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In our final episode of the season we speak with Rob Gallager about his chapter “That Joke Isn’t Funny Anymore (Or Is It?): On Hitman and Gamer Humour(lessness).” We chat about Hitman as a comedy of contingency, the wonders of Sapienza, and contemplate the moral implications of Hitman’s victims.

On this episode we speak with Caroline Bem about their chapter “Humour in Pornographic Browser Games: From Undertale to Uddertale, a Case Study.” We chat about approaching game studies from the outside, sexuality in video games, and the link between games, sexuality, and humour.

On this episode we speak with Rory Summerley about his chapter “A Tool of Efficiency and Consumption to Destroy Man”: Irony and Sincerity in Travis Strikes Again: No More Heroes.” We chat about floundering when trying to make jokes during academic conferences, the difference between irony and parody, and the concept of abusive game design.

On this episode we speak with Samuel Poirier-Poulin about his chapter “Mark Matthews Stars in ‘Anatomy is Hard!’ A Struggling Student Tries to Make the Grade with His Professor”: Sexual Humour and Queer Space in Coming Out on Top.” We chat about queer humour in contrast to trends of queer trauma in games, and the positive public reception to Coming Out on Top, and tendentious jokes.

On this episode we speak with Darshana Jayemanne and Cameron Kunzelman on their chapter “Cybernetic Irony: Racial Humour from Mecha-Hitler to Nuclear Gandhi.” We chat about different cultural approaches to game humour, cybernetic irony, and the colonial roots of racialized humour in games.

On this episode we speak with Mateusz Felczak on his chapter “Emergence and Ephemerality of Humour During Live Coverage of Large-Scale eSports Events.” We talk about the difference between narrative game humour and live esports broadcasts, and how audience engagement changes the shape of humour.

On this episode we speak with Agata Zarzycka on her chapter “Ridiculing the Player: Live-Action Visualisations of Game Experience in YouTube Parody Videos as an Ambivalent Strategy of Self-Fashioning.” We talk about the humorous contrast between casual and serious play, remediated game humour, and clashes between mechanical and social play elements.

On this episode we speak with Sebastian Möring about his chapter “Making Fun of Tetris: Humour in Parodies of a Computer Game Classic.” We talk about paradoxes, processing the strange, and the evocative power of parody in game design.

On this episode we speak with Filip Jankowski on his chapter “Sorry, You Had Won: Satirical French Digital Games Responding to National Sociopolitical Crisis (1984 - 1986). " We talk about the history of French digital games, arcades, and personal computers in France, and the relationship between satire and social politics.

On this episode we speak with Alesha Serada about their chapter “Red Comrades Save the Galaxy: Early Russian Adventure Games and the Tradition of Anecdote.” We look at the history of post-soviet humour, the long lost format of the anecdote, and how they stack up to memes and NFTs as a new basis for humour in games.

On this episode we speak with Wyatt Moss-Wellington on his article with Paul Martin, titled “Benign Trials, Vexing Violations: Reading Humour in Puzzle Games.” We learn about benign violation theory and the role of psychological distance in creating humour out of tragedy and puzzles. “Games all inherently have benign violations written into them, in that they’re forms of play that offer continuous attempts to frustrate one’s abilities, and resolving this stands in the way of progress. [...] Platform genres are unusually happy to frustrate players in their sense of progress [...] so they have a particular structure of threat to motor and cognitive skills…” - Wyatt Moss-Wellington

Manuel Garin speaks to us about his book chapter “On Nintendo’s Visual Humour: Slapstick Cinema and Comic Theatre in Super Smash Bros.” We chat about sight gags across film and games, slapstick, and consider the relationship between Buster Keaton and Mario.  “[Nintendo] essentially does a comedy show. I think their marketing strategy is that, and it's super intelligent in my opinion, because it broadens audiences…” - Manuel Garin

On this episode of the podcast we talk with Daniel Hessler about the relationship between puzzles, jokes, and humour’s role in narrative design. Plus you get to learn the answer to the age-old Finnish riddle “One pig, two snouts: what is it?”  “Being a designer, a writer, or a director - humour is very powerful and it is very difficult to create but it is a really important tool for anything to do with narrative, because narratives always change between catching people and distancing people from what you’re trying to tell them. [Narrative design] is an art about showing and hiding, and humour is very much about that…” - Daniel Hessle

On this episode of the podcast we sit down with Dooley Murphy and discuss humour in VR experiences, and how the cycle of suspense, curiosity, and surprise works across dramatic, action, and comedic gameplay through the concept of the ‘interactive gag’. “Gags in games work for me because there’s no one there laughing at you, but it’s the game developer laughing with you.” - Dooley Murphy

On the second episode for this season, we sat down with Nele Van de Mosselaer, and got a chance to hear about their chapter, Comedy and the Dual Position of the Player in Video Games and Comedy (Palgrave Macmillan, 2022). Host: Andrei Zanescu Producer: Marc Lajeunesse Assistant Producer: Scott Dejong Guests: Nele Van de Mosselaer