Incongruous Avatars and Hilarious Sidekicks: Design Patterns for Comical Game Characters

This paper proposes a structured approach to humour in game character design, grounding its analysis in classical theories of humour, namely superiority, relief, and incongruity. Rather than treating comedy as an intuitive or ad hoc element of game writing, the authors argue that it can be systematically organised into reusable design patterns. Their method combines a survey of comic characters with close analysis of gameplay examples, yielding a multi-dimensional classification of characters by type and prominence, role, and humour style, and a pattern language intended to help designers embed comedy deliberately.

The catalogue of patterns is the paper's central contribution. It includes COMIC AVATAR, COMIC DUO, and COMIC SIDEKICK, as well as COMIC BOSS, COMIC SOCIOPATH, and LOVABLE LOSER, each illustrated with examples from titles such as The Secret of Monkey Island, Sam & Max, Conker's Bad Fur Day, Portal 2, and Knights of the Old Republic. For each pattern, the authors identify trade-offs, most notably between humour and player identification or narrative tension. Speech-based and object-based humour categories, such as PUNNING, COMIC BANTER, and COMIC ARMAMENTS, are noted as areas still under development, and the final tally reaches eleven patterns in total.

The paper's conclusions emphasise that humour makes characters more memorable and enjoyable, but that its effectiveness is highly subjective and shaped by cultural and gender context. The survey found very few comical female characters, a gap the authors flag as significant. They also stress that comedy carries a real risk of misfiring, so it must be carefully playtested. The patterns are presented as an early step toward a broader humour pattern language for games.