Gag as a Challenge – the Tradition of the Western Cartoon in Adventure Games
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.7494/human.2026.25.1.8017Keywords:
animated cartoon, animation, adventure game, animated cartoon in video games, film and video gameAbstract
Cartoons are a phenomenon that originates from cinema, but they also have an important representation in video games. Using three adventure games as examples: 'Day of the Tentacle' (1993, LucasArts), 'The Pink Panther: Passport to Peril' (1996), and 'The Pink Panther: Hocus Pocus Pink' (1997, Wanderlust Interactive), I would like to examine how typical cartoon aesthetics and features influence adventure game mechanics and quest design. The events shown in these titles are subordinated to a gag formula, their worlds live according to specific rules, and the characters inhabiting them brazenly ignore the laws of physics of empirical reality and are aware of their artificiality.
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