Friday Night Shots – How Important is a Game’s Theme?

Hi-di-ho, neighbour!

Welcome back to the bar, this time for a regular post!

(anybody who can tell me what that welcome is from, I will give you…well, my undying admiration. You are official old!).

Yes, it’s been less than a week since last week’s post was on Saturday, but I’ve sort of taken the week off.

I would like to say for bar repairs, but really it’s because I was so entranced with Rise of the Tomb Raider that I had to finish it.

I’m finished now, though I have some clean-up to do as far as finding stuff. But the story’s done!

Anyway, between that and some inspiring talk with a friend, I decided it was time to get back to this and reopen the bar.

Grab a seat and I’ll get you a drink!

The jukebox is still out of order since it just kept playing Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer over and over no matter what buttons I pushed.

Tonight, let’s talk about themes in games. Just how important are they?

I did one of these Friday Night Shots posts about nature-themed games, but surprisingly have never talked about just what theme brings to a game and whether or not it’s a make or break for it.

So let’s get started!

For me, theme is kind of important, but it depends on the game.

I won’t avoid an abstract game, though I think it would have to be a very good game to get me to play it more than a couple of times.

For those, the lack of theme ups the quality requirement.

I have to say that I haven’t played a true abstract game in quite a long time.

And as I say that and look on Boardgame Geek for an example, I find that the definition of “abstract” can be quite broad!

The top Abstract category games are Azul, Tigris & Euphrates, and Patchwork, all games that I’ve played and at least somewhat enjoyed!

My definition of “abstract” would be a game where there is simply no theme at all.

Those games have a theme, it’s just that it’s really pasted on and not relevant.

In Azul, you are attempting to beautify some Spanish noble’s home with colourful tiles (I think, and I shall refrain from using my usual bathroom joke).

Yes, it’s pretty abstract in that you’re just choosing tiles to match colours on your board, but there is a theme.

It just doesn’t matter to the gameplay.

When I think of “abstract,” I think of games like Go or Chess.

Games where you have black and white pieces (or just pieces of two colours or shapes) and you are moving them around a blank board.

I think my last play of what I would consider an abstract game was Onitama in September 2021 on Boardgame Arena (I really should get that game, it’s an excellent two-player quick-playing game).

Which circles back to my point that an abstract game has to be just that much better for me to enjoy it. If it’s only an ok game, there is no theme to help it.

That brings me to games where the theme actually is important, at least to me.

In my review of Let’s Go to Japan, I mentioned how it’s dripping with theme and I love the game because of that. If the theme wasn’t as well-represented as it is here, it would be a fairly standard card-drafting game that doesn’t do a lot special.

But you really do feel like you’re planning your trip to Japan! It’s so amazing that way, with the way the cards work, the actual facts on the cards, and the artwork. It’s brilliantly done.

Another game where the theme is really important to my feelings about it is Jackie Fox’s Rock Hard 1977.

This is kind of a standard worker placement game with some push your luck thrown in.

Kind of the usual tropes.

It’s a fine game, I wouldn’t mind playing it, but it wouldn’t really sing to me.

But man, the theme!

The theme of trying to become a rock star in the late 70’s just blasts out at you. I have played it 3 times and I just feel immersed in the theme every time.

I’m feel like I’m sweating with my vocal chords sore from all the singing…and I haven’t even been singing!

(I don’t think anybody would be playing with me if I was really singing. I’ve made dogs cringe).

These two games, the theme is really important to me because it enhances my enjoyment of the game.

That being said, I don’t think I would enjoy playing a mediocre game just because the theme grabbed me.

The game has to be good. It just doesn’t have to be great to put me over the top with the theme.

Then there are the in-between games where the game is really good and the theme is good too, though the theme isn’t quite as immersive as the games mentioned above.

These are the most common games where sometimes the theme is stronger and sometimes it’s weaker, but it’s perfectly fine and the game is great too.

Or the game is amazing! That can work too.

One candidate for me is a number of the Garphill trilogy games, like the West Kingdom series.

Yes, yes…well, you are in a bar, so that fits, right?

Anyway, the West Kingdom games (to name one example) have the theme of being in a city in Middle Ages France. In Architects of the West Kingdom, you are an architect who is trying to make the best upgrades to the city by building buildings, helping build the church, and so on.

The theme is there. You have building cards that you want to build, apprentices that you can hire to help you do things, you can contribute resources to move up in the cathedral, all of those good things.

It is a standard worker placement game with a bit of a twist in that the more workers you have in a space, the more powerful that action is. Until somebody inevitably needs money and sees your group of four or more workers as a good way to do it, capturing them and then sending them to the Guardhouse.

The theme works, but it’s not as immersive as the ones I mentioned above.

But the game is really good too! That helps.

And while it may not immerse you in the theme, it does inspire comedy posts about what the workers are really thinking.

So that’s cool.

In typing this out, it occurs to me that I am seeing theme and game quality almost as a bar on a graph, trying to reach the top “This is an awesome game” level.

(what, you expect these posts to actually be planned out ahead of time? Pshaw!!!!)

There are two parts to that bar: game quality and theme.

If the theme is really really low, then the quality of the game has to be higher in order to reach that “awesome” level.

If the theme is really really high, then the game quality doesn’t have to be quite so high in order to reach the top.

And sometimes a game is just medium in both, which is enough to add up to an awesome game.

Of course, there are other thematic considerations.

Does the theme attract you? Does it turn you off?

That can add or subtract from that bar, regardless of how well the game executes the theme.

If it was a game about a serial killer, then that theme would probably turn me off no matter how well done it was.

Ok, there could be exceptions to that, if it’s successfully tongue-in-cheek.

But a modern-day serial killer, that would be a turn-off.

Or maybe the theme is really cool and it makes me want to play it?

That can happen, though it would have to be at least somewhat successful in implementing the theme to make it part of this discussion.

If it didn’t do it well, then just knowing the game has that theme wouldn’t do it for me.

I sadly don’t have any examples of that one…sadly for this post, as I’m happy I haven’t run into this problem!

Anyway, what are your thoughts on game themes?

Do they attract you to a game? Would you like a mediocre game just because of the theme?

Let me know in the comments.

And since this is the last non-review post before Christmas, I hope that you all have a wonderful holiday, whichever one you celebrate (or celebrated if it was earlier this month).