Is there still a market for parody/spoof games?

[Centipede]

I was talking to my friend the other day and I brought up the possibility of making a spoof of a certain, well-known girls' cartoon, featuring weirdness like giant Japanese bikini models, Angelina Jolie and her private army of child soldiers (you know, with all those kids she's adopted), otakus, Mongol panda warriors, mail order brides, etc. You'll also be able to call air stirkes of swallows dropping coconuts (a la Monty Python) and even summon Hello Kitty tank support, Yeah, that kind of game XD

Anyway, I've been using RPG Maker to make a sequel to the classic Phantasy Star series, but this idea also popped up and I'm interested focusing on that because I think it could actually sell. But my friend said it wouldn't sell because there were so many free parody games out on the internet already.

What do you think?

 

[Ms Littlefish]

I love spoof and parody. I especially love comedy. But I also think they're fairly difficult to execute well.

The game, though inspired in parody and directly by something else, has to be able to stand distinctly on it's own without relying too much on the source material and rehashing jokes. It has to take on a life of it's own. It should be something new. I also think good comedy has some rhyme and reason and that "it's so weird and random" is not a good basis alone for big laughs.

Also, unless your player base is going to be very niche, someone playing a parody game should still be able to enjoy it without knowing the source material so it is probably a good idea for it to avoid becoming too much of an inside joke. 

 

[BlackLiquidSorrow]

My game is a parody of internet culture. It takes place on a physical manifestation of the web.

 

[Warpmind]

There's always an interest in spoof and parody, but as Ms Littlefish said, the parody has to stand on its own legs as a solid example of what it's spoofing.
Parodies of highly contemporary things tend to... lose a lot of the funny, once what they make fun of drifts away from the public eye; as an example, "Meet the Spartans" is hardly a relevant movie anymore; however good it might have been as a parody of 300, it was far too dependent on a brief flicker of relevance, and faded almost immediately.
Compare to Kingsmen, which makes fun of the whole James Bond series, and spy movies as a genre, is an excellent espionage story in its own right, with all the right tropes carefully managed.

I'm not saying your idea is doomed, but locking the spoof to a specific cartoon series and a few specific celebrities is... well, it'll risk aging faster than Walter Donovan in The Last Crusade...

Regarding the Phantasy Star sequel - are we talking about a spiritual sequel, or an actual continuation of the series' narrative?

 

[Centipede]

There's always an interest in spoof and parody, but as Ms Littlefish said, the parody has to stand on its own legs as a solid example of what it's spoofing.

Parodies of highly contemporary things tend to... lose a lot of the funny, once what they make fun of drifts away from the public eye; as an example, "Meet the Spartans" is hardly a relevant movie anymore; however good it might have been as a parody of 300, it was far too dependent on a brief flicker of relevance, and faded almost immediately.

Compare to Kingsmen, which makes fun of the whole James Bond series, and spy movies as a genre, is an excellent espionage story in its own right, with all the right tropes carefully managed.

I'm not saying your idea is doomed, but locking the spoof to a specific cartoon series and a few specific celebrities is... well, it'll risk aging faster than Walter Donovan in The Last Crusade...

Okay, my vision of it is 'My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic' like it was done by Matt Stone and Trey Parker. MLP has been around for about 3 decades now and if there's one thing that's not going to let people forget about it, it's the bronies! It'd be the story of a few hard-as-nails pony cavalry with a story narrated by a Russell Crowe soundalike.

 

[Centipede]

T

Regarding the Phantasy Star sequel - are we talking about a spiritual sequel, or an actual continuation of the series' narrative?

Why do you ask?

 

[Warpmind]

Why do you ask?

Because the answer to that question will directly affect the strength of my knee-jerk "IT MUST BE MINE" reflex.

 

[Simon D. Aelsi]

If done well, you bet'cher bottom dollah there's  a market.  I love to laugh! Funny comical spoofy games make me laugh... a lot.  When done well.

 

[Warpmind]

Okay, my vision of it is 'My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic' like it was done by Matt Stone and Trey Parker. MLP has been around for about 3 decades now and if there's one thing that's not going to let people forget about it, it's the bronies! It'd be the story of a few hard-as-nails pony cavalry with a story narrated by a Russell Crowe soundalike.

Okay, first things first - running a parody on what already to a large extent is comedic in nature is *difficult*. Nevermind the fact that I'm a card-carrying brony, I fear you'd be setting yourself up for too deep a pitfall with a straight up MLP parody, as such. A better suggestion would be a minor adjustment - play less off MLP-specific references, and stick to the larger genre of cutesy talking animals in children's cartoons. The more specific a parody is, the weaker it stands, as a general rule. Run it as an MLP parody, and it might simply drown in the Brony/Anti-Brony hullabaloo. Distance it a bit from MLP and lean on other inspirations in the genre, and you could end up with something resembling a crossover between Band of Brothers, Watership Down and Happy Tree Friends...

As a real-world example of parodies that just don't last - how many presidential parodies have remained funny after the president they portrayed left the White House?

 

[Dragnfly]

Parody games (general) - Unless what they're parodying is timeless like a legend or a chunk of history they tend to go bland really quick. Watch any episode of The Critic and you'll see jokes just stop making sense. It needs to be parodying something more broad and it needs to be backed by actual good writing, gameplay, etc.

Take the Neptunia series for example. The first one had horrible gameplay and most of the jokes were just nods to the fans. It was basically carried on moe factor and nothing else. Then when Mk 2 and expecially V hit we saw solid gameplay, good stories and characters and most importantly jokes and references that were built around more than just nods to the player. They were part of the actual story.

There's a metric crapload of parody games out right now so I think selling this would be impossible. Not even counting for any copyright issues, nobody is going to pay for what they can get for free and legal elsewhere. Especially not if it's a huge cluster of random like your initial post makes it sound. If the parody is MLP, note that the bronies have already coughed up loads of games in every genre imaginable (likely topped only by Touhou, and that's older and Japanese so it's got lots of extra push).

I used to know a dude who's entire funnybone relied on quote and reference humour. No sense of delivery or tact or timing, he'd just randomly spout lines from Venture Bros or Simpsons or whatever.
Cashier at McDonalds: "And would you like to supersize that?"
Him: "Eighty-six the non-lethal. We're goin' full Nerf on this one!"

That's the kind of vibe I'm getting from the stuff you mentioned in your first paragraph. People don't laugh at it. They register it and say "yeah I know what he's referencing." but there's nothing actually funny there. Meh, I'm kind of ranting here. Sorry. Moral of the story is don't.

PS - Awww, I just went cold turkey on PSO2 a month or two ago and now you're making me want to get back into it. I can talk big about wanting another Wild Arms or Shadow Hearts but Phantasy Star is one of my oldest RPG loves (PSO2 Nyaa-tan my butt. That, my boy is called a musk cat) and while it concluded about as finitely as anything could with PSIV, I'd still love to play more non-MMO Phantasy Star.

 

[Centipede]

If done well, you bet'cher bottom dollah there's  a market.  I love to laugh! Funny comical spoofy games make me laugh... a lot.  When done well.

So what's your favourite spoof game, dude?

 

[Centipede]

Because the answer to that question will directly affect the strength of my knee-jerk "IT MUST BE MINE" reflex.

How does a title like Phantasy Star 4.5: Children of the Contingency sound?

 

[Centipede]

I don't watch MLP, or any of the new cartoons, so I really couldn't make any references. The thing is, you got these cute, loving ponies turned into still cute but rough-as soldiers. That alone has some WTF factor.  "Aw, isn't she cute -AGGHCK! She killed me!"

Or maybe I should be using cute puppies instead. Definitely the cute animal genre but not as random as (the overrated) Happy Tree Friends.

It's not going to be all a bunch of random references (sorry if I made it sound that way), just some insane troll logic and then some jabs here and there. For example: a map called The Terran Confederacy of South Korea, referencing Korea's obsession with Starcraft. Also, if you know the stereotype about New Zealanders, you would not be surprised if I had them using sheep in their army. Hell, they even made a movie about zombie sheep. And let's not forget about Vladimir Putin and his propaganda!

As for presidents? "For Historical Innaccuracy", MAD Magazine had a swearing in parody for both President Dubya and Al Gore in the same issue, but never in the same copy of it. With a little coding, you don't have to have the same end boss for every save file.

 

[Centipede]

"(PSO2 Nyaa-tan my butt. That, my boy is called a musk cat) "

P(PSO2 Nyaa-tan my butt. That, my boy is called a musk cat).

Actually, I was going to have Nyau appear as a rare enemy, with a Tommy Gun.

 

[captainproton]

Parodies and spoofs are fine, but if the humor is too referential, it not only limits the number of people who will enjoy it, but also for how long. Pretty much every movie from the Scary Movie people (except for the first one) had a shelf life of maybe a year before the references lost comedic validity. Put that against the first or second Austin Powers movies, which are still funny. Same with Terry Pratchett's Discworld books. They are funny and engaging, largely because the humor, while nodding at Shakespeare or Christmas or whatever, is never too on-the-nose.