The Science of Parody

Jikkyō Oshaberi Parodius, Konami 1995

While writing another post (I'll publish it some other day), I realized that there are not many parodic games. There are satires of games done outside games (ie Penny Arcade), parodic cameos, but it's very rare to see an entirely parodic game, these days. Why? Because it's herculean task. Every kind of parody need to be funny in order to gain respect, but when you develop a game you also need to offer a gameplay that's funny. If you develop a game which has satiric dialogues and settings, but which is boring or uninteresting gameplay-wise, you're going to fail to impress, the game will feel empty, unaccomplished. Take for instance The Secret of Monkey Island: it worked great because the setting is crazy and the interaction structure is top class - simultaneously. Furthermore, while the story is a great parody of pirates, the gameplay really parodies the "point'n click" adventure genre - and contributing to the evolution of the genre at the same time! Manic Miner did something similar for platform games, some years before.

An even more enlightening example comes from the Parodius series: it deconstructs the Gradius series down to the last bit, offering solid 2D horizontal shooting dynamics, reinventing the serious sci-fi graphics of the original in a manga/super deformed/plain silly fashion, leaving the epic soundtrack for some catchy & cheesy rearrangements of classy classic classical tunes. No matter which layer of game development you consider, you'll find that the Parodius Team has poured genius, creativity, weirdness and lots of laughs in it. Never forgetting playability.

Wow. This kundalini yoga is a blast. You should really try it.