Pirates, scifi, medieval, steampunk, post apocalyptic… There’s a huge variety of defined themes that people use to make games, some even create their own from scratch.
Goal of a Theme
The goal of a theme is to give a destination to where the player’s imagination will take them. While immersed in this place (magic circle) people don’t see pixels, cardboard or all the mechanics, they see the game world as if it was real and all game elements represent something real like characters or objects.
The experience of immersion is often critical to game enjoyment and is made or destroyed by game characteristics.
Brown & Cairns, A Grounded Investigation of Game Immersion
The theme can help set the mood of the game, from serious to casual or dark to lighthearted, so picking an appropriate theme is important to match the mechanics of a game. However, you should avoid taking a theme’s generic characteristics and applying to your game without giving it enough depth, uniqueness and interesting details since generic stories won’t cause a lasting impression.
I have to admit that when choosing a theme for Ambal Tournament I went pretty basic medieval in the beginning. Then a friend asked me what my game story was about and I gave a standard description of a medieval world with magic, which he replied “Boring!”. That was enough to inspire me to make a world as interesting as the mechanics I was creating.
The lore now evolved a lot, still using the medieval as a base but gathering inspiration from Chinese and Japanese folklore, ancient Greek philosophy as well as my own point of view on some subjects. I will make a detailed post about it in the future!
Complexity of Themes
It is possible to create games that do not have themes or that have very weak themes. However, if our games have unifying, resonant themes, the experiences we create will be much, much stronger,
Jesse Schell, The Art of Game Design: A Book of Lenses
Just like mechanics can have varying levels of complexity (depending on the audience and intended experience) so does the theme and story of a game. The deeper and more detailed you go with the theme, the deeper the player will be able to immerse in the game world.
You don’t have to create an overly complex theme or write a book about the story of the game, it can even be simple as long as it helps making the game interesting and delivering the message. Try matching the complexity of the story to the complexity of the mechanics.
A theme will help give meaning to the mechanics so the rules make sense for the players and highlight positive outcomes, boosting the experience and immersion. Also, the theme will make game components feel like they belong together, because they are part of the same universe.
Imagine if the player have to do a series of actions in the game, using cards or moving pieces around, so they can get a cube that represents a point. That’s very mechanical, but when you dress that up, as for example a wizard performing a series of spells to obtain a secret treasure, it becomes much more fascinating and interesting for the player.
Deciding a Theme
As I mentioned in another post, the mechanics should be defined first, as it is the core of any game, what fundamentally makes it fun or not, and then the theme should be decided to help the mechanics deliver the intended experience.
Two personal tips for choosing a theme:
1- Choose something that helps explaining the rules, a theme where these rules make sense. Example: If your rules involve gathering resources and building, a theme of building a city, a boat or a spaceship will make the rules easier to understand and accept. .
2- Choose something you have knowledge about and/or you have a passion for, that will make the process of matching the theme and rules easier and even more fun! You will be more motivated to do research about the subject and be able to play around with it. Don’t choose a theme you don’t like just because it is popular.
Other tips to consider:
- Choose a theme that moves you or that you can relate to
- Find a subject that you can bring something new to the table
- Bring a theme that deserves more attention
After a theme is decided it will be easier to polish up your game elements so that their interaction is smooth and believable. Some pieces might require a change to fit the theme, so there’s cohesion throughout the design.
A good way to measure this is during play test. Pay attention if a tester say something doesn’t make sense, or have a hard time understanding a rule or it’s place in that world. These often indicate when immersion is being broken, and might require you to adapt a rule or explain something better.
NOTE: I made it sound like choosing the mechanic should always come first, but that’s not always true. The way I think of a design is starting with the mechanics first, but for many people (maybe most) the theme comes first! Both ways are valid, I just tend to prefer mechanics first.