Finally, someone is brave enough to make a good game about making bad movies funny. RiffTrax: The Game tasks players with coming up with humorous heckles in response to terrible-movie clips. The RiffTrax team, which includes many former creatives from cult-classic movie-riffing show Mystery Science Theater 3000, is teaming with developer Wide Right Interactive. RiffTrax: The Game is a variation on Wide Right’s What The Dub, which is already a social-gaming take on movie riffing.
RiffTrax: The Game is getting support across most major platforms. Wide Right is launching it May 5 on Steam, PlayStation, Xbox, and Nintendo Switch. The RiffTrax team is also bringing along its library of film rights. The company will include clips from some of the movies like Rollergator, Attack of the Supermonsters, and Plan 9 from Outer Space. Writers Mike Nelson, Kevin Murphy, Bill Corbett, and more will also contribute pre-written jokes for players who need help thinking of something funny.
Crucially, Wide Right is also building RiffTrax for social play and livestreaming. It features remote games, crossplay, and voice chat. With remote play, anyone with an internet-connected device can participate from anywhere. And like other recent social party games like Jackbox, broadcasters can include their audiences in the games.
A game is something of a roundabout turn for the team at RiffTrax. By popularizing movie riffs while at MST3K, the RiffTrax team also defined much of the modern internet humor. A huge portion of Twitch, for example, is people quipping while playing video games. RiffTrax itself also has a strong association with games with many of their jokes referencing video games. The company even has a riff of the Super Mario Bros. movie.