building funny games about people

in progress! need to revise and add photos

i’m not a writer, nor am i well versed in psychology. i try code and make a bit of art. but i keep making games about people and thinking about people.

not in the grand “simulating humanity” sense, but in the small, every day, kind of dumb sense. sometimes they’re aliens pretending to be people, trying to fit in. other times they’re cs graduates struggling to break into the industry.

people are already funny

real life already feels like a game half the time. juggling tasks is just resource management. awkward silences? a turn timer that nobody realized was running. people are unpredictable, and unpredictability is hilarious; but i can’t help finding people funny.

i love watching how we trip over our own routines— ordering coffee, falling in love, messing up your own order, trying not to be seen by others. games are perfect for exaggerating these tiny moments.

why these games work

i don’t really think of the stuff i make as satire. it’s more like a mirror with a funhouse wobble. you play it and go, “oh… yeah, i do that. they are soooo me.” i don’t intend on making fun of people or certain archetypes, it’s more like putting a spotlight on the little quirks we all share. i think that’s why these games feel sticky even if they’re small: they remind you of something familiar.

dialogue

writing dialogue, although i dread it, has become one of my favorite parts of game dev. the lines really sell a game.

in our most recent game, spread the love, the way i wrote the dialogue was kind of like… pretending i was these people at once. i’d sit at my computer and think, “ok, what would a chronically online guy into movies say to start a convo, xyz,” and this turned into this chain reaction of voices, bouncing off each other.

i like writing dialogue that feels slightly exaggerated but still recognizable. in spread the love, we have six characters with distinct speaking and texting styles; they maybe talk too much, too little, are a bit awkward, but that’s where the humor and humanity is; leaning into awkward pauses, half-finished sentences, and explaining way too much.

dialogue is such an easy way to make a game about people feel alive. if the text makes you laugh or cringe or nod along, it suddenly feels like you’re in the middle of something real, and i love watching others read dialogue i’ve written.

mechanics that make people feel Real

something that i really love about spread the love is thinking about how people work. if you want games about people to feel like people, the mechanics just can’t be win/lose. sometimes “losing” allows you to move forward, highlighting the unpredictability of people.

some examples of fun interactions that had that twist in spread the love:

• you watch a horror movie with allen; if you get scared you lose because he only wants to keep hanging out with you if you can stomach the same movies as him.
• jet rejects you if you actually win his minigame and beat him at lingon legends because it hurts his ego. you can only progress with him by letting him feel like he’s better than you.

those are minor and silly rules that feel real because they’re rooted in personality. i like making mechanics bend around the characters; it makes game development feel less like fighting a system and more like navigating relationships (which is honestly way funnier).

why i keep coming back

these games are small, but they stick with people. they’re approachable. they blur the technical and the playful in a way that just feels so natural to me. i think what i want most is for players to laugh, recognize themselves, and walk away with a small and silly moment of joy. being a person is already absurd, and making games about that absurdity just makes sense to me. maybe that’s the real fun of it.