Shrapnel Games Blog

This past Wednesday we announced Scallywag: In the Lair of the Medusa, which is a single-player Rogue-like fantasy game. Like a lot of similarly styled games Scallywag is first and foremost about being an enjoyable exercise in fantasy, with plenty of light-hearted fun to be had. This isn’t a game of doom and gloom, of end-of-the-world prophecies, of feeding orphaned kittens to rabid eldritch sharks that don’t return library books. Rather, this is old school D&D with a touch of humor.

While not as prevalent as the serious side of fantasy, fantasy gaming mixed with a liberal dose of humor is rather common in all gaming formats, from pen and paper role-playing to computer gaming. Likewise you can find plenty of humor in science-fiction gaming of all types. Yet when it comes to the world of wargaming you really have to search for it.

Off the top of my head the only wargame that really was aimed at humor was Panzer Pranks, and that was from what, 1980? There are of course a number of wargames that have included counters or scenarios for laughs, such as The Final Countdown option in Victory Games’ Carrier, but no real attempts at combining wargaming with humor. Well, I suppose some folks would classify most of Ty Bomba’s alternate-history design work as humorous (and maybe he looks at them that way too).

So why is that? Are we considered that stuffy? Sure, I’ve wargamed with the kind of grognard that wouldn’t crack a smile and treated the game as if real lives were on the line, but that was never a problem twice. It’s a lot more enjoyable to sit around a table (or in front of a monitor), cracking jokes and having a good time.

Is it that fantasy and sci-fi, being unrealistic to begin with, simply makes it easier for developers to interject humor into the mix? Or are developers afraid to try? Maybe there’s not a market for it, but since games are ultimately meant to be fun I can’t see anyone arguing against adding a little goofiness. Or does humor totally destroy the genre’s ideal?