Abstract
This chapter revisits ideas from early linguistic games research and applies a concept from neo-Gricean pragmatics to assorted puzzles from The Secret of Monkey Island. In a semiotic approach, it conjoins core ideas from ergodic literature and bisociative humour with the linguistic garden-path theory for joke appreciation, as they coincide regarding the ‘path’ metaphor for both presentational and mechanical structures. The chapter investigates puzzle punchlines as a concept for the analysis of ludic joking. Its central idea is that puzzle punchlines feature ambiguity arising from presentation, ludic genre conventions, and the player’s expectations in relation to the game mechanics.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
- 1.
Marcel Danesi (2002) terms this impulse Puzzle Instinct.
- 2.
A similar perspective can be found in Danesi’s Ahmes’ Legacy (2018), which describes puzzles as question-answer-structured phenomena, thus distinguishing them from problems and games.
- 3.
Fernández -Vara also recalls Aarseth’s Cybertext, which incorporates the performative structure of cybertext as a tripartite model of verbal sign, medium, and operator (71).
- 4.
Aarseth’s and Grabarczyk’s ontology distinguishes the communicational layers of presentation, interface, and semantics instead. This chapter conjoins the first two in order to reduce complexity. For further discussion of diegesis and interface elements, see also Jørgensen (2011); for a discussion of semantics in gameplay performance, see Möring (2013) and Karhulahti (2013b).
- 5.
I hereby refer not only to the MDA framework (Hunicke et al. 2004) that establishes mechanics, dynamics, and aesthetics as useful terms for describing video games, but also to the DDE framework (Walk et al. 2017), which criticises MDA and alters it, preferring the terms design, dynamics, and experience.
- 6.
The verb Walk is a special case. It is automatically triggered when interacting with a 2D object or when double-clicking on an x-y-coordinate, if the avatar stands within a sufficient distance from them. Yet, it is not explicitly offered in the GUI. The mouse-cursor behaviours Select and Hover are different cases as they have no diegetic counterpart. They could be termed ‘GUI-only’ verbs, while Walk could be termed an ‘implicit’ verb.
- 7.
Puzzle punchlines, thus, provide the player simultaneously with experiences of both (1) restoring the designer’s bisociation as a performance in interaction with the unambiguous mechanics (see Fernández-Vara 2009), and (2) cognitive bisociation in-between the game’s presentation and the player’s expectation.
- 8.
John Morreall (1983) describes the process as a cognitive shift, which Robert L. Latta (1999) compares to puzzle solving. Charles R. Gruner (2000) uses the game metaphor to conceptualise all humour in terms of winning, losing, and a playful communication frame, extending this superiority approach to puns, humorous riddles, and conundrums. Morreall (2009) offers a whole theory of humour as cognitive play.
- 9.
Henceforth, verbs are designated by major case italics (Look at, Hover), while in-game objects are designated by small caps (Fabulous Idol) and inventory items by italic small caps (Rubber Chicken).
- 10.
This local logic is also described by Karhulahti (2014, 8), though without explicitly mentioning Ziv’s term.
- 11.
A teichoscopy, also known as ‘viewing from the walls’, is a narrative strategy often used in theatrical contexts.
- 12.
TSMI’s famous re-signification of the dialogue mode as a combat of witty insults takes place later in the game. It is another artifice that compensates for SCUMM’s difficulties with time-critical challenges.
References
Aarseth, Espen. 1997. Cybertext: Perspectives on Ergodic Literature. Baltimore; London: JHU Press.
Aarseth, Espen, and Paweł Grabarczyk. 2018. An Ontological Meta-Model for Game Research. In Proceedings of DiGRA 2018, 16.
Attardo, Salvatore, Christian F. Hempelmann, and Sara Di Maio. 2002. Script Oppositions and Logical Mechanisms: Modeling Incongruities and Their Resolutions. Humor 15: 3–46.
Aylett, Ruth. 2000. Emergent Narrative, Social Immersion and ‘Storification.’ In Proceedings of 1st International Workshop on Narrative Interaction for Learning Environments, 12. Edinburgh, UK.
Black, M.L. 2012. Narrative and Spatial Form in Digital Media: A Platform Study of the SCUMM Engine and Ron Gilbert’s The Secret of Monkey Island. Games and Culture 7: 209–237. https://doi.org/10.1177/1555412012440317.
Bonello Rutter Giappone, Krista. 2015. Self-Reflexivity and Humor in Adventure Games. Game Studies 15.
Butler, Charles. 2014. Applied Behavioral Economics: A Game Designer’s Perspective. Investigating the Gamification of Modern Games and How Similar Techniques Can be Leveraged in Non-Game Environments. In Gamification in Education and Business, ed. Torsten Reiners and Lincoln C. Wood, 81–104. Cham: Springer.
Chen, Kenneth, and Stefan Rank. 2018. Towards Design Principles for Humor in Interactive Emergent Narrative. In DiGRA ’18—Proceedings of the 2018 DiGRA International Conference: The Game is the Message.
Danesi, Marcel. 2002. The Puzzle Instinct. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press.
———. 2018. Ahmes’ Legacy: Puzzles and the Mathematical Mind. Mathematics in Mind. Cham: Springer International Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-93254-5.
Dynel, Marta. 2009. Humorous Garden-Paths: A Pragmatic-Cognitive Study. Cambridge Scholars Publishing.
———. 2011. Blending the Incongruity-Resolution Model and the Conceptual Integration Theory: The Case of Blends in Pictorial Advertising. International Review of Pragmatics 3: 59–83. https://doi.org/10.1163/187731011X561009.
———. 2012. Garden Paths, Red Lights and Crossroads: On Finding Our Way to Understanding the Cognitive Mechanisms Underlying Jokes. Israeli Journal of Humor Research 1: 6–28.
Fernández-Vara, Clara. 2009. The Tribulations of Adventure Games: Integrating Story into Simulation through Performance. Atlanta, GA: Georgia Institute of Technology.
Frasca, Gonzalo. 2007. Play the Message. Play, Game and Videogame Rhetoric. Unpublished PhD Thesis, Copenhagen: IT University of Copenhagen.
Gilbert, Ron. 1990. The Secret of Monkey Island. Lucasfilm Games. DOS.
Gruner, Charles R. 2000. The Game of Humor: A Comprehensive Theory of Why We Laugh. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers.
Hunicke, Robin, Marc LeBlanc, and Robert Zubek. 2004. MDA: A Formal Approach to Game Design and Game Research. In Proceedings of the AAAI Workshop on Challenges in Game AI, 4: 17–22.
Jørgensen, Kristine. 2011. Time for New Terminology? Diegetic and Non-Diegetic Sounds in Computer Games Revisited. In Game Sound Technology and Player Interaction: Concepts and Developments, ed. Mark Grimshaw, 78–97. Hershey, PA: IGI Global.
Karhulahti, Veli-Matti. 2013a. Puzzle Is Not a Game! Basic Structures of Challenge. In Proceedings of DiGRA 2013: DeFragging Game Studies. Atlanta, GA: Georgia Institute of Technologies.
———. 2013b. A Kinesthetic Theory of Videogames: Time-Critical Challenge and Aporetic Rhematic. Game Studies 13.
———. 2014. Fiction Puzzle: Storiable Challenge in Pragmatist Videogame Aesthetics. Philosophy & Technology 27: 201–220.
Karhulahti, Veli-Matti, and Krista Bonello Rutter Giappone. 2018. The Quest for Serious Sex Adventures: A Structural Analysis of Puzzle and Humor. In DiGRA ’18—Abstract Proceedings of the 2018 DiGRA International Conference: The Game Is the Message.
———. 2021. Punchline Behind the Hotspot: Structures of Humor, Puzzle, and Sexuality in Adventure Games (with Leisure Suit Larry in Several Wrong Places). Journal of Popular Culture 54: 341–364.
Kirkpatrick, Graeme. 2011. Aesthetic Theory and the Video Game. Manchester, New York: MIT Press.
Koestler, Arthur. 1967. The Act of Creation: A Study of the Conscious and Unconscious in Science and Art. Dell Publishing Company.
Kubiński, Piotr. 2014. Immersion vs. Emersive Effects in Videogames. In Engaging with Videogames: Play, Theory and Practice, ed. Dawn Stobbart and Monica Evans, 133–141. Leiden: Brill.
Latta, Robert L. 1999. The Basic Humor Process: A Cognitive-Shift Theory and the Case Against Incongruity. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter.
Long, Debra L., and Arthur C. Graesser. 1988. Wit and Humor in Discourse Processing. Discourse Processes 11: 35–60. https://doi.org/10.1080/01638538809544690.
Lowe, Al, Mark Crowe, Chuck Benton, Josh Mandel, Duncan McPherson, Tom Smith, Falko Löffler, Malte Schmidt, Maurice A. Hagelstein, and Heiner Schmidt. 1987–Present. Leisure Suit Larry Series. Sierra On-Line, Replay Games, Assemble Entertainment. DOS, Windows and Others.
Möring, Sebastian Martin. 2013. Games and Metaphor—A Critical Analysis of the Metaphor Discourse in Game Studies. Copenhagen: IT University of Copenhagen.
Morreall, John. 1983. Taking Laughter Seriously. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press.
———. 2009. Comic Relief: A Comprehensive Philosophy of Humor. New Directions in Aesthetics 9. Chichester, U.K.; Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell.
Walk, Wolfgang, Daniel Görlich, and Mark Barrett. 2017. Design, Dynamics, Experience (DDE): An Advancement of the MDA Framework for Game Design. In Game Dynamics. Best Practices in Procedural and Dynamic Game Content Generation, ed. Oliver Korn and Newton Lee, 27–46. Cham: Springer.
Wilson, Douglas, and Miguel Sicart. 2010. Now It’s Personal: On Abusive Game Design. In Proceedings of the International Academic Conference on the Future of Game Design and Technology—Futureplay ’10, 40. Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada: ACM Press. https://doi.org/10.1145/1920778.1920785.
Ziv, Avner. 1984. Personality and Sense of Humor. New York, NY: Springer.
Acknowledgements
Thanks to the editors, to Jochen Koubek, Robin Hädicke, and Felix Raczkowski, for valuable comments.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2022 The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Heßler, D. (2022). The Rubber Chicken’s Ergodicity: On Puzzle Punchlines in The Secret of Monkey Island. In: Bonello Rutter Giappone, K., Majkowski, T.Z., Švelch, J. (eds) Video Games and Comedy. Palgrave Studies in Comedy. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-88338-6_4
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-88338-6_4
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-88337-9
Online ISBN: 978-3-030-88338-6
eBook Packages: Literature, Cultural and Media StudiesLiterature, Cultural and Media Studies (R0)