Jazzpunk is a comedy game at heart, and perhaps the best example of the genre I’ve ever played. By “comedy game” I mean that Jazzpunk is a game where everything–the art, the mechanics, the gameplay, the dialogue–acts harmoniously in service of a singular goal: the punch line. Video games that rely on a solid, consistent sense of humor almost unanimously fail for one reason or another, so it’s rather astounding that Necrophone Games, the game’s developers, consistently succeed on nearly all fronts.
Your first objective in the game is to break into the Soviet Consulate. You’re briefed on your mission by your mustachioed, lisping Director. When you enter the level you’re placed facing the consulate. If that wasn’t enough, to your left is an enormous floating wall of text that reads “INFILTRATE THE SOVIET CONSULATE.” It couldn’t be easier to know exactly what you need to do. It’s also video game fluff.
Surrounding the consulate is a vibrant, surreal world of hovering polygonal men, women, robots and inanimate objects all eager to converse with you. You may not realize it off the bat, but Jazzpunk is asking you to turn away from the consulate. It’s asking you to ignore the imposing, hovering text. It’s asking you to look at the fantastical world churning around you and ask, “What if?” Jazzpunk thrives on that question. What if?
What if you were to talk to those construction workers? What if you were to cross that bridge? What if you were to talk to that hobo with the greasy bindle slung over his shoulder? The answer to the latter, at least, is that he would sort of talk like The Bug from Men in Black and yell at you about “the government” without any real specificity other than an implied distrust of assembled bodies. Responses like that are what you can expect when you probe at the corners of Jazzpunk’s world. You’re always rewarded with a joke.
“Get out there,” Jazzpunk says. “Go talk to a box. I’ll make it worth your time. Promise.”
There are no superfluous parts in Jazzpunk. The game claims to have an inventory, but it’s really just another way of generating laughs. Once an item has been exhausted, it’s dismissively hurled to the ground. You can’t pick that item up again. Jazzpunk is moving at a comedian’s pace. That joke is over. It’s time to move on to the next gag.
The levels are designed to accommodate the game’s speedy rapport; large enough that they give the player room to breathe, but compact enough to keep exploration from becoming a chore. There’s a carefully balanced ebb and flow to the level design. While the first area is expansive and fairly freeform in regard to exploration, the second is more compact and story-oriented. These variations in size and tone keep the game from feeling repetitive. Similarly, there are miniature levels between missions that take place in relaxing settings, such as a koi pond or a Buddhist temple. These areas are free from the jokey atmosphere of the main missions and serve as a palate cleanser between the madness.
The jokes themselves are wrapped in a layer of mundanity, but it’s the details that make the game genuinely funny. There is, for example, nothing inherently humorous about swatting flies or delivering a package to a man in a park, except that the man who tasks you with delivering the aforementioned package happens to live in a blue postal box and claims to subsist off a diet of stamps and rain water. By virtue of clever writing and a striking art style, like a child’s woodcraft play-set on acid, Jazzpunk twists the commonplace in its meaty grip until it very nearly snaps, but doesn’t.
Jazzpunk isn’t just funny because it’s “so random,” though. There are genuinely clever puns, situational jokes and referential humor delivered expertly by endearing characters with distorted voices. Jazzpunk never feels like it’s going for a particular brand of comedy. Instead, it comes off as a game that knows when to use the right goof at the right time. Of course, sometimes Jazzpunk just does away with its own formula and you find yourself transported into a completely different video game altogether, by means of a pizza.
Jazzpunk isn’t like other games. It wants to be weird and funny and it’s not self-conscious about it. There’s no score, no collectibles, no leaderboards, just the gnawing sense that there’s more to see, more secrets to uncover, more riffs to be had. I want to see them all, and I think you might, too.
