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

Welcome back for the final season of the Humour & Games podcast series!

For this last run, we’re releasing full length discussions with the authors featured in Video Games and Comedy (Palgrave Macmillan, 2022). For this first episode, we speak with Krista Bonello Rutter Giaponne, Tomasz Z. Majkowski & Jaroslav Švelch, the editors of the book, about their formative experiences with comedy in games, and what led them to work on this book.

Host: Scott Dejong
Producer: Marc Lajeunesse
Assistant Producer: Andrei Zanescu
Guests: Krista Bonello Rutter Giaponne, Tomasz Z. Majkowski & Jaroslav Švelch

This week, we have our final full interview for this batch of episodes, with Dr. Carly Kocurek. We had the chance to learn more about the interplay between humour, game technologies and moral panics.

Dr. Kocurek is a cultural historian specialized in the study of new media technologies and video games! She is the author of Coin-Operated Americans: Rebooting Boyhood at the Video Game Arcade and  Brenda Laurel: Pioneering Games for Girls. Dr. Kocurek also co-founded and co-edits the Influential Game Designers book series, as well as being a prolific author and game designer.

Sponsored by TAG (Technology, Art and Games) @ Concordia University.

Another week, another episode. This time around, we have our full interview with Karina Popp. Tune in to learn more about how humour in games crosses over with capitalism, irony and dolphins.

Karina is a game designer and visual artist whose work focuses on banality, bodies and labor. Her work has been selected at festivals like IGF, Come Out and Play, Now Play This and Fantastic Arcade. Karina also holds an MFA in Game Design from the NYU Game Center.

Sponsored by TAG (Technology, Art and Games) @ Concordia University.

This week, we’ve got our interview with Dr. Aaron Trammell.

We had the chance to hear more about the differences between digital and analog games, the challenges of humor in tabletop and the power dynamics in those spaces.

Dr. Trammell is an assistant professor of Informatics and core faculty in visual studies at UC Irvine. He is also the editor-in-chief of the Analog Game Studies journal, multimedia editor of Sounding Out and a prolific author besides.

Also, if you have the chance, we would highly recommend picking up Dr. Trammell’s new book, Repairing Play.

Sponsored by TAG (Technology, Art and Games) @ Concordia University.

Today we chat with Jamie MacDonald about Nordic Larp, Feminist Comedy Clubs, and Type 2 Fun!

Jamie MacDonald is a Canadian artist, standup comic and PhD games scholar. His research and creative practices crosses between LARP, theatre and the performing arts more broadly. Sponsored by TAG (Technology, Art and Games) @ Concordia University.

This week, we have our full interview with Dr. Jaakko Stenros on Nordic Larp and the role of humour in dark or transgressive play.

Dr. Stenros is a lecturer at the University of Turku and a member of the Centre of Excellent in Culture, a joint project between Tampere University, the University of Turku, and the University of Jyväskylä. Stenros has also collaborated with artists and designers to create ludic experiences and has curated many exhibitions at the Finnish Museum of Games. Stenros’ research interests include norm-defying play, game jams, queer play, role-playing games, pervasive games, game rules, and playfulness.

This week, building on last week’s foundation, we take a look at how the form and impacts of humour can shift as games themselves can change. From digital to analog technologies, individual to group play, and the market considerations that can impact those changes.

Sponsored by TAG (Technology, Art and Games) @ Concordia University.

Featured Speakers: Dr. Carly Kocurek, Dr. Aaron Trammell, and Dr. Jaakko Stenros.

Humour and Games is back with a new season!

This time around, we turn to the serious and silly uses of humour in social activism and pedagogy. From games for impact, to games in the classroom, Nordic LARP, and Type 2 Fun, it’s the outcomes of humour and play that are the focus this week.

Sponsored by TAG (Technology, Art and Games) @ Concordia University.

Featured Speakers: Karina Popp, Dr. Carly Kocurek, Dr. Jaakko Stenros & Jamie MacDonald

Our full interview with Ida Toft featured in previous episodes. Ida is a media artist who works with games and game-like sculptures, especially games that cater for not-quite-human and cross-species environments. Their current work investigates technologies for felt and mechanical vibrations such as vibrotactile motors, phone notifications and rumble in video game controllers as a case for thinking about playful companionships across normalized affiliations. Ida holds a M.Sc. in Design and Communication from the IT University in Copenhagen and is currently a PhD candidate at Concordia University in Tiotia:ke (Montreal).

This week, we have the privilege of featuring our interview with Dr. Kishonna Gray!

Dr. Gray is an interdisciplinary, intersectional, digital media scholar whose areas of research include identity, performance and online environments, embodied deviance, cultural production, video games, and Black Cyberfeminism. She is the author of Intersectional Tech: Black Users in Digital Gaming (LSU Press, 2020). She is also the author of Race, Gender, & Deviance in Xbox Live (Routledge, 2014), and the co-editor of two volumes on culture and gaming: Feminism in Play (Palgrave-Macmillan, 2018) and Woke Gaming (University of Washington Press, 2018). 

Dr. Gray has published in a variety of outlets across disciplines and has also featured in public outlets such as The Guardian, The Telegraph, and The New York Times. Follow Dr. Gray on Twitter @KishonnaGray

This week, we have our full interview with Eva Toker, which was featured in previous episodes.

Eva is the Chief Creative Officer at Rogue Harbour Game Studio. She has over a decade of experience in the entertainment industry and is a lifelong enthusiast for video games, art, and storytelling. Starting out as a concept artist, she has since then shipped over a dozen kickass game titles and is now leading her studio in turning ideas and brands into cohesive, engaging, and marketable products.

This week, we have someone close to the Concordia University community. It’s Dr. Pippin Barr.

Pippin Barr is a videogame maker, educator, and critic who lives and works in Montréal. He is an Assistant Professor of Computation Arts at Concordia University and the Associate Director of the Technoculture, Art, and Games (TAG) Research Centre. Pippin is a prolific maker of videogames, producing work addressing everything from airplane safety instructions, to contemporary art, to the nature of videogames and videogame technologies.

Sponsored by TAG (Technology, Art and Games) @ Concordia University.

Full interview used in previous episodes with narF. narF is a game designer by day and a podcaster by night.

Interested in the decentralized web, planning the demise of the internet giants and making weird sounds with virtual synths on a Raspberry Pi.

Sponsored by TAG (Technology, Art and Games) @ Concordia University.