explains that information technology was amazing for her to picket how the writers no longer knew who'due south joke something was as it was developed, passed around, and fabricated funnier past the collective. "They were like 'wasn't that your joke?' And so 'No, way it was yours!'. At one bespeak, I actually had to look into our file organization and say 'no, no it was you lot [Ethan Niggling], you lot wrote that line!' and he'south like 'oh, I did?' [laughter]".

DeMarle goes on to explain that, after 20 years in the manufacture, one of the about important lessons she'southward learned is almost collaborating properly. For her, managing a squad of writers and filtering through their submissions and making certain it all works when information technology'due south unified, collaboration is the key to making sure everything comes together as planned.

"On this projection, when it started, I wanted to make sure that we did script reads," she explains. "And then, one of the things at Eidos is that at 4.30pm on a Friday, they open up up the beer refrigerator, and everyone tin can relax. And I said 'okay, we're gonna phone call a meeting at 4:30pm and book information technology for like ii hours, and nosotros are all gonna sit in a room together with our beer, and we're gonna read the script'. But the key part is that if yous wrote the script, you lot cannot read it – yous accept to sit there and listen to your part being read out. And what was actually cracking about that is – with the beers and everything and dealing with funny scripts – is that it created such a relaxed atmosphere and actually bankrupt down the barriers in the room. It really got everyone to trust each other."

It's the interplay betwixt the Guardians that makes the game feel so authentically funny.

That trust, it turns out, is pretty important when you're dealing with a game like Guardians of the Galaxy. Sure, on the surface information technology's well-nigh a misfit bunch of space pirates embarking on a infinite rock opera around the creation, fighting sci-fi baddies and saving the universe… merely underneath that, it'due south a game with a surprisingly dark border. The narrative is congenital effectually primal pillars of trauma, grief, loss (at that place'due south that dark side DeMarle was on about rearing its head), and the constant contrast of chosen family versus a family unit of abusers, a family unit killed, or a family stolen from you actually hammers those key points dwelling.

"Writing – like all creative processes – tin make you very vulnerable, and a lot of times you lot don't want to share things or desire people to see what you've created," continues DeMarle. "Merely we very quickly learned that sharing with the group makes it stronger. And when we figured that out, everything took off from there; it really got everyone to trust each other. We'd do these script reads and everyone would take a character, and so as we started doing the voice work, the actors began coming into to tape stuff, as well – and if they were on a Friday, we would invite them into the room and then they would come in, and they would they would actually read the parts for us on these starting time scripts. With a beer."

This vulnerability and collaborative spirit lead the team to the Guardians' secret: that , for this game, comedy wouldn't come up from constant, ceaseless wisecracks and one-liners, but instead from the characters themselves – from their position in the world, the way they see things, and the manner that they interact with each other.

"In existent life itself, I've been in situations where I've said things just from my truth and everybody starts laughing… And I'grand like, 'what? Why was that funny?' And it'southward because what's serious to me is very funny to someone else, and their lived experience. So it'due south these characters existence truthful to how they are and the mix between them that blows this whole thing into beingness then funny."

Moments of comic relief aid lengthened tension when the game gets a fleck... much.

That comedy/tragedy mix is important to DeMarle. In fact, I think it's what makes Guardians of the Galaxy quite so funny; for every genuine laugh-out-loud moment, there's an emotional (probably raccoon-sized) gut-dial waiting right effectually the corner. And, by contrast, simply when you call back the game has spent too long wallowing in melancholia, y'all've got Groot doing something stupid, ambrosial (or both) to cheer you up.

"I like dealing with heavy emotions," says DeMarle – who also worked on both Deus Ex: Human being Revolution and Deus Ex: Mankind Divided, for what it's worth. "I like getting into the truth of an emotion, and into the truth of the thing, and beingness vulnerable. I like seeing that in films that I lookout, I similar seeing it in reading books, I similar it in everything. I personally recollect some of the best things that I have seen are the stories where they get you laughing and and then, boom, they suddenly undercut it. And yous're like 'oh, wow'. Or there's the contrary where you're like in this heavy scene and you're like 'oh my god! I'chiliad gonna offset crying' and then – bam – the one-act helps you permit it out. The interplay of the two is very important."

Peradventure that'due south why Guardians of the Galaxy has been such a success – why it'south a firm fan-favourite for its humour, and a darling of the awards scene for its narrative at big. Peradventure that's why I've been recommending it to all my non-gaming friends every bit something to play if they fancy a Hollywood-level production, total of all the ups and downs you'd wait from 1 of the improve Marvel cinematic efforts. Perhaps that's why this game is going to stick around in the minds of players every bit a archetype, for a long hereafter, and would work fifty-fifty outside of its Marvel licensing.

With Guardians of the Galaxy, DeMarle and the team at Eidos Montreal didn't just make a decent licensed game – an unthinkable feat in and of itself, once upon a time – they managed to create a masterclass in comedy writing; something we tin all learn valuable lessons from, both in games and in narrative mediums beyond them.

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Source: https://www.vg247.com/how-to-write-a-funny-game-guardians-of-the-galaxy

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