Number of Reviews: 6
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The Ring Must Be Deployed, December 24, 2023Adapted from an IFCOMP23 Review
Comedy is a macro phenomenon, a numbers game really. Success is predicated on getting just the right formula that resonates with the most people. A “Marketplace of Laughter” if you will. There are tricks to maximize purchase. Surprising, off-kilter connections is a prime mechanism - recasting or contrasting things the audience knows about human behavior, communication, and/or shared culture. So to generate a laugh you need one of those common baselines, and a twist on or connection with it that folks will respond to.
Human behavior is probably the hardest of these - it requires savant levels of empathy, observation and understanding. If you’ve ever bought a complete dud of a birthday present you understand how hard a deep understanding of one individual is, nevermind crafting a more general observation of mass resonance. Communication humor is a more cerebral exercise, playing with the context, meanings and interplay of spoken or written words. (This formulation does require you to concede that even the lowest brand of humor, Puns, is somehow cerebral. Which I am loathe to do and understand if you are done with this analysis.) Shared culture may be the easiest to engage. All you need to know is that a thing exists, and other people know about it.
Easiest does not have to mean laziest! And an easy baseline does NOT mean easy laughs! It’s the audacity of the connection that brings the chuckles, the baseline is just the platform for it. I think of it like Olympic Diving. It is a greater athletic achievement, with commensurate reward, to execute a high degree of difficulty. But even with lower difficulty, precise execution is still OLYMPIC ATHLETE LEVEL OF WOW.
ODNSF is clearly trading in cultural humor. As a macro numbers game, I can only report one data point, my own. Through no fault of the author, my cultural relationship with the Rings property is… I mean its fine? Once you get past the Elvish racism I mean. And “get past racism” is really a whopper of a phrase to have hung on you, isn’t it? Cooking shows are… also fine? So yeah, these are things I know exist, but my affection for them is shallow and quickly expended. ODNSF trades on affectionate connections and twists here, so it was going to need some really audacious leaps to work for me. It’s ok that it doesn’t.
The work was peppered with some fun turns of phrase, though the ones that landed best for me were unconnected from the underlying setup. Talking about skinning cats, this nifty phrase turned up: "or why in the Realms the methods to do it are something people have devoted time to enumerating. " And I don’t know why but my loudest laugh came from “Although your parents died in a showboating accident …” THAT TURN OF PHRASE HAS BEEN AVAILABLE THIS WHOLE TIME!
There were wry smiles around the periphery throughout, but its main-quest commitment to the mashup was its engine and that didn’t speak to me. I think maybe if it clowned in that space for a while, but used it as a springboard for more character-based or bonkers escalation humor untethered from the inspirations it’s goofing on, that might have worked better?
Or maybe more compelling gameplay? I played as Froyo 3 times and granted I was probably not the most attentive, strategic-thinking player. I pretty handily won the cook-off. It seemed to trade on character/stat synergy in a way I needed to recognize, but not manage to any degree of finesse. Coupled with random die rolls outside my control. That same scenario/stat synergy seemed to leave me unprepared to (Spoiler - click to show)defeat the final boss where choices either traded on Froyo’s lowest stats or pure randomization. I’m pretty sure I see what Froyo’s path would need to be, but after 3 cycles was content to leave it be.
Mechanical, Seamless for me. If you have strong affection for the inspirations and don’t need ambitions beyond that, you would likely enjoy this more.
…
Ok, real talk. I’m a Gimli guy. Dude knows who he is, doesn’t apologize for it, and is open to character growth without drama. At my house, “And my Axe!” is a pretty common response to “Hey, you wanna come to the store with me?” This is the makeup of MY psychological stew. Game did itself no favors sidelining him. While I did appreciate the nod in background, HE IS MORE THAN HIS RELATIONSHIP WITH AN ELF.
I’m also a Hufflepuff.
Played: 10/19/23
Playtime: 1hr, 3 cycles, won bakeoff 2/3, beat Sour Ron 0/3
Artistic/Technical ratings: Mechanical, Seamless
Would Play After Comp?: No, experience seems complete
Artistic scale: Bouncy, Mechanical, Sparks of Joy, Engaging, Transcendent
Technical scale: Unplayable, Intrusive, Notable (Bugginess), Mostly Seamless, Seamless