Finding The Game: What Video Games Can Learn From Improv Comedy

"A few weeks ago, I booted up the narrative-driven rhythm game Unbeatable for the first time and was slowly disappointed. You play an entire slowly paced chapter before you even do your first rhythm gameplay, and the story is vague and disjointed up until that point. For some reason, my disappointment felt familiar, but it wasn't just an emotion tied to video games. Eventually, I realized that I felt the same way I feel when I'm watching a bad scene of improvised comedy."

"Most people are familiar with "yes, and," the first rule of improv, but that's just a guiding principle of action, not an instant recipe for comedy. Heightening, the idea of making things "bigger," is usually what makes a scene funny. The quintessential example of this is the chocolate conveyor belt scene from I Love Lucy - as more chocolate comes out, Lucy has to take increasingly drastic measures to manage it."

A slow, vague game intro can frustrate players by delaying core gameplay and offering a disjointed narrative. Unsuccessful improvised scenes share the same problem when performers fail to identify and amplify a comic pattern. The improv principle of "yes, and" supports action but does not by itself produce comedy; heightening a behavior or quirk over time typically generates laughs. Classic examples include the I Love Lucy chocolate conveyor belt and the Key & Peele substitute teacher sketch, both of which escalate a single idea until the situation becomes absurd and funny. That escalating pattern is known as "the game."

Read at Game Informer