the chicken or the egg? mechanics or context?

I'd have to say theme usually comes first (and is most important) - and here's why:

Your game could have a very basic, bland, mechanic, but add a good theme and you are golden. Think of big selling games, like Clue or Risk. Imagine those games without theme:

Clue (lame version) - you have cards with letters, numbers, and symbols, and you have to figure out which one of each the group doesn't have.

Risk (lame version) - you place counters on a game board. You eliminate opponent's counters by rolling dice. After eliminating all the counters from one space, you move your counters into that space.

See what I've done? I've made games that won't sell, and aren't very fun to play. The theme of the game is what makes the game. Designers (like us) love unique mechanics. Players love theme.

I cant see why Julis would catch a lot of opposition on what he is saying.
I think he is making a very good point.

As we all know everything isnt black and white personally i think that a fun game has both good mechanics and a good them.

I will show what mayfairgames have put up on there homepage regarding submissions. I do feel that what they are saying prove that Julias isn so wrong after all.......

This memo should outline the following items:
• Topic nature of the game (ie, a game about ....)
• Who is the expected market for the game (family members between ?-? or males between the ages of ?-?)
• How does your game fit into the style of games which Mayfair currently produces?
• What is the most interesting facet of the game which could be used in an interesting Marketing approach?
• Is there any similar game to your game? Which ones?
• Has the game been published before?
• What other games have you published?

We are not so interested in the game mechanic, as we are why this game will fit Mayfair's line well. Never send us a prototype unless we specifically request it. If an un-solicited prototype is received it will be immediately destroyed, for your protection and ours. We are always working on games of our own and we would like to protect your idea.

I am new to this community, i have during this winter made my first game, and i am beginning top see the end of the design and playtesting phase. I have followed the discussions here on this forum with great interest, but one thing that has struck me is the focus on mechanics and very operational issues. Dont get me wrong thats of cource important issues, but the people on the street that buys the games wont bother. I am also asking these questions but i think that its very important to look beyond these things, espacially if you want to get published.

I do love designergames like caylus, but most of the publishers dont give a damn about "the beautiful" mechanics we are inventing/using, they just want to sell the game and earn as much money as possible.

I have a company of my own and i work a lot with marketing issues, thats probably why i see things a bit differently than most of you guys here.

One thing is certain,we all share the passion of
playing and designing games and thats what really matters

//Johan

Oh, I think we all like games with both qualities: good mechanics and a good theme.

I think Johant rised a very interesting point. What we, here in the BGDF value most, might not be what publishers or laymen value most. A great game is not an absolute definition, but depends a lot on what criteria you use to define the term "great". As most people here love games and love designing games, we tend to focus on details most people would not care much.

Most times, our concern about game mechanics would help producing a better game, thus more fun for the players. But most times, people would buy the game that gets promoted better, or the game themed about the last Disney movie, etc. Many of the games discussed here would work fine in some niche markets, but probably not that well in the mainstream market, at least not just for being "good games".

Anyway, to me, at least now, it's more about creating games that I feel proud of than games that sell well. I'm not planning on making a living from my games (though I would love to), so it's more or less the same way I approach my tennis: I just try to enjoy it and play as good as I can, learning a bit every day. I'll never be a pro tennis player, so I can concentrate more on improving my technique than just on winning my games. With game design, this means focusing more on the mechanics than on the marketing.

Theme, though, is not just a marketing topic. I think it's extemely important to find game mechanics that match or at least don't go against the theme. In a game about dancing, moving your pawn through a path of footprints sounds fine, having to get balls in a basket sounds like weird. In a basketball game, though, it would be the opposite.

To answer the original question, I say I share CIDIC's experience: better chance of success when I start with a nice mechanic and then find a theme that works with it than starting with a theme and finding the right mechanics.

Seo

I think both are important in a truely immersive, captivating, and compelling game. I've never heard any normal person (I'm wholeheartedly stating that we are not normal ;)) say "Oh, I'll buy that game...that tile laying mechanic looks really ingenious!". They say "Oh, my nephew likes pirates. This has pirates!". Like most marketing, you appeal to the most direct senses and the immediately tangible.

Even my game designing partner would rather play the same game set in a Fantasy realm as opposed to outer space. He just doesn't like sci-fi. It doesn't matter if the mechanic is great - he'll balk at it first off just due to the theme.

I'd have to say:

a) Theme (including artwork, high quality components, etc.) initially sells a game.

while

b) Mechanics make people want to play that game over and over again.

I'm betting there's many a nephew with many a pirate game that goes unplayed.

I think the best games have a balance of both theme and mechanics. Take one of my game group's favourites - Titan: The Arena - as an example. Knizia's original game was, IIRC, about horse racing. When AH took it and added the fantasy setting and the powers of the creatures, they took a purely mechanical game with a theme that wouldn't sell as well in the US/Canada and redressed the mechanic with a theme that appeals to AH's target market and BAM - a good mechanic becomes a great game.

Games like Shadows over Camelot just drip with theme and guarantees a second look by many prospective buyers. Shadows also happens to have a mechanic that is as compelling to gamers as imagining themselves as Knights of the Round.

Neither, by themself is a game. But it's synergistic. When you can link two things together well, the resulting product is greater than the sum of the parts.

Like Elfenland. The game itself is good and is actually fairly complex for a beginner game, but I've taught many people who wanted to play it just because it looked fun. And then wanted to play it again because they understood more of the strategy after one play. And the girls in the group like it because Doris did such a good work with the are. Totally complementary, totally captivating.

Mechanics have to be difficult enough that you don't necessarily know everything on first play, but accessible enough to think you can master it the next time ;)

That said, some types of games (Dexterity / Abstract / Most trick taking games) don't need a theme. But even there, compelling pieces, beautiful components, etc. make many games not only a great mechanic, but a work of art.

Sometimes, in order to increase popularity, an abstract game has more theme added to it - such as in Torres. Terra Turrium, the basis of Torres, was beautiful to look at and cleaner in mechanics, but nowhere near as fun. And not as worth of a SdJ award as Torres.

Have a look at Kramer's designer's notes for more info and how he worked theme in (it's still a pretty abstract game).

http://www.thegamesjournal.com/articles/InventingTorres.shtml

In response to Zzzzz, that's a good point - the original question was related to original design.

I think the majority of my seeds for games come from themes. There are some that come from mechanics, but I generally have a harder time to develop from mechanic to theme as opposed to designing from theme to mechanic. I usually have a "mission statement" when I work on a game. Like "I'm trying to make a game that uses this mechanic" or "I'm trying to make a game that reflects this theme". The majority of my mission statements are more thematic than mechanical.

I think it's because many games in general tend to repackage old mechanics with new themes in new ways such that the interaction is no longer like the game the mechanics may have been borrowed from.

I do happen to think, somewhat, though, that the better games have likely come from solid core mechanics vs. coming from a great theme.

stumps,

Depending on how abstract your definition of theme is, I agree with you. But many consider abstract games as *theme-less*. Though I agree that we could argue (though for no reason) that even a small fraction of a theme exists in any specific abstract game. Though many would say we are generalizing a theme that is *not true* or *not good enough* to be consider a theme based on their definition of theme.

There's lots of discussion of non-mechanics issues, but the threads don't tend to go very far because there's just not that much to discus.

"I have a game about pirates, they're hot this year." "Yeah, but add ninjas, because research shows that teenagers love ninjas." "How about robots? Should I use robot pirate ninjas? Do you think it would sell in gift shops?" "Add zombies, dude!"

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying non-mechanics topics aren't worth discussing. Just that they're limited in what you can really discuss.

I appreciate that you've come up with your own definitions for "theme" and "setting," but I don't think we're required to use them. We've been using the word "theme" to mean something else here for years now -- as have many other professional game designers and publishers -- and it works out just fine. Your definition for "theme" is akin to what we (and folks at the BoardGameGeek, etc.) refer to as "type." Example types include:

• Negotiation
• Action/Dexterity
• Adventure
• Exploration
• Puzzle
• Fighting
• Racing
• Deduction
• Word
• Economic

There is still plenty of discussion of what should and shouldn't be included in such a list, of course.

Feel free to use whatever terms you want. I just think that insisting that we're using the word "theme" wrong doesn't advance your argument.

-- Matthew

[/]

Matthew
I don't want to sound like I'm attempting to force anyone to talk one way or another.

The reason I bothered to bring anything up is that many folks look at Themes for two reasons in one, and thus it can be confusing.

I brought up the dictionary terms for the purposes of clarifying that what we may call Themes quite often, even I do, are a separate class of characteristics than the concept of a Theme in which describes the general repeated and centrally focused idea of the game.

I have found that many times, two people talking about Themes in disagreement, such as this Thread, are often times disagreeing while one person is talking about a Theme as a Setting, and the other is talking about a Theme as a centralized Idea....

Often times...it's just that neither further defines what they mean by Theme past the use of the word Theme itself, and thus the confusion and debating continues.

That's all...don't mean to sound like a vocabulary oppressor. ;)

---------------------------

You simply cannot create an entire game void of a Theme.
It will not be a Game. It will be a list of rules that do not work together for any objective purpose.

I agree with your point, but the question would then be: Do you need to have the Theme (not the Setting) defined as the starting point of the game design, or can you begin toying with an interesting mechanic, and found a Theme later?

I would also like to clarify, given that your differenciation of Setting and Theme sounds right to me, that in my previous post I was refering to Setting rather than Theme. So I most times start with a mechanic (not necessarily a new mechanic, just some mechanic), then procede to find a Theme AND Setting, and from there usually it's rethinking all three until everything begins to work as a whole. After that, playtesting will usually ask for many adjustments in mechanics and sometimes in Setting and winning condition, wich is not the same as (if I unsderstand your definition of the term right) Theme. Theme usually doesn't change, but doesn't need to be fixed as the starting point.

Seo

Sure, you can start on some mechanic, imo, and find a Theme for it later.
I do that all the time.

But, imo, you cannot make an entire game without starting at a focal point of a theme.

For instance, you may come up with an interesting card game mechanic for the discard pile, but that's not the whole game.

At some point, you have to start making the game, and not just it's mechanics in an aimless path (which is fun exercise in it's own right ;) ) .

At some point you have to define the governing Theme and purpose of the game regardless if you want to give it a Setting or not.

I like to compare it to Databases.

You can just fiddle with Database formula's independent of each other just for fun and interest.

But if you want to put together a functioning Database, you actually need to first understand what the Theme of the Database is before you can progress further into the mechanics, as it's not a useful or useable database unless it has a Theme that provides it's purpose and direction.

No Database really needs a Setting, but some do. Some Databases are applied to a Setting such as www.kingsofchaos.com and their game database, Kings of Chaos...but not all are. Some are just for use, like Hotmail.

That's my opinion though and others have theirs.

Stumps, when I think theme, I think of what you refer to as setting.

So you are not wrong. And neither am I.

Your definition of theme is likely in the middle of your definition of mechanic and setting. Whereas myself, I use the word type in place of theme and theme in place of setting. I also tend to roll your version of theme and mechanic all into one. And then translate that to the setting (i.e. my theme) or vice versa. Or sometimes I start with type (your theme) and then build the mechanic and theme (your setting) all around that. Confused yet?

We're trying to talk, but we're lacking a common currency (i.e. a vocabulary). Personally, I subscribe to the vocabulary that FastLearner posted. So from now on, when you speak to me of Theme, speak to me of setting. I will do the contrary for you ;)

Possibly the best way to answer the original poster's question is to ask what HE's referring to when he says "theme". Not what you or I or anyone else thinks "theme" means.

I'd buy that game!

Theme is sometimes discussed as if it's merely a kind of wallpaper. We all know it's important to players who "really want to feel like pirates!" but may otherwise be regarded as something that dresses up a game without affecting how it works, just as wallpaper dresses up a wall without affecting how well it divides rooms.

But aside from fulfilling fantasies, theme can have one important effect on a game: it provides a familiar framework for users who are learning the game. Railroad Tycoon (a delightful game I hope to acquire soon!) would be much harder to learn and understand if it were completely abstract. It would be confusing to have to learn that you must accept items of type A in order to also receive items of type B which can then be exchanged for items of type C in order to move items of type D. But it "makes sense" to players that they must obtain money by issuing shares and pay money to build track, all with the ultimate goal of shipping goods.

None of which has anything to do with whether a designer should start with a theme or a mechanic, of course. I just wanted to get my oar in. :)

For the record, I usually start with a theme. But I can't necessarily recommend this practice, as none of my games so far have been very good!

You can do it either way. Knizia churns out themeless game after game whereas many other designers start with an idea what the game is about and build mechanics from there.

P

I always theme my abstracts. While sounding like an oxymoron, the theme chosen usually makes the rules easier to learn, even if the game doesn't simulate the theme in the usual sense.

For example, in my game Accretion, the pieces are called Strings, Quarks, and Particles. While they don't have "physics-y" stats like spin or charge, the names do evoke a certain idea of what they"ll do in the game, and how they might interact. Oddly enough, most of the people I've played this game with are physicists (okay, okay... so my friends are physicists), and they don't seem disturbed when strings and quarks live together on the same board (since they are products of different physical theories).

Games that are brutally themeless may be intruiging, but they don't capture the imagination. Go is often cited as the ultimate themeless game. And yet, Go players continually use analogies of territory and capture. Exciting stuff! Clearly, Go has an effective theme of conquest and capture.

Set, on the other hand, is completely themeless. The cards are abstract groups of symbols. The game uses no imagery other than its own, and this imagery doesn't relate to anything else in the real world. While interesting and sort of fun, Set feels like an educational excercise. After the novelty fades, the fun does as well, and Set becomes a brutal Vulcan-style perception excercise, devoid of any benefit except improving pattern-finding skills.

Themes are a bridge between the actual activity of the mechanics, and the experiences and expectations of the players. Humans learn by analogy, and to design a game almost requires the designer to use a theme, even a thin one such as that of Go, in order to consider the game from different angles. Whether designers package that theme for their players is something else entirely.