Sunday, January 18, 2026
A Moment Of Happiness
When
a story chooses to include a joke or comedy situation it is done with
the aim of directing the watcher’s attention to a specific element and add
impact to it. Visual novels follow this convention and, outside of
dedicated comedy titles, use it as a means of highlighting characters
or cues for later pathos. The standard way this often
presents itself is as a pacing mechanism to create empathy through
the funny events or misunderstandings happening to the characters and
acts as a quick and easy way to build a connection. In games aiming
for a serious tone, comedy is valued for what it offers through
contrast and to sharpen the knife of sadness so driving it in can be all the more powerful. Of course these uses of humour are highly
reliant on the developer knowing when to correctly place them and
there is nothing which can do greater damage than a joke which breaks
the delicate tension of a scene. Let’s crack a smile and see what
these uses of comedy bring to visual novels.
Empathy Of Humour
Comedy
is a favourite method of visual novels for quickly creating a
connection between the player and the cast. Games focused on
other elements for their core themes and tone have comedy as a
short lived means of blending empathy and pacing. Its levity adds a
means of humanising the strong and dramatic emotions portrayed
elsewhere and showcase the cast as existing beyond the story’s
twists and turns. Making mistakes is part of being human and lending
into this fallibility within a harmless context gives a character a
feeling of life without undermining them by presenting an unwanted
harmful weakness. Looking at Ever 17 can help define what this use of
humour actually looks like to the player. Fundamentally its story is
a serious one about a group of people trapped underwater with the
spectre of death hanging over them, but the game understands this
tone on its own is not conducive to establishing and building nuanced
and likeable characters. As such it regularly breaks up the building
of mystery and drama with moments of comedy. These are of various
lengths depending on the space available and offers some small piece
of characterisation for those involved. The eclectic nature of the
cast’s identities in terms of age, personality and even their
status as human assists in creating a diversity to these situations
to prevent them from becoming stale and losing the player’s
interest, thus reinforcing the empathy which is key to their success.
It is important to note the gradual phasing out of these comedy
sections over the course of the narrative to match the shift into the
climax where such humour would clash with the stakes.
 |
| Humour can make you feel for something which is not human |
There is a risk
when using this type of fast humour for the laughter to be directed
at the characters rather than the situation resulting in distance from them being created. If the jokes are at the cast’s expense then
it can be off putting since it comes across as the game hitting them
with a big stick and asking the player to laugh. This may not be the
title’s intent, but the result is a feeling of not wanting to
emotionally invest in characters which the game itself does not seem
to care about. For these games the jokes are less important then
their impact and as such there is a tendency to lean into cliché for
efficiency both in terms of how much time has to dedicate to it and
the way it can be expected to be understood by the player. This is not
necessarily a negative inside a visual novel which has leaned into
genre clichés more broadly since it meets the player’s
expectations and it can smooth out rough edges. Of course written large here is the risk of boring
the player with scenarios or jokes they have heard or experienced
countless times before. This boredom is going to cause them to tune
out the events on screen and miss the attempts to build
empathy.
We Laugh So We Can Cry
Division
and contrast can be formed through how comedy is placed within
relation to serious narrative elements. The common way visual novels
like to use this trait is by splitting the story into two sections, a
humour filled light opening which then transitions into the conflict
driven march towards the climax. Providing such a clear divide
invites to player to compare the two extremes of emotion and so
heighten the impact of each side through this contrast. It also
establishes a state the characters can desire go back to and this can
form their core motivation, directly or indirectly shown in their
actions, while synchronising their intent with the player’s own
fond memories of those times. Such an obvious shift can run the risk
of feeling artificial if done to abruptly and relies of on an almost
insidious transition that seeps the serious elements in until they
overcome the cast’s happiness. When skilfully executed this
approach can be flexibly included in a variety of genres with the
only caveat being the need for a heavy character focus. This
requirement is due to contrast being related to the treatment of the
cast by the story and as such the more time it spends on them the
greater the eventual change will be.
 |
| Key understand how to use comedy as a means to drive the emotional knife in |
Let us compare a couple of
prominent examples to see their common set up and execution despite being from different genres. These two are Clannad, a slice of life and
romance, and Steins;Gate, a sci-fi thriller. Perhaps the first thing
the player will notice when booting up these games is the way they
lean heavily into comedy in their opening hours centred around each
member of the cast in turn and then in various groups so as to create
both a base emotional framework for them as individuals and their
relationships to one another. Here the exact execution of the tone
surrounding the comedy showcases the differences in genre with
Clannad being far more sentimental and introspective while
Steins;Gate is slowly turning up danger with its time travel. They
both spend a long time in this initial comedy infused stage where
very little plot movement is actually happening and instead the games
are reliant on the antics of their cast to keep the player amused. It
is notable that Steins;Gate has received criticism for how long it
spends in this space before the action ramps up which does highlight
how much of a delicate balancing act its inclusion can be and the way
it can cause of loss of interest over the long term. Eventually the
good times have to end and this pair have different ways of going
about achieving the switch. For Clannad the process is slow and involves
a narrowing of the focus onto a single heroine and then landing a gut
punch to seal the deal. On the other hand Steins;Gate’s cut off is
far more immediate and dramatic as the jokes end with a sudden and
unforgiving dose of reality for the cast. These fit the genres each
title belongs to and makes sure the contrast created serves the
greater narrative while keeping the early sections in the player’s
mind. Deep inside the serious sections both of these games sometimes
invoke what has been lost from the happier times of the comedy
and morns them while inviting the player to do the same in order to
create a release of emotion or a build up for the eventual return of those smiles.
Knowing When To Crack A Joke
The
death of tension is at the pointy end of a joke. Inserting comedy in
the wrong moment can ruin the tone a story has been trying so hard to
build up. Keeping it to appropriate moments might seem like an easy
task but knowing when to hold back can be difficult if a visual
novel is on the lighter end of the spectrum. This is caused by the
blending of smaller jokes and situations into the narrative not being
smooth enough or mistimed and the player can interpreted these in a
way the developer never intended. Should the developer just be sloppy
with their implementation of comedy then the results will be even
more damaging due to inconsistent tones making for a constant feeling
of whiplash against what would be expected from the story. The
presence of humour has to undergo a process of careful consideration
when implemented where the surrounding material is looked at to see
how compatible it is with the intended humour or situation. Being too
surgical can cause a separate problem of giving the pacing an
artificial feeling so a natural flow has to be given precedence here.
 |
| Raillore's jokes mostly keep to their lane but sometimes they put their foot in their mouth |
Finding the perfect balance is a challenging task so it is
unsurprising to see the occasional hiccup every now and then
especially when characters make jokes as a means of coping or hiding
their feelings where it becomes easier for this mistake to seep in. This can be seen in The Pillagers of Raillore with Graydric and his
surrounding cast members. In order to contrast him against the other
protagonist, the ever serious Reno, the game has him present a front
of jokes and a lack of self seriousness and his companions all
broadly follow this lighter style of interaction. This works well for
its intended purpose but when it runs alongside the moments where the
cast are in genuine danger an issue forms. Here the game often continues to make
jokes or place the characters in silly situations even when it should
be selling the stakes of the battle. Part of how it manifests stems for the title’s status as an eroge and the use of ecchi
humour around Graydric’s interactions with woman which is often the
way it oversteps its role. This clash is not a consistent problem so
it is clear the developers had some understanding of the issue and it
is instead an accident brought about through an underestimating of
the damage this comedy can do.
Conclusion
Knowing
how and when to use bits of comedy allows visual novels to gain a
means of expressing humanity and pathos while not contradicting its
main identity. Levity is something humans engage with as a means of
social expression and so we naturally latch onto it which makes it
easier to have a player form a bond and allows for better pacing.
This humour must not overstep its bounds or the result is a messy
presentation where the player is confused by the mixed messages and
taken out of the experience. Through creating a clear divide between
the earlier comedy sections and the later serious ones a title can
contrast them to remind the player of the good times and morn what
has been lost. Jokes are far from a blunt instrument and you should
carefully consider their use in your own projects to gain these
benefits without harming the story you want to tell.
Posts
