X-Strike Studios, PBC Productions, and we the Virtual Fools (myself and other GCJ founder Kevin), hosted a two hour long block of video game themed improv. An idea kicked around at the last few MAGFests, video game improv has always made us weary. A good improv show relies on the members of the troupe playing off of one another, supporting each other’s ideas, and making the show inclusive. The problem with video game improv is that there’s always a looming threat that it will turn into a bunch of obscure references that make it difficult for scenes to progress or any chemistry to be built on stage. What happens when someone makes a Virtua Fighter 4 reference that nobody else gets? If you answered ‘the sound of crickets’ give yourself a dollar. 

Everybody participating had done improv at some point in their life. The guys of X-Strike and PBC had pretty much all done improv together at some point in their college career, Kevin and I were in the same high school troupe, and Kevin also did improv throughout his undergrad. I hadn’t so much as played Party Quirks in at least five years. 

Despite the odds, it was a rousing success, in my opinion. Though there were a few misses (to be expected), we developed chemistry and even if we weren’t the most talented improvisational actors, we were able to make the show entertaining and creative. We kicked it off with six improv games: vulture, party quirks, slideshow, return department, scene replay (and rewind), and debate. Then we did a longform scene based around the adventures of an RPG party (video will be linked when available).

What I would like to discuss is how video games were deployed in our scenes–what translates from a cartridge or disc to the improvisational stage. 

The first scene, vulture, had very little to do with games. Beginning with a single topic, two actors had to start a scene. At any time during the scene, one of the players offstage could yell ‘flag’ to freeze the scene while providing a reason that they should take the place of one of the actors. Starting with velociraptors, the game worked because it steadily escalated and the crowd enjoyed it because we got in some good Jurassic Park jokes. I think it was important that we didn’t kick things off with games directly because it gave us a chance to warm-up before tackling the more difficult task of integrating games into our routine.

Party Quirks, the ever popular game where a party host has to guess the identities of their guests, was basically a game of references. The party goers were supposed to be Yoshimitsu from Tekken/Soul Calibur, a Space Invader, and Dr. Mario. The Yoshimitsu guest was really an X-Strike inside joke, so it wouldn’t have worked if it weren’t two X-Strikers interacting. I’m not sure how members of the audience who were outside the joke reacted, though it was amusing to watch the physical behavior of Rory. Kevin’s Space Invader worked because he could express the nuances of behavior while expanding the character to have a voice. Juese’s Dr. Mario was a matter of playing down the obvious to make more subtle references to extend the scene. He behaved as if he were Dr. Mario taken from the game and acting in the real world rather than merely placed in the real world. 

I had never played slideshow before, but I liked the game a lot. Brett was supposed to be a kid showing off his trip to Castlevania on a slideshow projector while Tim and Rich freeze in positions in the background. Brett doesn’t know how the actors are posed and the actors don’t know where Brett is going with his story. The dissonance between the narrative and visuals is what makes the game interesting, but the difficulty is in making sure this gap isn’t so large that people can’t use their imagination to make sense of the scene. It’s a difficult game, which is why I’m glad I didn’t play in it. 

I particularly liked return department, in which one person is returning something to a store but they don’t know what it is. It’s up to the return department clerk and supporting cast to help them guess their returned item. Darrin was returning a Weighted Companion Cube and Chad was the rude clerk. After a bit of time, Rory came on stage crying—having built up a relationship with his companion cube. This, in particular, was great for the audience who knew why he was crying. When I came in, I was holding the companion sphere from the Portal advanced maps. Not a great clue for Darrin, but it went over with the audience, and Chad was able to introduce the super-colliding super-button and storage cube dispenser. Portal doesn’t have all that many set pieces, so it was an important addition to the scene. Tim, Steve, and Rich all helped provide clues, though I don’t know at what point Darrin actually figured it out and just wanted to keep the scene going versus how long he actually needed to guess. I have a feeling the former is true.

Steve and I did half-life (and rewind), which was pretty much an opportunity to do a little Game Stop bashing. The scene begins at 1-minutes length and we try to create a rounded scene about someone buying a game and a stubborn clerk acting as Game Stop clerks are apt to act. We then replay the scene at twice the speed, turning 1 minute into 30 seconds. Then again from 30 to 15, 15 to 7.5, and 7.5 to 3 seconds. Oh, and then the 15 second scene backward. Thankfully Steve was good at guiding the trajectory of the scene and I played off of his cues.  

The final game, debate, was another game I had not seen before. Two actors, in this case Juese and Ben, are supposed to be arguing on different topics. The rub is that neither know what their topic is. It’s actually being acted out across from them by two other actors working to lead them to a two-word answer. Ben is trying to come up with Underwater Pyramid, while Juese is in favor of Oakmi Porn. After you watch the amusing pantomime once, I ask you to go back and watch it again while paying special attention to what the debaters are actually saying. It’s the hardest part of the game, making it more than just simple charades. 

Our final piece in the improv show, which was a longform scene about an adventurer set in the RPG genre. We had no prompts from the audience besides some sort of goal, which is to find the MacGuffin Device (so, pretty vague). Thanks to Rich, I was roped into playing the evil villain which put a lot of pressure on me to move the scene along and pay close attention to the details of the other actors. I’m thankful for this, though, as it pushed me to put myself out there. If the video ever gets online, I will attempt to detail its events. But as it is not, there’s little point to me explaining all the events of the scene. The thing to note is that we had to work the conventions of the genre for both our guiding narrative and entertainment factor. 

Video game improv worked out surprisingly well. We entertained our audience and had no screeching-to-a-halt scenes or moments. I loved finally getting the opportunity to work with X-Strike and PBC in a performance space and hope that we can do it again next year. Let me know what you think about the videos—I’d love feedback from people outside the MAGFest circle.