The Secret of Monkey Island

Is My Avatar MY Avatar? Character Autonomy and Automated Avatar Actions in Digital Games

Willumsen's paper addresses a persistent question in game studies: when a player-controlled avatar acts, is the action expressing the player's agency or the independent will of a fictional character?

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.

• The paper argues that game character humour (based on superiority, relief, and incongruity theories) can be systematically organised into reusable design patterns rather than treated as an ad hoc writing choice.
• The central contribution is a pattern language of eleven humour patterns, including COMIC AVATAR, COMIC DUO, COMIC SIDEKICK, 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 design trade-offs, most notably between humour and player identification or narrative tension.