Let me clarify. I'm not asking if it's possible to make a game 'funny' - of course it is and there are multiple examples. What I'm wondering is if you could make a game that is a comedy in terms of its structure and plot. A game equivalent of, say, Fawlty Towers.
My opinion is that it's impossible for one reason: comedy is about mistakes. You need your protagonist to do something stupid that they try to recover from by doing something even more stupid until it all falls apart (that's the 'farce' structure, but the same applies to most comedies). And a big part of that is also dramatic irony: we the audience need to know things that the protagonist doesn't.
But in a game, the audience *is* the protagonist, so how can their mistakes be built into the gameplay? Is there any way it could be done?
My opinion is that it's impossible for one reason: comedy is about mistakes. You need your protagonist to do something stupid that they try to recover from by doing something even more stupid until it all falls apart (that's the 'farce' structure, but the same applies to most comedies). And a big part of that is also dramatic irony: we the audience need to know things that the protagonist doesn't.
But in a game, the audience *is* the protagonist, so how can their mistakes be built into the gameplay? Is there any way it could be done?