By Nathan Grayson on October 23rd, 2012 at 11:00 am.
Jazzpunk looks special. Very, very special. First off, just, well, look at it. The art style seems like some mad mix of Thirty Flights Of Loving and colors un-glimpsed by human eyes for eons. The original concept art could’ve been drawn by a pterodactyl. Who knows? The concept, though, is what actually makes it worthy of your precious eyeball fluids. In short, it’s retro cyberpunk adventure game that’s strongly influenced by ’80s spoof films like Airplane and Naked Gun. It’s even being developed with its own proprietary Jokes-Per-Minute (JPM) measurement technology. Seriously!
Jazzpunk is a self-described “first-person adventure comedy” that casts you as Agent Polyblank in a series of “gadget-driven” capers. So yes, sounds pretty adventure-y, although it certainly doesn’t look it. As for the joke measuring technology, well, it’s real – for better or worse.
“Jokes Per Minute Meter (JPM) is a tool we have implemented to help determine where and when comedy is running dry. In the code, each joke calls out to the joke meter to track that event and calculate the average number of jokes per minute. When the jokes per minute (JPM) falls below a certain level, we know we need to add content. This metric is useful for gauging quantity.”
“Joke Heatmap is another tool we use to analyze problem areas, and survey joke potentials. It is simply a map a level with joke areas marked in red. This tool allows you to see more of the prospective ‘quality’ of jokes, as better ones can have a larger area of effect- requiring fewer in the surrounding area.”
A bit weird, right? I mean, the best comedic timing tends to emerge organically and on a case-by-case basis – not via a series of preset limits – but traditional approaches and videogames don’t typically go well together. So maybe Necrophone’s onto something? I really, really hope so, anyway, because JazzPunk looks equal parts silly and stylish in a fashion that’s highly relevant to my interests. It’s coming “soon.” Which really isn’t soon enough, if you ask me. Hopefully we’ll see more, er, sooner.
23/10/2012 at 11:06 CurzoJools says:
Surely the Jokes per minute meter is itself, a joke?
23/10/2012 at 11:51 yurusei says:
We need to Stand-up to this kind of comedy!
23/10/2012 at 12:10 brooklyn67 says:
Yeah, joke map seems sketchy. Just a bit.
23/10/2012 at 12:47 Lanfranc says:
At least it sounds ike they’re trying to break out of the routine.
23/10/2012 at 15:57 Fumarole says:
I don’t like these puns, not one bit.
23/10/2012 at 12:04 HexagonalBolts says:
Yeeeeahh, Nathan, I think you may have taken this one a bit too seriously! I think they’re parodying advanced game development tools
23/10/2012 at 11:19 tomeoftom says:
20 seconds in, the Gravity Bone elevator. Heh.
23/10/2012 at 11:40 Kollega says:
Looks exactly like my kind of thing, and since my opinion is the only one that matters*, exactly like the kind of thing that should be done more often.
* That was sarcasm.
23/10/2012 at 11:54 Bhazor says:
It looks like Forty Flights of Loving. Except theres actually a game in there.
23/10/2012 at 19:58 TychoCelchuuu says:
So like Gravity Bone, then.
23/10/2012 at 20:30 Gonefornow says:
Hopefully more of a game than that.
Blimey, I’m once again gonna pay up for a “game” that’s all about the style and story/narrative.
Not that I really mind.
It’s a better use of time than them movies.
24/10/2012 at 12:07 The Random One says:
I don’t know how facetious you are being, but that is why I don’t get people who say so and so aren’t games. Not only are you clinging to an exclusionary definition, but you cling to it first and foremost as if defining the precise nature of your entertainment was of utmost importance.
“So what did you think of Calvino’s The Invisible Cities?”
“Oh, it was great. So imaginative, such melodious prose. It was nothing short of breathtaking. But, you know, it’s not REALLY a novel.”
Who cares? Are you writing a thesis about it? Enjoy it for what it is and analyze it for what it does.
23/10/2012 at 13:44 Tyrone Slothrop. says:
I’m still waiting for government or private funding to create an Afro-futurist Deus Ex-like set in an alternate history 1970′s Ethiopia which serves as a nexus for localised space flight, inspired by and featuring the body of work of jazz genius Sun Ra, complete with Euphoria-driven parkour and zero-gravity gameplay in a narrative which is a profound meditation on the nature of entropy, technological hubris and existentialism interspersed with drug-induced hallucinatory sequences recalling Oscar Kokoschka’s expressionist paintings. The game ends with the apparent simultaneous destruction and creation of all known life in the universe to John Coltrane’s impossibly sublime A Love Supreme.
It’s a MOBA with retailer-specific pre-order bonuses.
23/10/2012 at 14:03 Sleepymatt says:
No hats? No sale!
23/10/2012 at 14:22 Jim9137 says:
I am pretty sure whatever it is, it is lacking in non-eucledian fluid mechanics.
24/10/2012 at 00:30 tomeoftom says:
Jim’s right, supercool that shit.
Also, brb, listening to Mr. Day for the 10th time today (thanks, you dick).
Edit: I know you were at least 80% joking, but you have great taste in dream games.
23/10/2012 at 15:20 Skabooga says:
More things need to be influenced by Airplane!.
23/10/2012 at 16:10 thesmileman says:
while watching the video I kept thinking, ‘is this a new Katamari game?”
Obviously not just the graphics style really screamed Katamari (not a complaint )
23/10/2012 at 17:02 FuzzieBoy says:
The trailer reminded me of Normality, but possibly done better. I have now begun the hunt for a button allowing me to throw money at the developers, be back in a jiffy.
23/10/2012 at 17:23 MadTinkerer says:
Can’t wait to play it on my cardboard phonograph.
23/10/2012 at 20:40 wodin says:
I’m very wary of games that are supposed to be funny and throw jokes at you left right and center very rarely does it work..
Most game designers\developers aren’t stand up comedians..
24/10/2012 at 00:18 Stackler says:
Come on, I think the clowns at Bioware are doing a fine job!
24/10/2012 at 03:56 The Random One says:
Yeah, the people at [DEVELOPER] must be great comedians, because [GAME] is a joke!
(Please replace tags with HATED DEVELOPER AND GAME for the Angry Internet Man version of this post or with BELOVED DEVELOPER AND GAME for the Hipster version. Thank you.)
23/10/2012 at 23:13 Stackler says:
It looks like a nice game but the bullshit about their joke meter is itself a joke, hopefully.
24/10/2012 at 03:51 The Random One says:
From the trailer it might be interesting and clever or it might be based on the idea that throwing things at people and boobies are intrinsically funny. Worth keeping an eye out for it though.