'The Looker': The Art of Parody Against the Menace of Goofiness

Why would anyone care about the parody of a game that came out seven years prior? As it turns out, there are some solid reasons why. In this GDC 2023 talk, Bradley Lovell, developer of 2022's The Looker, a parody of the 2015 open-world puzzle game The Witness, discusses what it takes to make a high-bandwidth parody that goes beyond obvious audio-visual gags to tell jokes through gameplay, as well as engage deeply with the source material. This discussion touches on the core appeals of parody games, as well as the unique opportunities for humor that games afford. Bradley also discusses the importance of maintaining internal consistency so a game's humor and subversion of expectations do not cause unintentional damage to its core design.

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