It’s a Tim Schafer Moment: The Role of Wish Fulfilment in Tim Schafer’s Evolution as a Video Game Auteur

Jenova Chen describes auteur theory as “a theory about creations sharing coherent identities from an author, so that people manage to memorize and become able to identify works from their creators”[1].  Jason Schreier sees auteur theory as the single, strong creative vision which leads development of a project[2]. Yet this auteur analysis of Tim Schafer will not directly focus on either of these definitions. Rather, this paper will examine the creative process behind Schafer’s work in accordance with his game design philosophy, and how this influences narrative, gameplay, and what Schafer is  best known for – humour.

Pirates, Monkeys and Rubber Chickens: How humour motivates player progression and exploration throughout The Secret of Monkey Island (1990)

The seamless sewing of humour into almost every facet of the swashbuckling point-and-click adventure game The Secret of Monkey Island (1990) is the main motivating factor for players to sit through hours of dialogue trees, furiously combine inventory items and time their actions to solve puzzles. This analysis will describe and analyse the three forms of humour used to encourage player progression and exploration: narrative humour (used for exposition and plot progression), designer meta-humour (used to parody the adventure game genre) and action humour (used to include combat that contributes to the narrative instead of interfering with it).