Drawing on her experience from working as a stand-up comedian for 2 years, and using examples from the development of the acclaimed Grace Bruxner Presents: The Haunted Island, a Frog Detective Game, this GDC 2019 talk from game dev Grace Bruxner focuses on the process of creating comedy games.

It's a fantastic deep dive into a topic rarely touched on at GDC, because Bruxner goes beyond "how do you write jokes for games" to offer a more nuanced look at building games around humor, digging into the specifics of writing funny dialogue that doesn't feel stilted or forced by finding the comedy in the ordinary.

Along the way, she also examined how games can subvert expectations of genre to aid in silliness, drawing comparisons between her own Frog Detective and other recent comedy-focused and/or narrative games.

If you didn't catch it at GDC this year, or you just want to watch it again, take advantage of the fact that Bruxner's talk is now available to watch for free on the official GDC YouTube channel!

About the GDC Vault

In addition to this presentation, the GDC Vault and its accompanying YouTube channel offers numerous other free videos, audio recordings, and slides from many of the recent Game Developers Conference events, and the service offers even more members-only content for GDC Vault subscribers.

Those who purchased All Access passes to recent events like GDC or VRDC already have full access to GDC Vault, and interested parties can apply for the individual subscription via a GDC Vault subscription page. Group subscriptions are also available: game-related schools and development studios who sign up for GDC Vault Studio Subscriptions can receive access for their entire office or company by contacting staff via the GDC Vault group subscription page. Finally, current subscribers with access issues can contact GDC Vault technical support.