'The Looker': The Art of Parody Against the Menace of Goofiness
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- Опубликовано: 5 ноя 2023
- Why would anyone care about the parody of a game that came out seven years prior? As it turns out, there are some solid reasons why. In this GDC 2023 talk, Bradley Lovell, developer of 2022's The Looker, a parody of the 2015 open-world puzzle game The Witness, discusses what it takes to make a high-bandwidth parody that goes beyond obvious audio-visual gags to tell jokes through gameplay, as well as engage deeply with the source material. This discussion touches on the core appeals of parody games, as well as the unique opportunities for humor that games afford. Bradley also discusses the importance of maintaining internal consistency so a game's humor and subversion of expectations do not cause unintentional damage to its core design.
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18:35 **takes sip of irony water**
Oh yay! The talk that I actually got him to do. Shame GDC doesn't have referral bonuses. 😅
One of the best talks I've seen. Fantastic job to the presenter.
26:00 it's ironic that during a lunar eclipse, "the dark side of the moon" is by far the most illuminated.
This is basically the opposite of the truth, because a lunar eclipse is just when the Earth passes through the Moon's shadow. The "dark side" and "light side" of the Moon are not affected by where the Earth is. The "dark side" is the side opposite from the Sun, not the opposite from Earth.
then there would be no dark side, since the moon is tidaly locked to earth, not to the sun@@noilfaund
the dark side is the side we cant see from earth, it is not literally dark all the time, dark side is just a figure of speech
Incredible insight and humor. I missed talks like these!
Not subverting input/output expectation is incredibly important and too many games miss that.
This is the greatest achievement of GDC by far. Thank you for giving Lovell the stage.
I think the bullet points were all expressed well and applicable to others. Deliver the goods. Bathos. Etc. Will help make a truly enjoyable parody game vs just a “joke” game.
interesting that they got the voice actor from The Looker to give this speech
at a buffet, i personally sneak corndogs into the buffet so others can enjoy them. I hide 6 corndogs in my jacket pockets. it then, is a joy for me to see other patrons of the establishment eat my corndogs thinking they were part of the buffet.
The wild coincidence of this fact is that your mom has also, on frequent occasions, enjoyed my corndog.
Man, that game is awesome glad to see a talk from it
Without a doubt one of the best talks in this channel. Congrats
"Pair of Balls".
This did not disappoint.
Great talk! 👏Hope ya enjoyed the eclipse! 🌔
I think the problem with Pyst compared to The Looker is the Miller Brothers always came across as humble (in my mind) seeing as Myst was probably their last game or second to last game they were going to ever make that Pyst just looked really mean to me.
On the other hand Jonathan Blow seems to be the opposite of them.
i think an example is maybe say tic tac toe. a parody might be to make tic tac toe, but require immense skill in placing the x's and o's. the point of the game is still there, which is playing this trivially simple game against another, but actually turn it into a game of skill, despite the underlying trivial core. a bad mockery would maybe be to multiple tic tac toe into cascading tic tac toes, just to force the player to admit how easy the game is and how stupid they are for finding joy in playing it. that seems to be the direction of pyst. the looker doesnt make the witness look stupid, but its individual elements. logic puzzles were easy (most of them), audio logs were relatively meaningless as a whole, etc. but the looker was still fun because as a whole, it was still magnificent like the witness. it just pushes back on the details because it really isn't as profound as jon blow wants it to be, but at the same time people that like the witness also appreciate how much and how close jon blow did get also.
i think similar to when norm says you cant do an impression of someone you hate. so even if you are making fun of someone through an impression, if you are doing it knowing the ins and outs of the redeeming aspects of who you make fun of, it can still be coming from a place of respect. pyst just doesnt come from a place of respect.
@@mescellaneousThis was done a few weeks ago actually ruclips.net/video/BeQD-TBQfGc/видео.html
fantastic talk
21:00 - i can't tell if this is a really harsh dig, or a nod toward the witness coming close to this line without crossing it (iykyk)
i love your game and i love the jokes in this talk!!!
In the last hundred years, humanity has created wax cylinder phonographs and holographic pop stars, Picasso paintings and Beeple NFTs. We have pushed our knowledge to the edges of the solar system. Printed billions of books, filmed millions of movies, and made one funny video game.
Didn't expect this talk! I was wondering why he stopped trying to get the game translated... guessed he moved on or something.
By the way, it always bothered me how the sound intensity in BEEP maze was directly tied to the distance from the destination! The correct algorithm would be: dividing the maze into square tiles, set the destination tile as 10, and decrease the number by 1 each time you move onto an adjacent tile! And set the sound intensity to be proportional to that number. RANT OVER.
Oh and jumping subtitles interrupt dialogue subtitles. that's a problem too for people who rely on subtitles to understand stuff.
Yeah, great game, great talk. I kinda like J.Blow but I'm still salty about his dismiss of this project. Looker clearly shows the passion for the original and the jokes are very intelligent, even if their punchline is corny. I'm not surprised that the author is able to put together such a great, insightful and funny presentation.
More examples would’ve been nice!
32:42 I feel so nakedly seen by this comment. *blush*
(Tabs back to Unity and continues work on Skyrim / Dishonored / Thief inspired procedurally generated choice based story game project.)
Never expected a The Looker talk at GDC.
I find this game to be better than The Witness. It never really clicked with me and Jonathan Blow's arrogant behaviour never really sold me on it either
Linelith by the guy who made Patrick's Parabox is also a really good Witness-inspired game. Just like Parabox, it's shorter than you'd expect but it leaves you feeling "full" nonetheless.