Games and Themes

Danc had this to say on theme and game design.

I think what Danc is calling theme would be considered aesthetics by the MDA school of thought (which is how I break down interactive design).

I think it’s a bit unfair to compare games to books in regard to breadth of themes. There are more books by a factor of, I don’t know, a million, spanning the last millennium of human civilization? It would be a bit more interesting to compare the range to something filling a more equivalent role in cultural artifacts. You know, our old stand-by: movies!

I’m not going to pretend we’re on par with movies. But if you think about how many movies feature a variation on a cop and a criminal for it’s built-in context you’ll see our clustering is not so crazy. How many war movies? How many romantic comedies?

I do think Danc plays theme too much as a second fiddle to game mechanics. I think this is a trap many game designers fall into, much in the same way I’m sure many filmmakers do the same. We too often build a game from the mechanics outward, or claim that the mechanics and dynamics — the elements unique to our medium — are paramount to the end experience.

But thinking about Mockingbird over the last two years has cemented a very different perspective on theme/aesthetics and games in general. To the broader audience, theme is more relevant than mechanics. As a result, the broader audience is going to bond with your game due to its theme.

That is, if the mechanics and dynamics don’t get in the way. Think about movies: a bad director is noticed while a good director is invisible.

Myst is the ultimate example at one extreme of the spectrum. The mechanics and dynamics are so transparent as to be the fundamentals of web surfing: click on items of interest, maintain some very limited memory of previous items of interest explored, have some vague goal of curiosity pushing you forward. The reason people are drawn into it, though, the reason it made an emotional impact on so many people — besides its perfect timing in regards to presentation technology — is all in its aesthetics, it’s theme.

I have a presentation I’ve given a few times recently that has as its climax the declaration, “replay is a myth!” That’s followed-up shortly with, “gameplay is secondary.” Heretical ramblings? Trying to get a rise out of the audience? No. I believe it to be “the way things are.” I think that’s the reality that the game industry is not accepting as fully as it should.

I listen to regular people describe the idea of their own game. I remember when I “designed” games as a kid. Was I thinking about mechanics? No. I was, at most, mashing together a few similar games to get an idealized set of mechanics. The real “design” is in the aesthetics, the characters, the themes, the reason for playing, the relevancy.

Have I mentioned that I think games should be more relevant? ;-)

This entry was posted on Sunday, October 5th, 2008 at 105am and is filed under Game Design, Mockingbird. You can follow any comments to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a comment, or trackback from your own site.

  • http://www.lostgarden.com Danc

    Ah, this article was actually targeted directly at MDA.

    - I’m arguing that “aesthetics” are extremely important for the initial impression since these prime the player to feel they can even start the game. As you are finding with Mockingbird, the correct hook makes all the difference in the world if someone will even try the game.
    - I’m arguing that you need to consider aesthetics, mechanics and dynamics simultaneously on an atomic, moment by moment basis. If you consider each seperately, you cannot answer the critical moment-by-moment question “What is the player learning”.

    So if it sounds like I’m arguing for MDA-style mechanics and dynamics over over aesthetics, I probably described something incorrectly. :-) I’m actually proposing a non-MDA model that describes the player *experience* in a predictive fashion. It’s a bit of a shift since it is an integrated model based off atomic learning of skills, not a deconstructive model like MDA.

    We shouldn’t be arguing ‘rules or aesthetics’. We should be asking how do we combine rules and aesthetics to get the player to do what we want?

    What I’ve found is that MDA is useful for academic analysis and giving names to pieces, but it falls short in explaining how to make great experiences.

    I like your presentation! There’s another essay I’ve got on the backburner that basically says “Don’t make a game. Make a hobby.” Many games are disposable experiences without much replay value. A hobby however, is forever. Or at least until your mom forces you to learn the tuba.

    take care
    Danc.

  • http://www.lejade.org Olivier

    Very interesting!
    I completely agree with your point on the crucial importance of theme for “regular” people but I would argue that people come because of A but they stay because of M&D…

  • http://troygilbert.com/ Troy

    The largest audience does come for the Aesthetics and stay for the Mechanics & Dynamics, you’re right. I didn’t intend to argue that gameplay (Mechanics & Dynamics) is unimportant, just that “making games” needs to start being more about the *relevant* aesthetics and less about crafting gameplay.

    And it’s less about crafting gameplay for two reasons. First, because the audience will be more forgiving of errors in the gameplay if the aesthetic is strong enough. Second, at this point we have a huge amount of proven gameplay that we know our audience can consume transparently.

    Again, I’ll point to film: there are a lot of great films that don’t attempt to expand on the three-act structure, that don’t go beyond the hero’s myth, that don’t invent new camera angles. They know what works. And yet, they are still able to create relevant, compelling experiences for their audience.

    I’m certainly not calling for all designers to move toward aesthetics and away from mechanics. As a programmer-turned-designer, mechanics and dynamics are my fascination. And new mechanics and dynamics will support new and different aesthetics. And refinements to existing mechanics and dynamics will increase the accessibility of our medium. But our tone (as game designers speaking to up-and-coming game designers) should be that it’s okay to use our medium to convey messages — new and interesting messages — without them having to be manufactured through new and interesting gameplay.

  • http://allantyoung.com Allan

    Found your site through your comment on TechCrunch. What kind of games are you designing?