2024 Was A Banner Year For Comedy Games
It’s safe to say that 2024 has not been a barrel of laughs, to put it mildly. Even if you just think about the year from a games industry perspective, it’s still been a grim one. But as always, the games have been good. In particular, this has been a great year for proper laugh-out-loud comedy games, and those are very much my jam. Not only has there been a bounty of funny games, but in a variety of genres, too, such as a traditional joke dispenser point-and-click adventure, a Souls-like, a first-person shooter, and a surrealist dystopian cooking sim. So I would like to celebrate the class clowns of 2024, and perhaps give you some mirthful ideas for how to spend any upcoming Steam gift cards.
Thank Goodness You’re Here
From Yorkshire, UK, developer Coal Supper has managed to make a rapid-fire joke machine of an adventure game that manages to be both broad and highly specific in its humour. In this game, you play as a mute little guy sent to Barnsworth, a town that lovingly sends up the North of England, as he bumbles along and tries to help many of the town’s strange residents. Your only form of interaction is slapping, and it’s amazing how far that seems to get you. Over its 3-hour playtime, it’s gag after gag with a very high strike rate as you slap your way through Barnsworth. It is my pick for the funniest game of the year.
Cryptmaster
I’ve already covered Cryptmaster and its inventive take on the text parser-based dungeon crawler. Thinking back, I still recommend it heartily as a dungeon crawler and a comedy game. The droll Cryptmaster himself carries the game, and it's probably my second-favourite game character this year behind our next entry.
Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth
Ah, Ichiban Kasuga. I don’t think there has ever been a more lovable doofus in gaming. He's just an infectiously goofy, kind-hearted guy trying to make up for lost time and make life-long friends while he’s at it. The two Ichiban-starring Yakuza/Like a Dragon games have moved from the wildly shifting tone of the Kiryu-led games, to, well... it still shifts a lot, but the tone is comedic a lot more of the time. This is not just because of Ichiban and his crew, but the turn-based combat that allows for more imaginative fights (and a fully-fledged Pokémon parody sidequest where you collect weird dudes). Very likely the funniest RPG ever made, at least until Ichiban and Co. appear again.
Another Crab’s Treasure
Another Crab’s Treasure, the bright, underwater Souls-like from Aggro Crab, has a great sense of humour throughout. It also provided me with my most satisfyingly funny gaming moment of the year. You see, Another Crab’s Treasure has some inherent challenge, but it also has accessibility and difficulty options. One of them is ‘give Kril a gun,’ which gives your character, Kril, a gun. I decided to try it out on a boss, and Kril’s shell turned into a human-sized pistol that blew away the boss in one hit. Did I feel like I cheated myself out of a sense of achievement or whatever? Hell, no. It was great. Give The Tarnished a gun.
Death of the Reprobate
I was eagerly awaiting Joe Richardson’s final entry in his trilogy of point-and-click adventure games made out of Renaissance-era art and had such a blast playing it that I finished it in one sitting. As with the previous two games, Four Last Things and The Procession to Calvary, it’s very British, very Pythonesque in its humour, and there are quality gags in every nook and cranny that make good use of the art. The whole series is a must for point-and-click fans.
Arctic Eggs
Arctic Eggs is a surrealist game where you cook eggs (among other things) for people in an icy dystopia, who seem to be pretty relaxed about the whole thing. To see if the game’s sense of humour will jive with you, just read its Steam description:
“Eggs: perfection in two parts. The simple whites. The sublime yolk. Each the lesser without its partner. Chorus and verse. A symphony of flavor. The catchy tune reminding us of warm baths and late-night movies. The elevator music to whatever lies beyond.”
Personally, it may be the best Steam description out there, and that vein of humour remains throughout. But your mileage may vary on this one.
Tiny Terry’s Turbo Trip
Tiny Terry has one goal — he wants to drive to space. No, it’s a solid idea, don’t worry about it. The good news is that he was able to obtain a car and there is a new monument in the centre of town that looks suspiciously like a big, steep ramp. This is a Short Hike-alike, that is to say, a small but open area where you explore and find side quests to do so you can give yourself upgrades. In this case, the upgrades are more turbo for Terry’s car. It’s a very fun world to inhabit for a few hours and Terry is a great deadpan protagonist that lets this game’s humour shine.
Bears in Space
Imagine if Ratchet and Clank was a first-person shooter and had jokes that were actually good (I’m a Ratchet and Clank fan, but they are written for children); that is Bears in Space in a nutshell. This game from Australian developer Broadside Games takes the PS2 mascots’ upgradable, sometimes goofy weapons and adds in some bullet hell elements, all the while frequently throwing your character into extended comedic bits. Not every joke lands, but the pacing is good and there are enough winners for a strong recommendation.
There are a few other honourable mentions that just missed the big list. The final instalment of the Sam & Max remasters, which isn’t a new game per se, is worth a mention because it holds up and I need enough people to buy this series so Skunkape Games make a new one. The clever yet unsettling horror-comedy Anthology of the Killer has made the leap from Itch to Steam. And finally, Yellow Taxi Goes Vroom is a fantastically creative take on the collect-a-thon 3D platformer that has some decent jokes to boot. These are my silly games for the silly season. Here’s to a better, or at least somewhat tolerable 2025.