Humor In Video Games

tim-cain narrative-design humor game-design fallout outer-worlds pacing

Abstract

Problem: How should game developers approach humor in their games, and what pitfalls should they watch out for?

Approach: Tim Cain draws on decades of experience shipping humor-laden RPGs — Fallout, Arcanum, Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines, The Temple of Elemental Evil, and The Outer Worlds — sharing specific examples and hard-won principles.

Findings: Humor in games is harder than most developers think, carries real risks of alienating players, but serves critical functions: pacing, tension relief, and tonal contrast that makes dark moments darker. The safest approach is layered humor that rewards those who get the reference while remaining invisible to those who don't.

Key insight: Humor should never make players feel excluded — if someone doesn't get the joke, they shouldn't even notice one was told.

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3mfl_jOf-Jw

1. Humor Is Hard, Dangerous, and Worth It

Tim opens with a blunt assessment: humor in games is hard to do well. Most games don't attempt it, and most games shouldn't. It's a difficult technique to integrate, especially in a way that serves the game's theme. The humor in Fallout is very different from The Outer Worlds, which is very different from Temple of Elemental Evil or Vampire — because those are fundamentally different games.

Humor is also dangerous for two reasons:

  • Wrong fit: Many types of humor are simply wrong for a given game's tone.
  • Audience friction: What's funny to some players isn't funny to others. Players who don't get a joke can feel excluded, frustrated, or even offended.

2. The Invisible Reference Rule

Tim's guiding principle, established back during Fallout's development, is that cultural references and jokes should be invisible to players who don't recognize them. If you don't get the reference, you shouldn't even notice it was there.

2.1. The Red Rider BB Gun

In Fallout, the limited edition Red Rider BB gun references the movie A Christmas Story. The item description warns "be careful or you'll shoot your eye out, kid." For fans of the film, it's a laugh. For everyone else, it's just practical advice — the weapon does extra damage and has a bonus to hitting eyes. It works either way.

2.2. The Slayer Perk

The unarmed perk "Slayer" — a chance to instantly kill an enemy with a punch — makes perfect sense as a perk name. But for Buffy the Vampire Slayer fans, there's an extra layer. If you don't watch the show, you'd never know a reference was made.

3. Humor as a Pacing Tool

Tim argues that pacing is critical in games: fast in some moments, slow in others. Humor works the same way — funny at some points, dark and serious at others. Without contrast, you get monotony.

His analogy: "People would rather ride a roller coaster that goes up and down than a monorail. Doesn't matter how high the monorail is — it's still a monorail."

He used this argument frequently at Carbine Studios when people suggested making everything boss fights. Even Shadow of the Colossus — a game about nothing but bosses — has long stretches of quiet horseback riding between encounters. The downtime makes the peaks matter.

4. Humor as a Relief Valve

In Fallout especially, humor served as critical tension release. The game featured horrific death animations — limbs blown off, bones exposed, visceral violence. Humor let players laugh after too much pent-up tension, preventing the experience from becoming numbing.

Tim credits Leonard Boyarsky with a key observation: "Humor makes the dark parts even darker." You can't have darkness without light, and vice versa. The contrast is what gives both their power.

5. Examples from Tim's Games

  • The Outer Worlds — Wore its humor on its sleeve as a core part of the experience.
  • Fallout — Darkly humorous post-apocalyptic tone; humor was a major differentiator from Wasteland.
  • Temple of Elemental Evil — Mostly played straight, but humor emerged through characters like Fruella, the unmarried older sister with a dowry, who hates everything and everyone you bring her to.
  • Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines — Tim's contributions in the final year included the shark-headed boss in the frozen fish warehouse (who threw physics objects at you, nearly crashing the Source engine) and the Man-Bat final boss who threw increasingly absurd objects — cars, signs, trucks, and eventually people — at the player.
  • Arcanum — Dumb dialogue (low-intelligence character options) was a huge part of what made the game funny.

6. Don't Build a Game Around Humor Alone

While Tim has never built an entire game solely around humor, he considers it essential as one ingredient among many. Dumb dialogue, funny item descriptions, humorous found lore — these all contribute to making a game feel fun. And Tim is emphatic: making a game fun comes before making it balanced.

The biggest distinction Tim draws between the original Fallout and Wasteland is the humor. That delta — more jokes, more tonal contrast — is a major part of what made Fallout its own thing.

7. References