What the Car? and Comedy Video Games

What the Car? from developer Triband was released on Steam today. You may have heard of this game already, or heard of their previous game What the Golf? which was released in 2020. In this new addition to the now ongoing “what the” series, the players do just about everything except drive a car. Run on legs that awkwardly stick out of the bottom of the vehicle, glide through the air with an umbrella, and roll into a soccer goal as a car-ball (that, of course, still has legs).

Take on timed challenges, find the hidden collectible on each level, and attempt the bonus player-made and highly challenging skull levels. What the Car? excels in its surprise gags and unexpected moments, but it also has replayability. Once the shock has worn off and the unusual mode of movement is understood, players are more than welcome to return to level after level to beat their time and find the secret card.

Last weekend, before the Steam launch, I had the opportunity to play What the Car? at PAX West in Seattle. It was an excellent demo that launched you straight into the action (literally launches you out of a cannon). While flying through the demo, I could talk to the developers about their game. I brought up how the ridiculousness of this game reminded me of some other games I had recently been able to try like Just Crow Things and Building Relationships. This sparked an interesting discussion about why video games are rarely assigned “comedy” as a genre.

One level gave the car much bigger legs.

Why is comedy not a common descriptor among video games? Comedy is a pillar of the industry in most other mediums, like TV and movies. You can find anything from romantic comedies to situational comedies, dark comedies, and raunchy comedies. Most of Shakespeare’s plays can be categorized as either comedy or tragedy. Music has Weird Al and Flight of the Concords. Even the poem Divine Comedy was written in the early 1300s. So why have video games largely escaped the comedy tag?

I don’t want to spend too long comparing video games to other more well-established forms of media because video games have done plenty to distinguish themselves. Video games are only video games because they require direct input from the player. People watch movies and read books, but they aren’t required to embody a character within the story and make decisions for them, however trivial those decisions might be.

So it does make sense then that most video game genres are defined by what the player does rather than just what happens in the story. God of War: Ragnarok is an adventure game because the player pilots the character along an adventure. Mario Kart is a racing game because the player drives around a course and tries to finish ahead of other characters. What the Car? is a comedy game, but is that too vague a description?

It’s not often that video games can be successfully described with a single word these days. New video games continually take elements from other genres and mix them to create entirely new kinds of games. At what point is a rogue-like, deck builder, monster collecting, turn-based strategy game like Dicefolk just going to have a name for its unique combination of elements?

Ok, now that was a tangent. My point is that there are tons of great comedy video games, even just looking at this year. What the Car? launches on Steam today, Thank Goodness You’re Here and Just Crow Things were released only last month, and we also have the absurd Building Relationships to look forward to. There’s also What the Golf?, Untitled Goose Game, Goat Simulator, and plenty more that all use various tactics to make their players laugh.

So there are a few of my thoughts on this subject. I think comedy should be a more often used descriptor when it comes to video games, but I don’t want to pretend like I am some ultimate authority on this. What do you think? Do you agree? Not agree? I’d love to hear your perspective.

Returning to a completed level rewards the player with a dancing crown.

Also, thanks to Triband for the opportunity to try the demo for What the Car? at PAX, as well as a copy of the game to continue my experience and further my thoughts on comedy games. I highly recommend giving What the Car? a try if you’re interested in games at all, especially since it is available on Steam today. It does a brilliant job of playing around with the expectations of seasoned gamers and brand-new gamers alike. I look forward to finishing my playthrough, which should only take a few more hours, at which point I will do a proper review.

In the meantime, let me know your thoughts on this subject and while you’re at it, let me know what games have made you laugh.