In this post I would like to talk about a few examples of good and bad choices of genre for games and cartoons. I will describe a pair of cartoons and games which share a genre but either are good at it or not so much. Since it’s the first post of the year, I wanted to keep it simple and not dwell into the specifics like I plan to do for the other posts this year. But first things first, let us start with the basics.
What is a genre?
According to the Cambridge dictionary, a genre is “a style, especially in the arts, that involves a particular set of characteristics”. That is to say, when you decide to make a piece of art, whether a game or a cartoon, in order to make your story coherent and understandable by people you should follow a set or rules. These rules establish the genre and are meant to ease life of both the creator and the consumer.
For instance, the horror genre requires you to build tension and sense of fear or uncertainty. Comedy means you ought to have some funny situations or actions to make your audience laugh. It gets more tricky if you mix genres but when you break their set rules or structure, then the expectations of the audience become unresolved and the dissatisfaction with the work is more likely. It may be popular to call mess an artistic vision but it doesn’t make the product any better.
Cartoon Examples
For this part I have chosen an animated series and a 2-episode cartoon which is as fragmented as a series, so the comparison is rather fair. Although, the genres are not a perfect fit, so in this pair I will only compare their common part, that is – the comedy.
Saint Young Men (2012)
Two episodes about a holiday life of Buddha and Jesus in Tokyo. based on the manga called “Saint Oniisan” and is often called that as well. It’s a light-hearted comedy and is not meant to be a religious commentary in any way, nor it’s trying to offend anyone. The jokes are based of situation or differences in traditions. The show has two episodes twenty minutes each but in reality the episodes are fragmented into little slice-of-life pieces of an overarching story of a holiday trip.
This show should be viewed as a chill story of foreigners in Japan. I believe this approach will make it easier for some people to accept it. The series will not try to make you laugh on purpose but it will make you smile as you observe the life of two deities trying to appear ordinary humans.
Hazbin hotel (2024)
This one has more than one central genres and comedy is not one of them but it’s still one of the genres the show tries to utilise in extent. The thing is, it doesn’t really work; at least for me. Yes, comedy is always hard, but one of the main genres listed for this series is adult animation and the jokes are on the level of a teenager.
The show seems to already have more than it could chew and its only achievement in the five years of development was to change from a pilot episode to a pilot season. It’s just that jokes don’t work, so it will be more advisable for the creators to abandon an attempt at comedy all together, so the more important parts of the show may have more room to breath.
Game Examples
Both games that I shall talk about in this section have not been complete as of writing this post but are great examples of how genres can be complimentary sometimes and how a switch of genre can change the player’s experience.
Dark deception
Also known as the Pac-man Pro Max but horror. The first-person visuals really bring in the terror as the monsters now chase you directly. To be honest, most of the times it’s not even the design of the enemies that is scary but the fact that you always have to be on the run and the uncertainty meets you at every corner. This is the best type of horror – fear of the unknown. Most of the time you don’t know where the enemies are and when you do, it’s usually too late. This creates a great sensation of adrenaline and is very fitting for the concept of the game.
The Baby In Yellow
It has started as a game for a game jam, that is, the original prototype was developed in just two days. From the first chapters it is noticeable that the game was trying to be a horror adventure game, but its jump scares were not working as intended. It’s still a horror game but with later updates it switched the focus from trying to only scare the player to making the player solve puzzles with elements of horror. This may be only my opinion but I believe that it made the game far more engaging.
This concludes my little discourse on the importance of genre. I definitely would like to go deeper on the topic and compare certain elements with each other to show concrete examples of successful genre choice and failed attempts. However, this is all I shall write today. Stay tuned for future posts. Thank you for reading. If you have any questions or suggestion, please, leave them in the comments below.
Geeky Nerd 
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