Who decides what a game is about? It's not just player vs designer (although it's the player, btw) - oftentimes the designer might want it to be one thing, but once the player is involved it actually becomes something else. Remember, the player is always right.
Theme vs. mechanics - which one defines the game?
Mechanics are the rules of the game, everything that is mechanical about the process and defines how you play the game.
Theme is the skin of the game, the experience, the context.
Another way to look at the question - what is Warcraft's descendant? Is it Starcraft or World of Warcraft?
WoW uses the same theme (characters, storylines) but is a fundamentally different game. Starcraft has the same mechanics, but a completely different theme.
"Ticket to Ride" mechanics - train game, draw cards and use cards to claim routes across country. Score points by creating super routes. (mechanics)
"Ticket to Ride" theme - in the manual you see the Objective: to see who could travel by rail to the most cities in north America - in just 7 days. So it's a game about traveling the routes, not creating the routes.
Problem here is theme and mechanics don't match up. Example, why do routes close up after a player buys them? Why can routes be built in any order? Then why would the longest matter? What does it feel like?
Feels like 1830, Eurorails, Age of Steam. Ticket to Ride is a stripped down version of these games, but they gave it a very different theme.
Who decides what a game is about? Most people who play Ticket to Ride will think they're a rail baron, not traveling the country.
A game's mechanics give it meaning. It fundamentally doesn't matter how you theme it, mechanics determine what the game is about.
Risk vs. Diplomacy
Similar mechanics - world conquest, territorial control, army tokens
Key differences - risk has sequential turns, diplomacy has simultaneous turns (written down on piece of paper, submit turns together to game master, who then figures out what everyone wanted to do and what actually happens) - leads to a much different feel for the game
Risk has probabilistic combat using dice. Diplomacy has deterministic combat, meaning every single situation you could create is handled somehow in the rules deterministically. No luck whatsoever.
So Risk is about risk, and Diplomacy is about diplomacy. Mechanics give meaning.
What is Spore about? Might get a lot of answers to this question. One of the answers has been that it is about evolution. This is how it was sold to the market.
But... (shows top 20 creatures created in Sporepedia by Spore users) This says Spore was really a game about creativity. People enjoy it because they can express their creativity and view others' creativity.
Is there a game out there today about evolution?
World of Warcraft. Paladin Natural Selection. As mechanics of paladin have been explored over time, players have learned how to use paladin in a variety of ways.
A game's mechanics give it meaning.
Super Mario Bros is about Timing, not plumbers.
Peggle is about chaos theory, not unicorns.
Battlefield 2 is about teamwork, not modern combat
Left 4 Dead is about teamwork, not zombies. Betwee Battlefield and L4D we have two different games with same mechanics and different themes. L4D used zombies to get thematic license to come up with interesting mechanics.
X-com is about limited information, not aliens. Tactical, turn-based shooter. Most of map is black at start.
Gears of War is about cover, not aliens. Combat tactics must be used to move through levels.
StarCraft about asymmetry, not aliens. Three races that were fundamentally different but balanced. Matched with design paradigm in RTS's. Players that rush (attack focus), boom (economy focus), and turtles (defense focus). Rock-paper-scissors triangle created through design.
Galaga is about pattern matching, not aliens.
Why are so many games alien-themed? Because it's easy to map mechanics onto an alien theme since there's unlimited opportunity for theme.
Example, Civilization vs. Alpha Centauri
Barbarians became mind worms
Spies became probe teams
Wonders became secret projects
What happens when a game's mechanics don't match its theme?
What is Bioshock about? An important question it tried to raise is a moral one. The ethics of rescue or harvest with little girls (kill, but get power)? Problem is the game mechanics doesn't reflect this. (shows graph showing that the more little girls you rescue, the less it's good for you - kind of a pat on the back)
Mechanics don't support the story in Bioshock. Players can see through this.
What about Spore? Science magazine quote by John Bohannon in Oct '08 hit on how Spore's scientific themes did not hold up. Problem is that Spore's theme is evolution, but it's mechanics are creativity. Internal running joke: Is Spore about intelligent design?
What about Civilization? Problem is that the theme is world history, but mechanics is "be god-king". Leads to The Agency Problem. In order for Civ to work, some things must be true -
- consequences must be fair and clear
- top-down decision making only - player decides what happens with his civ
- eternal china syndrome - at some point the game no longer looks like history - states in game don't change - experimented with decentralized gov't in Civ4
- the "revolution" button
In the end, Civ4 is not about scholarship, but can games be scholarship?
Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond - what Civ should be (?)
(from twitter) Soren Johnson at Serious Games Summit: "I read Guns, Germs, and Steel b4 I worked on Civ3 and it led to some really bad ideas..."
The Incan Question - start with Incan civilization on World Map, and starting position is difficult. Surrounded by mountains and jungles.
Major Axes of the Continents - concept described by Diamond. Agriculture is something that can spread easily east to west, but doesn't spread as easily north to south (warm-cold climate changes).
Most domesticated animals came from Eurasia. Only llama was large scale dom animal from the Americas.
Basically the Incans were doomed. Geographic determinism may be good scholarship but it's bad game design. Complaints about Civ4 - resource distribution
Can Civ's mechanics match its theme? Can we make a game that is fun and about world history in a meaningful way? Maybe not? Similar story for other media, though.
Instead, play a life with a game. Put the player in the shoes of someone who really existed and have tough decisions to make with real tradeoffs. Example, railroad tycoon.
Art matters if the experience enlightens us. A game matters if the mechanics enlighten us. IT's why we play games, especially serious games. A game's theme only matters if the mechanics enlighten us about it.
Are there games that do this well? Yes, sports games. Management games. Tactile games (rock band, wii sports).
Dan Bunten (M.U.L.E. and Seven Cities of Gold) - Seven Cities was inspired because he got lost in the Ozarks, he thought about how Conquistadors get lost.
Realism is not the key. Example: Gran Turismo vs. Mario Kart. Which is more about racing? Mario Kart is more about racing because the mechanics give the most meaning.
Theme does still matter. Grand Theft Auto III and Crackdown. Open world games, actions matter. GTA didn't have to be about crime, but world perceives it as such. It's really a game about open world, action consequences.
Put player in the role of an actual character. If we play a life, can we play evil? Yes. Gerrymandering game (Redistricting).
http://www.strategystation.com
Mechanics must deliver on the theme's promise.
