Theme is one element of boardgame design that must not be overlooked. It takes ho-hum mechanics and binds them to a storyline that adds meaning and helps captivate the audience. Divorce themes from boardgames leaving the likes of Chess, Reversi, Checkers, and Backgammon and you can forget about me taking such an enthusiastic part in the hobby. Theme is the glue that keeps me in gaming and excited about trying new releases.
I’m not as concerned with what the theme is as I am concerned with how well the mechanics convey that theme. I won’t argue that publishers should take care to choose the right themes for their games, but I think this is a detail with which publishers can become overly concerned. Personally, as a gamer, I am far more interested in thematic cohesion. Are the things I’m doing on my turn reminding me that I am a plantation owner, an island settler, or a principality developer in renaissance Italy? If they are, I’m going to enjoy the game all the more. A good sign of strong thematic cohesion is the difficulty with with any one theme is swapped out and the game fitted with another.
I am open to new, fresh themes that I haven’t seen before. In Industrial Waste competitors pollute the environment and hire and lay off workers all to the tune of profit; the theme is novel and the game, a good one. The theme works and that really is what matters most, not the flavor of the theme.
Of course, in games there will always be some abstraction. A game ceases to be a game and becomes a simulation when it attempts to mirror every facet of reality. I’m not interested in Advanced Squad Leader depth, I just want a game that at least loosely carries me past the game board and bits into a new, fresh place. I know its been said that “game play is paramount.” If abstracting makes a game more fun and helps alleviate mental recordkeeping, it should be done.
Building elegance can decrease theme
Hardcore enthusiasts and game designers will often speak of elegance in a game’s design. Elegance comes when the design has been shucked clean of fiddly rules (or “niggly” rules if you’re Rick Thornquist). While elegance and theme are not mutually exclusive, it becomes increasingly difficult to retain stark elegance as thematic layers are added. Still, gaining theme at the cost of some elegance is usually a worthwhile trade off. Theme most comes alive when the separate mechanics/subsystems are marvelously intertwined so that the interactions make complete sense and the rules seem almost obvious.
Knizia is one of the best and most brilliant designers. It’s amazing how many solid designs he can invent in a year. Though I enjoy a number of his games, I find that most of his offerings, because of their stark elegance, lack thematic richness.
In reading the March edition of Knucklebones at Barnes & Noble, I read that Knizia says he usually begins with theme. Weird. To me his designs are so clean they look as if the mechanics came first. Knizia says:
The theme, mechanics and the materials [of a game] must work as one unit and if they don’t gel together I think the game is not complete. My approach is that the game should have simple rules, and the depth of play comes out of these simple and unified rules.
That statement, without a doubt, defines Knizia designs. He wonderfully succeeds at this goal. Yet, for me most of his themes don’t come alive. I think that in stripping a game down to its bare essentials much of the flavor is lost. In a funny way, because Knizia is a master at achieving elegance, he does not design the kind of games that I most enjoy. Supremely elegant designs (ranging from Chess and Go to Tower of Babel and Palazzo) do not succeed at painting vivid themes. The difference between impressionistic and realistic art is analogous to the thematic vividness I see contrasted between simple designs and more intricate ones.
Use exception mechanisms to build theme
I find that exception mechanisms help bridge elegance to theme. Take the power cards of Amun-Re, the buildings of Puerto Rico, or the special action boxes of Byzantium. These mechanisms create tactics and strategies that add thematic flavor without muddying up a game’s base rules. That is, they can exist as an extra layer on top of a game’s underlying elegance.
I agree with Larry Levy in his Rating the Designers article that “the only really indispensable game [that Knizia has] released since 2000 is Amun-Re.” For me, the Amun-Re power cards really hit the sweet spot. Lose the cards and you still have an elegant, functional design, but not one I’d care to play. The power cards add both theme and depth to the game. Isn’t it great fishing for the special victory point cards and trying to achieve their conditions. I suspect that if Knizia devised less-elegant advanced rules for his games, many more would hit my sweet spot.
Use art to build theme
Fabulous artwork undoubtedly enhances a game. Additionally, if well done, it can really build thematic richness.
Andreas Seyfarth in his interview with Tom Vasel said of Caylus, that “the mechanics […] didn’t grab me first, neither did the illustrations and the graphics. The Setting is […] very artificial (example: the cubes remain cubes, I didn’t feel them as food, cloth or what they are called by the rules).” Consider how even the little change of printing chits with nice illustrations of food and cloth would have enriched the environment. As it stands with Caylus being the acclaimed game it is, this is only a minor point.
Having discussed a couple things that impact theme, let’s stroll through a gallery of games taking the journey from “theme dead” to “theme alive.”
No Theme
Drop all precepts of a theme and you have an abstract game. This leaves us with classics like Chess and Go. It leaves us with traditional card games like Bridge, Canasta, Spades, Hearts, and Poker. It leaves us with Eurogames like Ingenious, Blokus and DVONN (and others in the GIPF series). I like many abstracts; Chess, for example, in my mind is a game of incredible brilliance. And of the recent Eurogames, I like Ingenious quite a bit. By and large, I consider abstracts appetizers not entrees. Sometimes I’m in the mood for them, but most times I’d rather be playing a game with at least some theme.
Chess
Chess may be likened to a battle between kingdoms. Yet, I can find no reason why the queen should be able to strike down almost any force from across a field of battle. Can you see it? Crazy woman, scepter raised high over head shrilly screaming “Yie-yie-yie-yie!” as she races toward the knight and thunks him on the head. His corpse slides from his horse and bellyflops onto the ground. Yes, folks: Chess is abstract.
Go
Trying to add a theme to Go would be absurd. The one thing that I respect about abstract games is that they don’t pretend to be anything other than what they are: abstractions. No fluff is added; players focus on the pure task at hand, nothing more. Go defines abstracts. It shows more clearly than any game how beauty can spring forth from utterly simple rule sets.
Ingenious
Hex-like multicolored dominoes are added to the board and points are accumulated for adjacent, like-colored spokes. Add a theme; I dare you! Nevertheless, I find Ingenious to be a wonderful game that newcomers enjoy.
Light Theme
Now we’ve ventured into the land of pasted-on themes. Loose themes so barely hold true, they could easily be dropped leaving a simple abstract game. In many cases, another theme could easily be “pasted on.” I’m not advocating that loose themes are worthless or that there aren’t some great games with hardly a theme. In almost every case, I’d rather have a theme with as much stick as a Post-It than to have no theme at all. Even a loose theme, if it sensibly conveys mechanics, can serve the players.
For Sale
Some might argue that the theme is fitting. I agree: it is. Yet, the game is so pure, so elegant that no theme could convey any real depth. Again, this is just a matter of theme and elegance being on somewhat opposite ends of the spectrum. I’m not suggesting For Sale is not a good game, just that the theme doesn’t have (cannot have) the strength that comes from a game with a greater number of interlocking, theme-supporting facets.
Lost Cities
Knizia is the king of the why-bother themes. The vast majority of his games surround a couple clever mechanics that make for brilliant, albeit theme-light, games. Lost Cities is no exception. For its shear simplicity there is no more excellent a game, yet it hardly takes me to another time or place. During the whole of a session it feels like I’m “playing cards.” Knizia is without a doubt a games genius. Yet for his marvelous ability and my personal taste, he has as many misses as he has hits. Recent theme-light offerings like Beowulf, Tower of Babel, and Palazzo have me wondering when I can expect another Amun-Re from the good doctor.
Medici
Medici is so theme light I contemplated categorizing it a pure abstract. I mean, sure you can talk about your ship having a hold and about earning a reputation as a trader of various commodities, but did you ever–for even a second–escape into that theme? The only reason that I added in under light themes was that the trader theme poses enough of a framework that it does aid in explaining and remembering the rules. So you see: even the lightest of themes can serve the players.
Emerald
Emerald is another case where the game itself lightly conveys the theme. It only just barely has enough game to substantiate stealing gems and gold from a dragon’s lair. The game is a fun, light game great for families and groups including casual gamers. The theme is there, but its systems are so simple that it doesn’t totally come alive.
Tower of Babel
This game almost seems complete abstract to me. I’m not arguing that the clever doctor created an unworthy game. It has nice elements to it. It’s just that, for me, I’m not taken to a world where I’m participating in the creation of wonders and for this reason the game will never rise to personal greatness. The veneered theme nominally improves the game.
Through the Desert
Lots of people tout Through the Desert as dry and, some, say it has a pasted-on theme. I won’t argue; in any case, I love the game. It is tactically rich, it has me constantly assessing risks, and timing my moves to avoid losing ground, VP chits, or oasis connections. Yep, it’s dry and it does very little to make me feel like a caravaneer making his way “through the desert,” but boy-o-boy has it got game!
TransAmerica
The spacial element of building railways across the board is believable, but its shear elegance does not allow it to transcend. There is simply not enough to the game to create strong theme. This is not a put down; the game is what it is and people really like it. The artwork helps. Although the board is highly abstracted, cities are relative to their real-world counterparts. The colorful map adds to the sense that railways are being built across the Americas. I don’t find the theme is pasted on, merely light. If not for the spacial element and the real-world approximation, it would be just as light as For Sale.
Shadows Over Camelot
All right, it’s time to offend. Popular or not, Shadows just falls flat for me. I move my knight pawn around the board and play number cards into slots in order to beat back invaders and other threats. Special cards lend additional flavor to that theme; however, its dry mechanics do little to invoke knightly feelings. Only the artwork and the traitor truly work toward painting a theme. By the way of a theme coming alive Shadows is a flatliner.
Louis XIV
The board is a checkered array of personalities. On my turn I’m placing tokens like breadcrumbs to earn influence among those personalities. And I’m achieving missions which are really nothing more than collecting tokens, area-majority style, from those personalities. It’s an abstract game with enough of a theme to be really good. Louis makes a good example, in my mind, of the fact that a game’s mechanics needn’t always believably convey a real world action. Louis is more abstract than not, yet it’s clever and fun.
Acquire
More of Acquire is abstract than not. The board and the limitations of placing any of one’s six tiles into its exact spot, is abstract. Still, there are enough rules about mergers and stock acquisition that make this mostly abstract game a great one. It has just enough theme to help the rules gel and to make the game more interesting than it would have been devoid of theme. While the theme barely holds true, the game itself is brilliant and strategically/tactically rich. Acquire is definitely a case where trying to add any more thematic depth would have cost in elegance and game play. Sid Sackson got it right just the way it is.
As I mentioned, these games may be rightly themed and convey a sense of what’s going on, but for the simplicity of the game itself, there isn’t enough room in which to bring the theme alive.
The Theme Is Alive
For me, theme comes alive when a game has sufficient substance and the substance itself supports the theme. Substance for me is usually matter of dimension, the number of mechanisms or subsystems that interact in defining the bounds of play. The support is derived from mechanisms and subsystems that tell me I’m doing something within the confines of the game world, especially when all the elements are masterfully woven together. That last part, is the line that divides the good designers from the great ones. I don’t want to be broken out of my gaming trance because what I’m doing seems forced or arbitrary.
When I watch movies I am peeved by the overuse and poor integration of CGI. I love movies for the same reason that I love games. They allow me to temporarily escape from the real world into an imaginary one. When I’m watching a great movie, like Lord of the Rings, I’m completely immersed in the story. Then, when starkly-contrasted CGI flashes onto the screen, I’m startled out of my trance and whisked back to reality–that is, until I can again be absorbed by the on-screen telling of the tale. If I’m continually interrupted by CGI-shock the movie loses quite a lot. The Battle of Naboo scenes from Star Wars: The Phantom Menace looked like a giant video game to me. On the other hand, I was blown away by the CGI delivery of King Kong, hardly ever being startled into reality.
When a game has me doing something that seems out of place, I find myself distracted. Or, at the very least, I find that I’m not able to buy the theme. To overcome these shortcomings, the game itself will have to be truly great.
Settlers of Catan
Sure, the game is abstracted. What game isn’t? But, by and large, I’m sold. The game world makes sense to me. I’m building settlements and cities and roads. I’m harvesting resources and trading them. The board looks like an island. Who knows why a lone robber inhabited the island before I got there, but who cares? It feels like a place and I enjoy being there. There are enough mechanisms present for the game to transcend its abstraction. Again, my driving thrust is that only games with a good degree of mechanical depth can truly deliver a living, breathing theme.
La Citta
I’m building growing cities and trying to attract the nearby citizens of neighboring cities to mine. I’m concerned with feeding my population, building amenities according to the latest desires of the people, trying to reach water sources and mountainside quarries, and all the while trying to observe the intrinsic rules of city growth. Can I explain why someone thought to found our cities in the cracks of countryside valleys? No. I don’t care to. Game play is paramount to realism; having to expand cities by the way of valley cracks creates interesting tactics that wouldn’t otherwise exist.
Nautilus
I’m underwater. I’m expanding a sub-sea station, developing technologies, and uncovering treasures from the seafloor. What else I could I be doing?! The game is theme. As far as I know Nautilus never became overly popular, but that’s helps my other point. Just because a game has a rich theme, doesn’t make it a great game or a popular one. I personally like it, but that’s just a matter of taste.
Evo
Evo is colorful and has lots of abstractions. Moving dino-discs around the board doesn’t convince players that they’re dinosaurs on a continent. In spite of this, the game has lots of character. Players earn mutation genes and play event cards. I see these two facets as exception mechanisms that build character and help the theme come alive. Different mutating dino species each take on their own characteristics, and event cards played at opportune times create interesting story twists. Part of whether a game takes off or sinks is a matter of the group playing it. I first played Evo a couple weeks ago with a group that really enjoyed it and got into its spirit. Evo provided just enough interlocking mechanics to make it feel like natural selection. We were dinosaurs and only the fittest would survive!
Byzantium
Though I almost lost it trying to survive the rules explanation, by the time I reached the midpoint of the game I was sold. Wallace had really done a superb job with this game. It offered lots of choices to players who could take part as a faction on either side of the war. The theme comes alive for all of the various options and considerations presented to the players. These options–like enacting civil wars, building fortifications, and so on–painted the tapestry that was Byzantium.
Hacienda
I won’t argue that many of the elements of the game are abstract. On top of that abstraction are interwoven subsystems and subgoals. You’re claiming land and growing animal herds. You’re taking those animals to market and you’re getting them to waterholes. These elements speak of the hacienda storyline Kramer chose. All of this is greatly abstracted; however, it’s the interweaving of the parts of the whole that breathe life into the game. For one thing, games whose boards provide landscapes for the spacial relation of bits paint more believable backdrops. Contrast the abstraction of Ra against Hacienda. Don’t you think more life comes from the spacial maneuvering on Hacienda’s board? What are you doing in Ra other than bidding on and collecting chits.
Tikal
Here’s a prime example of how superb art can really push a game over the top. Not only is Tikal is a great game for its wealth of tactical options, it conveys an atypical, but very pleasant theme: that of leading an archaeological expedition to digging up temples and treasures. The mechanics convey digging up temples and treasures, setting up camps, and guarding temples. Do I need to explain why I am able to place the hex I play in any orientation, and why my base camps are all connected by secret pathways? No. For the sake of superior game play, players are willing to forgo some believability. (It’s like watching James Bond: for the sake of being thrilled by his many amazing abilities we suspend disbelief.) I have played Tikal dozens of times, each time I’m immersed in the jungle ruins that surround me. I buy the theme and the mechanics hook, line, and sinker.
Indonesia
The latest Splotter offering is awesome. I’ve only played it once, so I’m sure I’m jumping the gun, but the game, I think, does a splendid job of creating an economic system in which business owners compete. The design is as elegant as I’ve seen for the level of depth and richness of the theme. I can’t speak yet of the game’s long-term staying power, but I do have a good feeling about it. The complexity of Splotter titles, while often fiddly, are usually theme rich. Indonesia is only my second Splotter game after Antiquity, but I have to say, “Splotter designs just the sort of games I would design if I could.”
Puerto Rico
Puerto Rico thoroughly demonstrates what I mean when I speak of interlocking systems. Players interact with a trading house, they produce goods, they ship those goods, and they plant and work plantations. Each of these mechanics makes sense. But it’s the way in which these mechanisms all interact to produces one of the richest thematic, tactical, and strategic environments ever designed. The buildings each uniquely bend the rules according to its own purpose. Sure, it’s a game of bits manipulation, and it has abstracted the various roles necessary in its imaginary plantation world. Nevertheless, it delivers elegance and theme quite well.
Licensed Themes
Great games, as we’ve seen, can exists in the absence of theme. And great themes can exist in the absence of game. How many board games are created primarily to capitalize on popularity or fads? Take CSI: The Boardgame, a slew of Simpsons titles, and Lord of the Rings. America is a major offender. Elvis still sells? Let’s slap his name on a game or two all for the sake of profit.
Because licensed characters and shows come with a built-in audience, there’s a greatly reduced motivation to produce a worthwhile game. Companies that capitalize on licenses merely reface existing games adding almost nothing new if anything (Simpsons Monopoly, Simpsons Trivial Pursuit, etc.) or create just enough mechanics to substantiate the theme (CSI: The Boardgame). In most cases, these games are gifted to fans never to be played. Because licensed games are seldom good–as with Star Wars: Epic Duels–experienced gamers can hardly justify the risk of buying them.
Through the Desert vs. Hacienda
Quite often I’ve heard Hacienda compared to Through the Desert. I don’t see it. There is a faint resemblance with having to connect to oases or markets, but not enough to justify the comparison. Both are great games, but to me Hacienda is more thematic.
This stems back to elegance. Through the Desert is supremely elegant. Extend your caravans by place two camels a turn. Place two camels, nothing more, and from that the game offers rich decisions and tension. Players are driven to tactics based entirely on the games scoring system coupled with the timeliness of disappearing scoring opportunities. Placing just 2 camels a turn does nothing to suggest theme. Theme comes when players are presented with other kinds of plays and mechanics with which to interact. There is sophistication to the game, but that comes entirely from within and not from without, very Knizia-like.
Hacienda has a moderately richer theme that rises from the several different systems within the game. Players are buying land and animals (cards), managing and earning money (with harvests and markets), scoring haciendas and water holes (that are added later to the board), and playing land and animal cards. There are distinctly different options from which a player may choose on his turn as opposed to simply playing two camels, and these options must be rightly timed to produce the best result.
I’m not going to argue that one game is better than the other. I merely meant to support my stance that stark elegance does diminish theme. Stark elegance comes from simple systems, fewer systems, and fewer kinds of options. Ingenious exemplifies this. Through the Desert is slightly less simple and, thus, conveys slightly more theme. Hacienda isn’t richly thematic, but slightly more complex than Through the Desert and so suggests greater theme. It cleanly combines various subsystems that make sense within the Hacienda theme.
Long Live The Theme
Theme has a profound impact on my enjoyment of games. A game’s theme truly comes alive when
* the mechanics believably convey their real-world actions,
* various subsystems and mechanics combine well,
* the game offers several different kinds of options on each turn,
* the built-in exception mechanisms support different strategies and tactics,
* the art contributes to the fantasy, and
* sometimes, for all of the above, a little elegance is sacrificed.
Yes, occasionally I uncover the theme-light or even abstract gem, but my palate craves lots of juicy theme that demands neither salt nor pepper. I hope to see plenty of more games into which their creators have breathed a theme that is truly alive.
I haven’t lost hope with Knizia. I expect plenty of great titles over the coming years, but I am wondering when to expect his successor to Amun-Re. What will the “Master of Elegance” make of 2006?