Welcome back for another interview! Up to bat this week is Kyler Kelly-Tan from Cleaver Endeavor, the studio responsible for Ultimate Chicken Horse and many evenings of raucous laughter.

He grew up wanting to be a physicist, but discovered 3D animation in his teens, which led him to study art and animation in university

This week, we have another episode with a games studies academic, who is also a game designer and comedy aficionado. It’s Dr. Dan Staines!

Dr. Dan Staines is a game scholar and critic from Sydney, Australia.

Welcome back for another amazing interview with one of our contributors. This week is the full interview, featured in previous episodes, is with Dietrich Squinkifer.

Dietrich Squinkifer, aka Squinky, is a transgender and neurodivergent new media artist who makes weird videogames about feelings while somehow continuing to survive in a late capitalist cyberpunk dystopia.

As mentioned in last week’s episode, we’re switching to full interviews from our collaborators! This week is the full interview, featured in previous episodes, with Dr. Brendan Keogh.

Dr. Brendan Keogh is a Brisbane-based critic, journalist, and academic. He is currently a Research Fellow in the Digital Media Research Centre at Queensland University of Technology.

In this episode, we look back on the process of creating this series. Marc, Scott and Andrei reflect on the successes, hopes and challenges of producing podcasts in this format. From content that was left on the cutting room floor, to ethical concerns, to tech issues, nothing is off limits.

In this episode, we focus on how live streaming changes the implementation and reception of humor in games, from AAA to indie design processes. This time around, interviewees share insights on the intricacies of designing with audience interaction in mind, both in streams and during game jams or informal get togethers.

In this episode, we consider how communities form and come together around humorous content through the concept of constitutive rhetoric. The tension between individual and collective identities is at the heart of humor and this episode considers how game makers go about designing through that tension.

In this episode, we connect three distinct aspects of game design to examine how humor works: narrative, physics, and mechanics. From conventional genres to experimental games, this episode features interviews about how humor can be mechanically structured and how it can pop up in unexpected ways.

In this episode, we compare how humor in games works in similar or different ways to other media. Are games even unique when they structure jokes? Thinking through media ecosystems, humor conventions and mechanics, this episode considers the challenges of designing humor for play, as opposed to humor in other formats.

In this episode, we explore general functions of humor in games. We consider different frameworks focusing on how humor works for different people. This episode’s interviewees discuss how politics shape humor, who is in on the joke and how cultural identity can impact humorous content and its reception.