S4E2 – Which I Now Realise May Have Sounded Like a Holocaust Joke

Hello! Did you miss us? If you have an issue, here is a tissue: Sorry about that. On the subject of awful humour, there is an old saying that embarrassing grandmothers like to post on social media, about how you only use 17 facial muscles to smile, while you use a whopping 43 to frown.

Continue reading S4E2 – Which I Now Realise May Have Sounded Like a Holocaust Joke

Hello! Did you miss us? If you have an issue, here is a tissue:

Caption unneeded.

Sorry about that. On the subject of awful humour, there is an old saying that embarrassing grandmothers like to post on social media, about how you only use 17 facial muscles to smile, while you use a whopping 43 to frown. What your granny probably fails to consider before hastily liking a photo of a Golden Retriever with a slice of ham stuck to its face (1 LIKE = 1 PRAYER, right?) is that the clever people coaxing those 17 facial muscles into action often have one hell of a difficult time doing so.

Comedy is a thing we take for granted, but it is actually damn difficult to pull off. Consider the number of jokes that fall flat in this very show, for instance. It is no surprise that game designers have to face this disturbing fact as well.

In order to dissect the nature of comedy and try to work out how you make good comedy in games, we sat down with game designer and stand-up comedian Alasdair Beckett-King. It would be clear to anyone who have played Nelly Cootalot: The Fowl Fleet, the latest, released game penned by Alasdair, that not only does the man know how to be supremely funny, but he also clearly spends a lot of energy on it.

This is Alasdair and his lush mane, doing what they do best…
…and this is how he chooses to represent himself on Skype.

Over the course of one hour, we discuss what it is that makes Nelly Cootalot funny, what makes a good joke, what makes a lousy joke, and why Southern Rail sucks so bad. If you like what Alasdair has to say, you should go buy Nelly Cootalot, and I’m not just saying that because he’s paying me £500 (approx. $1 now) every time I namedrop his game, or imply that you should buy it. Nelly Cootalot, Nelly Cootalot. Nelly. Coot. A Lot.

Look, just go buy Nelly Cootalot.

We’ll be back with another secret guest next week, and as usual, beans will not be spilled until you have stopped caring anyway.