In contrast to repetition is surprise, a "key element" of humor, Schafer says, "[whether] it's an unexpected pratfall or just a written sentence that you think is going one way, but ends up somewhere else." One comedic tactic that works well with surprise is good slapstick, Schafer suggests, calling the form "one of the most pure forms of comedy there is." But even slapstick has its pitfalls. "I think slapstick got a bad rep from overuse," he says, citing extended pie-fight sequences as an example. "Developers should steer clear of 20-minute pie-fight sequences. Actually, in multiplayer, that would be pretty funny."

Schafer and Geithman agree that choosing the right person to write the comedic elements into a game can make a huge difference in the outcome. Geithman thinks game designers make a mistake writing the dialogue themselves instead of hiring someone, then switches back: "Well that's not fair--you can do it if you have the right creative mix and if you have the willingness to hear that what you think is funny is really just retarded and you should go back to the drawing board." In essence, comedy writers should not work in a vacuum.

The writing of the Monkey Island games was a collaborative effort.

Schafer supports this notion. "The best comedy writing is done in teams," he says. "The Simpsons, for example, has something like 40 writers working in two rooms. They all bounce off each other's ideas and probably get a lot more done than 40 writers would in 40 separate rooms." Schafer says when his team was working on Monkey Island, they were all crammed into one office. "We knew [creator] Ron Gilbert would come around in the afternoons and check out the stuff, and a crowd might develop around your computer, and all these people would either be laughing, or sitting there quietly, and I found myself writing for those moments, picking up on the reactions of the crowd almost like in a live performance, and changing the text based on what people laughed at or didn't," he says. The crowd, Schafer says, would migrate around the room, from one person to the next, and since the next might get more laughs, "there was a slight competitive edge to it that was also inspiring." Working in teams is "great," Schafer says, adding that "the most fun times I've had in games have been those group brainstorming sessions at the beginning of the project where some really funny idea from the game comes out of a story someone tells about their weekend. The feedback is really important. When you hear people laugh it makes you want to keep going, and you don't often get that in games, unless you work in a group."

Lack of courage and self-censorship are at the top of Schafer's list of what developers need to overcome to make good, funny games. "I think in games people hold back a lot because they're afraid," he says. "They'll come up with something crazy and funny, but then take it out, thinking, 'You can't do that in games. The players won't accept that.'"

To back away from taking risks is to say, "Game players are humorless old gas bags who will explode in a rage if I try anything out of the ordinary in my game," Schafer says. But he understands how easy it is to think that, because there are "humorless old gas bag players out there, and they're the most vocal on the gaming forums." But he knows that not everyone thinks this way. "If you try something new and you don't make it work, people blame it on the innovation, instead of putting the blame on the execution, where it belongs," he says. "Likewise, if you do something as a joke in a game, and it's not successful, they'll blame the joke, and say, 'Quit trying to be funny. This is a game.' So it's not enough to be innovative and funny. You have to make it work as well."

Toilet humor certainly doesn't work for everyone.

Dan Harnett, co-CEO of cho HighWater Group, a New York-based public-relations firm that represents video and PC game companies, says that humorous games are a hard sell because humor is subjective. "I think it's even tougher now with the continuing expansion of the age demographic for video games," Harnett says. He advises that if a company is intent on making a funny game that it should clearly define the audience it's going after. "A 'pull my finger' gag may work in a game for kids or teens, but may not be so uproarious for adults," he says. "Or maybe that's backward. But either way it's tough because if I'm touting the comedic value of a game as its main selling point and it falls flat with the audience, then any other redeeming quality in the game is in danger of being overlooked."