Childhood Revisited, Part 2

Do you happen to remember when games used to be funny? I'm not writing about the dark, sophisticated, sometimes pretentious humour we see in many games these days. I'm writing about the laugh-out-loud, colourful, silly humour which poured out of every single fibre of the point-and-click adventure games of old. Games such as Day of the Tentacle, Sam and Max, and Simon the Sorcerer to name a few, left us rolling on the floor laughing, clasping our cramping abdominal muscles, waiting for the pain to stop.

Very few games do that these days, and it's a bloody shame. Games based mostly on humour are a risky investment, and so, the bigger studios will probably never cater to our tickle muscles again. Some smaller developers however, such as the people over at Telltale games, keep at least a portion of the hilarity alive by releasing episode after episode of Tales of Monkey Island and Sam and Max. During my digging, which I mentioned in part 1 of my little series, I found one such treasure. Diskworld II: Missing, presumed...!?

Diskworld II: Missing Presumed...!?

This game is utterly hilarious. How could it not be, being based on the colourful Diskworld, concocted by the imagination of Terry Pratchett, and the lead character, Rincewind, being voiced by none other than comedy legend, Eric Idle.

The plot starts with Death going missing, and people who die, therefore don't stay dead. Whereas Death had up until this point always made a timely appearance when someone died to take the soul away, now he doesn't show up at all, forcing the souls to return to the body until further notice. This is of course unacceptable and you, playing the part of Rincewind, are sent out into the world to find the ingredients needed to perform the rite of AshkEnte.

The game breaks the fourth wall obviously and often, but that is a part of it's humour. It's not trying to subtly imply that the world you're playing in isn't real, it blatantly makes fun of you for being stupid for the silly ways you try to solve the puzzles presented to you, and then makes you swap a stuffed flamingo with a croquet mallet in order to get the stick from it. It is a silly game, but it is a hilarious game. The low resolution representations of characters, the silly puns, and the blatantly obvious jabs at real world people and events all work wonders at bringing the hilarity that is Terry Pratchett to life in this game. Just a shame that I don't have the first one as well.

And to answer your question, Mr. Idle; Yes I do miss them. I miss them dearly.

Why did developers stop making silly games? Was it because we started demanding more realism? Was it because we grew up and stopped laughing unless we needed a degree to get the joke? Was it perhaps because people's sense of humour differs so drastically that making serious games made for a safer investment? Whatever the reason was, I hope the indy development surge we're seeing right now marks the return of many of our beloved genres. Hopefully, the silly point-and-clicker will be one of them.