GDC 2025 Session Viewer
Independent Games Summit: Teabag in First: How 'Thank Goodness You’re Here!' Does Comedy
James Carbutt (Co-Creator, Coal Supper)
Will Todd (Co-Creator, Coal Supper)
Pass Type: All Access Pass, Summits Pass, Indie Games Summit Pass - Get your pass now!
Track: Independent Games
Format: Lecture
Vault Recording: TBD
Audience Level: Intermediate
Following its late 2024 release, Thank Goodness You’re Here! – a ‘comedy slapformer’ – has been lauded for both its refreshing absurdity, and density of written and visual gags. In this talk, co-creators Will Todd and James Carbutt dissect the proverbial frog and offer up a formalization of their approach to comedy writing. The duo will lay out their ‘funny first’ game design process, and illustrate the content production framework that stopped the whole thing bursting at the seams.
Takeaway
Writers will leave with the vocabulary and reference points to start making comedy writing a ‘first class citizen’ in their development process. Programmers and designers will gain a framework of how to structure animation, logic and in particular voiced dialogue, in a way that balances a high level of flexibility without compromising on speed of production.
Intended Audience
This session is for all developers, designers and writers looking to create work oriented around a specific “tone of voice”, comedic or otherwise, but is best suited for those trying to build something that is funny.
