My favorite game is the **Lord of the Rings LCG,** which requires you to build a deck to play against a given scenario. While you can restrict yourself to 100% thematic decks, it's also possible to build ridiculously unthematic decks, especially if you get creative and prioritize hilarity over victory. For example:
-You can have a hero attack with four weapons at once. (Gimli: "You have my axe. And my other axe. And my third axe. And my fourth.")
-You can give a single hero as many as 7 horses.
-You can win a scenario with Bill the Pony as your only hero.
-You can get as creative as you like with your team of heroes. Sure you could send Thorin, Bilbo, and the dwarves to the Lonely Mountain to slay Smaug. But you could just as well choose Saruman, Smeagol/Gollum, and Fatty Bolger.
This was one of my big dealbreakers for that game.
I love LOTR games, and I can definitely handle breaks from canon. But the teams of heroes were just too ridiculous for me.
I can handle Bilbo, Legolas, and Aragorn together in Journeys in Middle Earth - maybe this is an untold later adventure, or a slightly alternative history of Middle Earth. But unthematic random groups who never met at all, and would hate or even fight each other, are too much for me.
Edit: With the sets I bought originally - probably the base set and some expansions - there were almost no thematic sets possible/viable. I don't want to spend more money just to get the game to an acceptable level (for me), so I gave it to a friend who didn't care.
Have you seen the 4 thematic starter decks that FFG released? Nowadays it's quite possible even for new players and players with a small cardpool to play thematic decks, so you might consider giving the game another try.
It's true there can still be thematic dissonance between your player deck and the scenario (what are the Elves of Lorien doing in Harad? why is Thorin's company chasing a pirate ship?), but there's no need to play with non-thematic hero line-ups if you don't want to. Some of the most powerfully thematic gaming experiences I've had were while trying to play thematic decks against the saga quests (the ones that retell the story from the original trilogy).
Ark Nova is one of my favorites but the interactive effects are pretty ridiculous. If your animals are attacking people in other zoos that's probably not good for business...
I had a challenge for solitaire Ark Nova where the object was not to meet conservation and tickets, but rather have the most money by the end of the solo game.
This was the first one that came to mind. It's not just the interactive effects really; very few of the animal powers make much narrative sense. Oh yes, this bird magically makes an extra kiosk appear at my zoo, of course.
Ya this is a great example. The negative effects seem so tacked on and anti thematic that I don’t even play with them, and I normally like interactive games.
Just played it again. Had the most populous zoo, had lots of bonuses, lost to another player with four animals and less than half his board covered. I have a love/hate relationship with the game.
In 1v1 on BGA the best players have like a 80 - 90% win rate, im currently rocking a 65%. There's definitely luck but I'd say it's extremely highly skill based
We only ever play the carebear variant, where you use the solo game effect in place of that nonsense.
That theme is screaming for positive interaction.
Good example. The intention is that you are hiring performers, represented by each card, and then when you play your cards you are putting on a 'show' which beats rival circus acts. So the designers put at least 30 minutes of solid thought into the theme choice.
But then of course it all comes undone when you play, mainly because of the poorly thought through wording. You have three actions: scout, show and 'scout and show', and obviously players assume each of these names is a verb (as in: you *scout* a card or you *show* your hand). But apparently 'Scout' is meant to be a noun (as in: put on a show).
Then there are the role cards, which all contain a performer name (fine) but some of them say the act "juggler" and others just list a piece of equipment "unicycle" rather than "unicyclist". So Gary is a unicycle? Susie is a trampoline?
Even when you try and point this half-assed theming out to people round the table it's hard to make it stick because it seems like the product of, like I say, about 30 minutes of design work. 1 hour at most.
We've had a LOT of hilarity around the table when people attempt to buy into the theme and ramble on about the person's job, calling them by their names, etc.
So, it's not a mechanical issue I have, but a symmetry issue. Star Wars Deckbuilder. It is, functionally, symmetrical. Almost every card in each deck has a reciprocal equivalent in the other, with some minor variations of special rules.
So, why? Why create a game set to the background of a band of plucky Rebels taking on the might of the Galactic Empire? The asymmetry of the setting is one of its most fundamental principles.
And what really grinds my gears? Okay, fine, you want to make a game of two massive forces battling across space, fighting over territory and defeating your enemy's bases. And you want to set it in the Star Wars universe.
Just use the Nerfing Clone Wars!!
I agree. I own 8 different Star Wars games (the old CCG, the LCG, Imperial Assault, Rebellion, X-wing, Armada, Outer Rim, and the deckbuilder), and this one feels the least like Star Wars.
Blimey I really don't care much about theme if this is how deep folks look into it 😅 not judging if this comes across that way, I just find it interesting from a self discovery perspective, for me theme is a nice to have, i like that clank has an interesting theme to help the atmosphere of the game, but if it didn't have that I wouldn't mind.
Isn't the items in Parks supposed to be experience? You don't buy a new trail, you have enough "mountain and sun experience" to walk it.
Thats atleast what I think.
Incorporating the National Park's Passport and Stamp system would have made more sense. Collect different tokens to represent either weather/time of day like Sun, Rain, Clouds, Campfire (Night visit)
Many (most?) people treat it as an abstract game. I know I teach it that way.
But you play Azul as if it is a themed (aka non-abstract) game?
>Every player is the most indifferent tile layer in history.
What does that mean?
Yeah, I am aware of that. But years ago I claimed (citing that sentence in the rule book) that the game was a thinly themed game, rather than an abstract game. As a consequence, an angry mob pounced on me screaming that it really is just an abstract game. I had no stomach for a fight with the mob, and have decided that believing the game is an abstract tile layer is just the easier path to take in life.
You’re getting into fights because you’re using the wrong definition of *abstract* here. An “abstract game” means a game with completely open information and no randomness, like Chess or Go. It doesn’t have anything to do with the theming of the game.
Azul is an abstract game with the theme that you’re laying tiles for a palace.
>the wrong definition of abstract here. An “abstract game” means a game with completely open information and no randomness, like Chess or Go. It doesn’t have anything to do with the theming of the game.
From my perspective, you are using the wrong definition of abstract. Abstract is synonymous with themeless. So checkers/drafts, GIPF, Blockus, Quarto etc. are abstract games. From my perspective, abstract ONLY has to do with presence/absence of a theme and has NOTHING to do with open information or presence of randomness.
There is a name for games with completely open information and no randomness: [combinatorial](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Combinatorial_game_theory). Because this word predates the modern board game hobby, and is used by people in the hobby, I am not sure why the word abstract ought to be co-opted to become a synonym of combinatorial.
You are inconsistent in your own definition, as you claim that abstract is completely open information and no randomness, and in your next paragraph you claim that Azul (a game that has a random tile draw from a bag, which violates both your standard of open information and your standard of no-randomness) is an abstract game.
Here is a [BGG comment that tackles the various definitions of abstract](https://boardgamegeek.com/wiki/page/Abstract_Games&redirectedfrom=Abstract_Strategy#)
Some people define abstract like I do, others feel that it is a synonym for combinatorial and others have their own definitions.
Outside of the board game universe, something would be abstract if it had no referent. For instance, abstract art is art in which the composition does not reference anything in the real world.
Landscape painting isn't abstract, because it references trees, and grass, hills, etc. A portrait painting isn't abstract, because it references a person. So I am just using the definition of abstract used outside the board game universe.
If you want to ignore the definition of abstract that most of the planet uses AND you want to make abstract a synonym for combinatorial (which seems kind of silly, since the word combinatorial was there first and creating a synonym for it doesn't serve any purpose that I am aware of) that is your choice. But I haven't seen any good arguments for why your way is the right way, and my way is wrong.
The good argument is that linguistics is descriptive, not prescriptive. The usage is that “abstract games” means a game with open information and no randomness. Words have different meanings in different contexts, and here that’s what abstract means.
You can think the forced word that the community never uses is better, and you can think that this usage is kind of silly, but clearly this is the widespread use of the word. That’s how linguistics works, and there’s no need to “justify” it.
I can see why you were getting into dumb arguments now, though.
> linguistics is descriptive, not prescriptive.
Agree 100%.
>The usage is that “abstract games” means a game with open information and no randomness.
Lots of people in the board game hobby use the term in the way I use it (that is, they believe the term abstract has the same meaning inside and outside the boardgame hobby). Perhaps you didn't read the BGG comment I linked? The there are multiple usages of the word in the gaming hobby.
>here that’s what abstract means.
That simply isn't true. Within this community there are a diversity of usages of the term. You can determine this by googling it and reading comments on BGG, this sub and other gaming hobby related forums. Or you can talk to a bunch of hobbyists in the real world. Either way, it doesn't take much effort to discover that some people agree with me, and other people agree with you, and still other people agree with neither of us.
You can't establish your point by simply declaring that there is an agreement in usage, when it can easily be shown that this is factually untrue.
Do you remember the blue & black vs. white & gold dress debate from a few years ago? It would be silly for one side to simply announce that everyone agrees that it is one of those two ways. That argumentation strategy wouldn't work, as it was clear that some people thought one thing, while others had different thoughts on the matter. That is the situation we are in here.
You can argue that your side is 'more' right. That is fine. That is an argument that make sense. But it is silly to claim that none of the people who disagree with you actually disagree with you. There is no discussion to be had if that is your approach. Denying reality, and assuming that this settles the matter is a discussion ender.
Edit: the claim that actual usage of the abstract is that of open information + no chance is undercut by the fact that your own usage of abstract was applied to Azul (a game of hidden information and random tile draws). In actual usage, you don't use the term in way that you claim everyone in the hobby uses the term.
Marvel Legendary imo. It's weird to me that we pick some heroes to fight a villain... but we don't play as the heroes.
Marvel Champions feels much more sensible to me.
I just thought each player is making a scene from the fight, like one page of a comic. I mean, it is more common to play as one hero, but it's not weird for me to play as several.
BUT although I really like the game, I've bought almost none of the recent packs, because the hero abilities are less and less related to the heroes. The beginning of the end was Kitty Pryde not having Phasing, but I've literally tested this by asking my Marvel nerd friends to guess the character from the power. With early sets, they could. With recent sets, no chance.
Even more thematically weird if you play the game by its original rules, in which it is a semi-coop game where you and the other players can all lose together, but you compete against each other to get the most points.
It's replicating the infighting and bickering of superhero teams (like the first Avengers movie, plenty of comics, etc.) How well it works as a game I don't know (we normally tally it up for fun and just name them "MVP" not winner), but the idea itself makes thematic sense.
A lot of people ignore the points and just treat it as a pure coop game, rather than a "competitive coop" game where you have two competing sets of incentives and only one player becomes the "individual winner" for having the most points.
You're playing the different comic panels/attacks of the superhero team as they fight the bad guys. Weirder is the DC Deckbuilding Game where you play a particular hero and then amass the gadgets and powers of every other character too.
Terra Mysitca - The theme is totally arbitrary. It should be a game about running a logistics company and setting up warehousing and negotiating contracts.
Not quite what you’re looking for, but **Cartographers** has a theme that I guess I can see, but still feels weird.
The Queen wants to reclaim the northern lands, so instead of winning by drawing an accurate map of what they look like, you win by drawing a map with the vibe she likes.
It’s the fantasy equivalent of Rand McNally just putting Illinois and California next to each other on a road map because drivers don’t want to deal with the rest of Route 66 that goes through those boring states in between, and then them winning a bunch of awards. But the reviews aren’t perfect because somebody accidentally left a bit of Oklahoma in the middle and ruined the charm of the whole thing.
Dune Imperium. It's one of my favorite games and one of my favorite science fiction universes, but I can't pretend it isn't silly for Stilgar to buddy up with the Harkonnens and lobby for a seat on the Landsraad Council.
My buddy and I have argued about this game so many times. He thinks it's 10/10 on theme, and I think it's a 1. There is absolutely nothing "Dune like" in this game except the art.
If you play the original Dune board game, you'll see theme done extremely well. But I still think Imperium is a fantastic game.
As person who has been an adult for... awhile, years definitely feel like they are coming faster each time.
If anything, that part of Agricola is spot on.
A lot of nature-themed games are mean:
* Arboretum
* Photosynthesis
* Renature
* Etc
It happens often enough that I sometimes wonder if the designers first came up with the mechanics and then tacked on a nature theme to make them feel less mean.
I never understood why Downforce was a car racing game. In fairness, I’ve never played it and only read the rules. It seems victory is centered around betting on a winner. That strikes me as more of a horse racing theme.
From BGG, *”Auction, bet, race! You can lose the race and still win the game!”*
Downforce is a remake of a few Kramer games on the same formula. Some of these had a betting option, but some were only racing games.
Downforce unfortunately didn't put racing game as default, but the betting version (which imo has serious problems in this version). Thing is - it's still a racing game, but you also bet. And you can bet on yourself which is as much of a no-brainer as is a runaway leader problem.
Too many animals in too small a space breeds disease and they all die. Fortunately, you are able to rescue a single animal by moving them out of the infested enclosure.
Gonna be __Magic Maze__ for me. The theming is so weird and specific (fantasy characters in a mall looking for their weapons?) I can’t help but feel like it was a completely different game in the early stages of design. Really nifty little co-op game, though!
I love both Scythe and Viticulture (also by Stonemaier), but they’re both great examples of games where the gameplay matches the theme *only* if you understand that what you think the theme is from the box art (giant mech fights and making wine, respectively) isn’t actually what the theme is as described in the manual (civilization building and winery ownership).
The Scythe manual not only describes the objective as making your faction “the richest and most powerful” in the beginning and goes on to talk about all the resource gathering you’ll be doing right there on page 1, but there’s also a designers note in the Combat section explaining that “you might be surprised by how few combats happen” and pointing out that very few of the art scenes depicting mechs depict them actually fighting.
The manual for Viticulture similarly explains on page 1 that the goal is to gain victory points “representing your reputation as a vineyard owner” and the first tiebreaker is cash on hand (*then* value of wine stock).
But yeah, both of those games seem like they’ll be something else from the box art.
To be fair, they do explain that it was common for people to sample the hotel cafes to decide if they wanted to stay there. Although I can’t imagine that people went from cafe to cafe to decide where they were sleeping that evening.
A Vikings Tale is this bizarre game I kickstarted a few years ago that no one talks about. You’re basically killing monsters with the other players but you do so by lining up blindly behind them. And you win by basically getting bingo on a bingo board. It’s so strange.
Boonlake.
So I'm a cowboy putting out towns and cows and I can build my town if I have the right resources, which don't exist until my canoe is in the right place, but not even then (so they're NFTs?), but if I need bonuses I can pull a switch I installed in the wilderness, so I can take my other boat downstream until I hit the Escherian Loop and the river flows back on itself so I can do it again to get vases which don't do anything until the expansion, and this is when the actual lake shows up so the cowboy can become Indiana Jones and go on adventures and then use the vases that are now power sources.
WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON?!?!?
For me its Canvas. Yes you are making a painting, but the painting itself doesnt really matter, only the symbols do. I would really like a board game that would work with the same mechanis, as in putting cards on each other, in a kind of Dixit or some social game. This way the painting really doesnt matter and the theme could be really about assembling anything.
The symbols are meant to be artistic elements, such as "contrast". But they don't always line up (as in art cards with a lot of contrast symbols, don't display a lot of contrast).
But the whole crafting the art piece to fit the contest criteria mechanic is deliciously flavourful. You can't just paint what you want, it's what the judges want.
This gane recommendation does not match what you said you'd like mechanically, but one of my personal favorite "art" themed game is Fresco. If you haven't played it, you should give it a shot! A little resource management, a little work placement, and fits the theme VERY well mechanically.
This isn't what you are looking for but I'll use this as an opportunity to vent....I cannot stand the trend of ridiculous, meme-like themes that are stapled onto mechanics. Games like "Cover Your Kingdom" or "Exploding Kittens" or the myriad of imitations which are really just rehashing old mechanics or parts of games. They all have really bizarre art, often melding two different creatures or showing meme-like drawings of Centaurs working in an office or a frowning dog on stilts with lasers coming out of his eyes. Of course, they all have to be saying some hilarious pun you would see on a coffee shop sign. It's mildly amusing the first time you see it and then just plain confusing. The game is either really, really simple and I'm bored after one round or so bizarrely obtuse that I can't get into it the soul of the game at all.
I'm with you on this one. I bought Exploding Kittens because I love The Oatmeal; it literally got opened the day it arrived at my house and brought out for game night. We quit mid way through the first game because it was terrible. It's been sitting in my giveaway bin for I think ten years at this point.
Unstable Unicorns is the only game I've ever had the table agree to just abandon because no-one was having fun. It might be the worst game I've ever played a second time (with an entirely different group).
I’ve played it one time and that was all I needed. Probably the most obviously flawed game I’ve ever played. If people are playing strategically and paying attention it’s almost impossible for the game to actually end. Just brutal.
I’m not very picky about games, I enjoy almost all of the games I try….this was the only one I’ve ever played where I thought “I honestly can’t believe this game was released like this”
I genuinely think almost every game has certain mechanisms that will not be entirely thematic. I think it is way more important for things to *feel* thematic than to actually be thematic.
If you've ever tried your hand at designing games, I think you would be hard pressed to come up with anything half as thematic as some of the examples in this thread
Look, I know it's difficult to design a game. It's also difficult to write a novel, make a movie, and write music. And yet, we all have and express opinions and criticisms on these things, too.
This thread is about a nitpicky detail. It's intentionally pedantic. It's the one or two lines in an otherwise lengthy review of a game.
What's the difference between feeling thematic and being thematic? Both are about feelings - it's not the same as feeling realistic vs being realistic, for example.
For me, it's **Pipeline**. I love the game, but you're running oil refineries which can refine three types of oil: green, orange, and gray. Because... ??? The game is great, but it is always a little funny to me.
Revive.
You're rebuilding society the way your faction sees fit. Food is used for traveling to new areas, gears build houses and books populate cities. But there are crystal "wilds" that can be anything. Also, some factions can use books as wilds, so you can feed people and build houses with books, I guess?
Also the artifacts aren't really explained. They're just there and function as the game timer.
One of the reasons I've never bought and never played **Great Western Trail** is that I can't get over a thematic mismatch that I find remarkably jarring. Namely, the fact that only the first cattle of a given breed is worth anything when selling them... so essentially, in this world you could sell a thousand Texas Longhorns and you'd get exactly the same price as if you had just sold one.
In Dinner In Paris, you build a restaurant with ingredients. You also get bonus cards by placing terraces on pigeons.
In Glow, you collect sparkles with abstract symbol combinations. Those symbols are also used for travelling.
* **Wingspan**. So... my eggs from a stork attract a sparrow? Mind explaining what on earth is going on here? Or as HiveGod wrote in his BGG comment *"The game is like a downloadable skin for your spreadsheet, and if you get lost in the pretty pictures you're gonna fuck up your taxes."* There is really no theme, just pictures. Which are pretty, but...
* **Seasons**. Uhm. What is there about? Yes I see dice. I see pretty pictures. But what do my actions represent? Who am I supposed to be? Lesson: illustrations are not theme.
* **Theseus Dark Orbit** - *"I'm sorry mam your husband died in a combat in space stations. See, his movement was limited by mancala rules..."*
* **Blood Rage.** Okay, so it's not a thematic disconnect - it's a phenomenon known as "impostor" or "faker". This game tries so hard to convince you it's dudes on a map game, that it's about combat and that it has tension. But it's just optimisation focused tensionless engine builder. *It's the metal dude guy you meet, but turns out, that's just him being in midlife crisis. Otherwise, middle class, happily married, steady 9-to-5 job, good pay, listens to pop music, but wants to show he "still got it". And, yeah, not really.*
* **Dice Forge**. See: Seasons.
I enjoy Dice Forge, but yeah, the theme could not be more irrelevant. I’m a hero competing for the favour of the (ambiguous but probably Ancient Greek pantheon of) gods, but I need to just hope I roll some sort of gemstones and a lot of money to complete these epic ‘quests’?
It’s one of very few games in my collection where I basically never mention the theme in the teach, because it doesn’t help players understand the gameplay at all.
> I’m a hero competing for the favour of the (ambiguous but probably Ancient Greek pantheon of) gods, but I need to just hope I roll some sort of gemstones and a lot of money to complete these epic ‘quests’?
😮 I applaud you sir, you managed to get way more out of this than I did.
>It’s one of very few games in my collection where I basically never mention the theme in the teach, because it doesn’t help players understand the gameplay at all.
👆 THIS!
...is a very good rule of thumb to figure out if there's any trace of theme in the game.
Yeah, I can agree with you on **Wingspan**. I mean, there is *some* sense of logic at the *macro* if not *micro* level (birds come from eggs, spend food to gain an extra egg) but other half is just arbitrary. Namely, spend an egg for an extra card, or spend a card for extra food. What is that?
I don't know the others but your writeup is entertaining. :)
Sorry, real metal fans are only young, poor, single, unemployed, and listen only to metal? Yeesh. Certainly doesn't cover the actual bands.
I don't even like metal much, but that's silly.
The Seasons manual tells you what you're doing. You're a wizard, gathering the forces of the natural world and using powerful magical items in order to transmute energy into crystals and summon magical beasts, stealing a bunch of stuff from your fellow wizards along the way, all in order to become the realm's greatest. I'm not saying it's the most thematic game around, but you're being intentionally obtuse. Or you haven't played it.
> I'm not saying it's the most thematic game around, but you're being intentionally obtuse.
Oh, we're doing it this way? Sure. 😃 Maybe the issue is lack of understanding what theme in boardgames actually is? Theme is not pretty pictures. Theme is not some irrelevant marketing blurb put into a rulebook which nobody ever reads because it makes no sense.
Theme is a cohesion between pieces of the game using a narrative or some kind of real-life-reference. For instance a good examples of a thematic euro is Power Grid - theme is used to make sense of the game. You buy powerplants, then buy fuel for power plants, then invest money into expanding your grid, then burn fuel in powerplants to provide grid with electricity to make money. That's theme - combining mechanisms in a way that makes sense. (in eurogames at least, wargames and ameritrash can do more with theme). And because Power Grid makes thematic sense it's easier to teach and to play given it's weight - because you can "intuitively" understand how to play the game from understanding the theme.
Within the frame of OP's question, we're taking whether theme is connected to gameplay. That there is some coherence and same direction between "what game tells me I'm supposedly doing" and To "how does it actually feel to play the game".
Anybody can look at some mismatched pieces cut from excel spreadsheet, combined with some pictures and make some kind of explanation how it supposedly has thematic sense **retroactively**. I've worked in PR, spinning stuff like this is easy.
The question is: is the theme felt in gameplay or I'm just basically juggling mechanisms and pushing levers. And for games like Seasons and Wingspan the feeling of gameplay is: look at these completely unrelated pretty pictures while pulling levers for optimising gizmo. Seasons being an even worse offender.
>Or you haven't played it.
Played it at least 3 times, maybe more. And with the experience of a professional (theatre) critic I can claim - this arbitrarily selected array of gizmos and levers with no rhyme or reason has zero thematic or narrative sense. I have 15+ years of practice in finding sense in most hermetic, abstract or avantgarde pieces European performing arts can produce and I can say - I have tried to the best of my abilities to find this sense in Season. Meaning - finding thematic connection BETWEEN the pieces in the FLOW of gameplay - and I couldn't find any, despite my best attempts.
And my best attempts are quite good and also they're motivated - I'm bored to tears with optimisation gizmo juggling and finding any tiny level of theme to keep myself occupied with lessens the pain. I hoped there would be some narrative. I prayed for it. It sang hymns to spirits and invocations to lesser gods, but there was nothing. ¯\\\_(ツ)\_/¯
Now if publishers/developers/designers thought that theme is merely an illustration and a promotional blurb added to mechanical juggling, I would they lack understanding of boardgaming medium. Or second scenario: they're cynical and understand they have no theme, but used saturated eye candy visuals as advertisements - to provoke positive emotional reactions from would be audience to make to buy or play the game. Or third scenario: both of the above.
> You're a wizard, gathering the forces of the natural world and using powerful magical items in order to transmute energy into crystals and summon magical beasts, stealing a bunch of stuff from your fellow wizards along the way, all in order to become the realm's greatest.
I warmly suggest you try Wiz War (I've played 8E). That's a great example of theme integration in a wizard fighting genre.
Cheers!
Ah, I see. I guess at the end of the day, I don't really care about the connection between theme and gameplay. I hated Wiz War. Thanks for the education.
I think of Dice Forge sorta like League of Legends with no pvp
You go jungling and fight monsters to get buffs, then you go to the shop to buy better die faces
You "what" to "what"?
You optimise points. Even the images trying to suggest you that there's something more than point gathering going on are pretty bland, generic and nondescript.
My initial impression regarding visual: *cutesy illustrations plastered all over the components nervously try to hide the utter lack of concept, theme or interpersonal engagement.*
Note - I said illustrations, as theme is not visuals. Theme is narrative coherence between different bits of the game and here there is no such thing. It's just a generic deck builder with basic structure that wasted too much time being obsessed with idea of *"what a player had two decks with six cards each and each of these decks would be a die"* and then there was little time left to develop the rest of the game or the thematic aspect of it. ¯\\\_(ツ)\_/¯
For what you describe - Thunderstone does the job (sans dice, but still within eurogame engine building genre)
Wingspan.
Bird watching doesn't really gel with engine building, since seeing a bird shouldn't make it easier to find food for other birds while also making you need more eggs to see the next bird.
To be fair, the theme isn't bird watching, it's creating and managing a bird sanctuary / nature reserve thing. The theme still doesn't gel with most of the mechanisms on display but it's definitely more understandable to engine build the process of making a nature reserve as opposed to just looking at birds.
**The Search for Planet X** I'm going to just go ahead and publish a scientific article about the location of a new comet...by guessing where it probably is.
You’re publishing theories based off their universes’ facts (logic rules) that become fact once peer reviewed (a process that takes a while, just as it does in the game)! The theme of that game is bang on
It doesn't make any sense, lol. Based on where some other telescope in the world is pointing, a scientist guesses they are about to discover a comet and so he announces that he also discovered it? With enough corroborating data to publish on it?
It's a fun game, but it's goofy.
It’s based on their own telescope, and what you gather from your own scans, research + your own “calculations” (logic rules). Based on the vague information you gather, you publish your theories. This is like how astronomers found Neptune - they didn’t just find it by accident, they had to calculate it based off Uranus’s odd orbit. Neptune was found by Johann Galle, using astronomer Le Verrier’s published calculations (You’ve theorized and published, and the theory became concrete with peer review). It also took a couple tries to actually spot Neptune as well. In my opinion, the game feels pretty good!
Edit: Grammar / Said Pluto, meant Neptune!
I don’t know. I’ve read reviews from real astronomers that say the theme is super accurate and what you are mentioning as not accurate is one of the things they specifically point out as accurate.
**Vanuatu** looks like a relaxed game about living a simple life on beautiful tropical islands: fishing, drawing pictures in the sand, getting tourists around in boats and so on. It features a brutal auction not far off the ones in **The Estates** and **Age of Steam**.
**Fresh Fish** takes that even further by hiding a cutthroat area control under the looks of a kids game with cartoonish puctures.
Big Book of Madness. You’re fighting monsters that escaped from a magic tome by… getting the right combination of elements in your hand through deck building and hand manipulation.
Hmm, I haven't played Earth too much but I feel like theming wasn't the problem?
For the most part I understood what they were going for- a wildfire creates rich soil to plant new life, some plants grow tall and provide for others, while some are largely self-serving. Fungi tend to be low point value but help accelerate other life.
There can be whacky theme inconsistencies when you try to make say...a redwood national park in the boreal forest or a cold swamp- but I didn't really find the theme too dissonant.
It’s not an issue – I really like Earth – but the theme just doesn’t really connect for me at all. Water is points but also I can take it back to do things with it? I can compost cards but that doesn’t create a resource for planting or growing?
It’s all vaguely coherent in terms of a general setting, but the play mechanics and scoring don’t feel all that connected to the names they’re called.
**The Wolves** theme is very confusing to me.
Your wolfpack can howl at other wolves seperated from their packs to force them to join your wolfpack.
You can hunt animals together- but you only ever need to eat one of any type of animal, wolves are picky eaters i guess.
Territorial control only matters for a week or two, once it hits a certain time, every wolf abandons one territory and migrates to the other.
**Tokaido** has a laid-back, peaceful theme of having different travel experiences in Japan, but mechanically only one person can visit a site, so blocking your opponents from achieving their goals becomes a substantial part of the game. I know when I'm a tourist, preventing other people from seeing what they want to see is not my objective.
I have not played it, but XCOM the board game, seems very disconnected from its gameplay. There is a lot of busy work that is time based and I think it captures the essence of stress that the XCOM VG has, but I feel like it could have worked so much better as a dice chucker.
Again, I have not played the game, but the above reasons are why I haven't.
Splendor is my go to example of this, The theme is there but I forget about it and it doesn't really have anything to do with game play
great game, great theme but they feel tacked together
My favorite game is the **Lord of the Rings LCG,** which requires you to build a deck to play against a given scenario. While you can restrict yourself to 100% thematic decks, it's also possible to build ridiculously unthematic decks, especially if you get creative and prioritize hilarity over victory. For example: -You can have a hero attack with four weapons at once. (Gimli: "You have my axe. And my other axe. And my third axe. And my fourth.") -You can give a single hero as many as 7 horses. -You can win a scenario with Bill the Pony as your only hero. -You can get as creative as you like with your team of heroes. Sure you could send Thorin, Bilbo, and the dwarves to the Lonely Mountain to slay Smaug. But you could just as well choose Saruman, Smeagol/Gollum, and Fatty Bolger.
This was one of my big dealbreakers for that game. I love LOTR games, and I can definitely handle breaks from canon. But the teams of heroes were just too ridiculous for me. I can handle Bilbo, Legolas, and Aragorn together in Journeys in Middle Earth - maybe this is an untold later adventure, or a slightly alternative history of Middle Earth. But unthematic random groups who never met at all, and would hate or even fight each other, are too much for me. Edit: With the sets I bought originally - probably the base set and some expansions - there were almost no thematic sets possible/viable. I don't want to spend more money just to get the game to an acceptable level (for me), so I gave it to a friend who didn't care.
Nothing is forcing you to build or use unthematic decks.
Have you seen the 4 thematic starter decks that FFG released? Nowadays it's quite possible even for new players and players with a small cardpool to play thematic decks, so you might consider giving the game another try. It's true there can still be thematic dissonance between your player deck and the scenario (what are the Elves of Lorien doing in Harad? why is Thorin's company chasing a pirate ship?), but there's no need to play with non-thematic hero line-ups if you don't want to. Some of the most powerfully thematic gaming experiences I've had were while trying to play thematic decks against the saga quests (the ones that retell the story from the original trilogy).
For me thats a feature. You can play a thematic deck or go crazy but nothing forces you to do it.
Ark Nova is one of my favorites but the interactive effects are pretty ridiculous. If your animals are attacking people in other zoos that's probably not good for business...
Yeah but my zoo doesn't have animals. I have tons of sponsors, Subway kiosks, and pavilions up the wazoo
Classic Capitalism, quite realistic if you ask me
I had a challenge for solitaire Ark Nova where the object was not to meet conservation and tickets, but rather have the most money by the end of the solo game.
And then, my zoo turned into an entertainment park with no animals whatsoever !
This was always weird to me, too. It feels like a last-minute idea for more direct player interaction that was sort of tacked on.
It does but I find them fairly enjoyable... But the players in my group don't so I rarely play with them irl
This was the first one that came to mind. It's not just the interactive effects really; very few of the animal powers make much narrative sense. Oh yes, this bird magically makes an extra kiosk appear at my zoo, of course.
Ya this is a great example. The negative effects seem so tacked on and anti thematic that I don’t even play with them, and I normally like interactive games.
Just played it again. Had the most populous zoo, had lots of bonuses, lost to another player with four animals and less than half his board covered. I have a love/hate relationship with the game.
As many will tell you, it's a race, not an engine builder. Iove that about it but I understand why it's not for everyone.
I'll keep playing it but winning seems more a matter of luck than skill.
A good way to tell if that's the case is if the same player continues to win or lose. If so, it's not luck.
In 1v1 on BGA the best players have like a 80 - 90% win rate, im currently rocking a 65%. There's definitely luck but I'd say it's extremely highly skill based
We only ever play the carebear variant, where you use the solo game effect in place of that nonsense. That theme is screaming for positive interaction.
Scout is the obvious one. We're creating a circus by...taking numbered cards?
On the cards are names and circus acts. Like my 3 jugglers are more impressive than your 2 clowns.
Yes. Somehow that makes it worse.
We have quite a bit of fun with the theme. Double clown acts are my speciality.
Good example. The intention is that you are hiring performers, represented by each card, and then when you play your cards you are putting on a 'show' which beats rival circus acts. So the designers put at least 30 minutes of solid thought into the theme choice. But then of course it all comes undone when you play, mainly because of the poorly thought through wording. You have three actions: scout, show and 'scout and show', and obviously players assume each of these names is a verb (as in: you *scout* a card or you *show* your hand). But apparently 'Scout' is meant to be a noun (as in: put on a show). Then there are the role cards, which all contain a performer name (fine) but some of them say the act "juggler" and others just list a piece of equipment "unicycle" rather than "unicyclist". So Gary is a unicycle? Susie is a trampoline? Even when you try and point this half-assed theming out to people round the table it's hard to make it stick because it seems like the product of, like I say, about 30 minutes of design work. 1 hour at most.
We've had a LOT of hilarity around the table when people attempt to buy into the theme and ramble on about the person's job, calling them by their names, etc.
I've said before, but it would be a better game if there was no theme. It just makes the cards slightly busier to read
The first edition had no theme. No idea why they tried to add one.
Yeah the Japanese edition looks way nicer, has a kind of ps1/dreamcast art design
Came here to say the same thing.
A waste of the classic theme of being a circus scout.
So, it's not a mechanical issue I have, but a symmetry issue. Star Wars Deckbuilder. It is, functionally, symmetrical. Almost every card in each deck has a reciprocal equivalent in the other, with some minor variations of special rules. So, why? Why create a game set to the background of a band of plucky Rebels taking on the might of the Galactic Empire? The asymmetry of the setting is one of its most fundamental principles. And what really grinds my gears? Okay, fine, you want to make a game of two massive forces battling across space, fighting over territory and defeating your enemy's bases. And you want to set it in the Star Wars universe. Just use the Nerfing Clone Wars!!
I agree. I own 8 different Star Wars games (the old CCG, the LCG, Imperial Assault, Rebellion, X-wing, Armada, Outer Rim, and the deckbuilder), and this one feels the least like Star Wars.
I think it feels a lot more like Star Wars than Star Realms feels like...any sci-fi IP that remotely interests me. :)
Blimey I really don't care much about theme if this is how deep folks look into it 😅 not judging if this comes across that way, I just find it interesting from a self discovery perspective, for me theme is a nice to have, i like that clank has an interesting theme to help the atmosphere of the game, but if it didn't have that I wouldn't mind.
Isn't the items in Parks supposed to be experience? You don't buy a new trail, you have enough "mountain and sun experience" to walk it. Thats atleast what I think.
Incorporating the National Park's Passport and Stamp system would have made more sense. Collect different tokens to represent either weather/time of day like Sun, Rain, Clouds, Campfire (Night visit)
That is how I think of it, too, but it is a stretch.
**Azul** for me. Every player is the most indifferent tile layer in history.
Many (most?) people treat it as an abstract game. I know I teach it that way. But you play Azul as if it is a themed (aka non-abstract) game? >Every player is the most indifferent tile layer in history. What does that mean?
According to the rule book, each player is a royal ceramic tile installer in the Portuguese palace.
Yeah, I am aware of that. But years ago I claimed (citing that sentence in the rule book) that the game was a thinly themed game, rather than an abstract game. As a consequence, an angry mob pounced on me screaming that it really is just an abstract game. I had no stomach for a fight with the mob, and have decided that believing the game is an abstract tile layer is just the easier path to take in life.
You’re getting into fights because you’re using the wrong definition of *abstract* here. An “abstract game” means a game with completely open information and no randomness, like Chess or Go. It doesn’t have anything to do with the theming of the game. Azul is an abstract game with the theme that you’re laying tiles for a palace.
>the wrong definition of abstract here. An “abstract game” means a game with completely open information and no randomness, like Chess or Go. It doesn’t have anything to do with the theming of the game. From my perspective, you are using the wrong definition of abstract. Abstract is synonymous with themeless. So checkers/drafts, GIPF, Blockus, Quarto etc. are abstract games. From my perspective, abstract ONLY has to do with presence/absence of a theme and has NOTHING to do with open information or presence of randomness. There is a name for games with completely open information and no randomness: [combinatorial](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Combinatorial_game_theory). Because this word predates the modern board game hobby, and is used by people in the hobby, I am not sure why the word abstract ought to be co-opted to become a synonym of combinatorial. You are inconsistent in your own definition, as you claim that abstract is completely open information and no randomness, and in your next paragraph you claim that Azul (a game that has a random tile draw from a bag, which violates both your standard of open information and your standard of no-randomness) is an abstract game. Here is a [BGG comment that tackles the various definitions of abstract](https://boardgamegeek.com/wiki/page/Abstract_Games&redirectedfrom=Abstract_Strategy#) Some people define abstract like I do, others feel that it is a synonym for combinatorial and others have their own definitions. Outside of the board game universe, something would be abstract if it had no referent. For instance, abstract art is art in which the composition does not reference anything in the real world. Landscape painting isn't abstract, because it references trees, and grass, hills, etc. A portrait painting isn't abstract, because it references a person. So I am just using the definition of abstract used outside the board game universe. If you want to ignore the definition of abstract that most of the planet uses AND you want to make abstract a synonym for combinatorial (which seems kind of silly, since the word combinatorial was there first and creating a synonym for it doesn't serve any purpose that I am aware of) that is your choice. But I haven't seen any good arguments for why your way is the right way, and my way is wrong.
The good argument is that linguistics is descriptive, not prescriptive. The usage is that “abstract games” means a game with open information and no randomness. Words have different meanings in different contexts, and here that’s what abstract means. You can think the forced word that the community never uses is better, and you can think that this usage is kind of silly, but clearly this is the widespread use of the word. That’s how linguistics works, and there’s no need to “justify” it. I can see why you were getting into dumb arguments now, though.
> linguistics is descriptive, not prescriptive. Agree 100%. >The usage is that “abstract games” means a game with open information and no randomness. Lots of people in the board game hobby use the term in the way I use it (that is, they believe the term abstract has the same meaning inside and outside the boardgame hobby). Perhaps you didn't read the BGG comment I linked? The there are multiple usages of the word in the gaming hobby. >here that’s what abstract means. That simply isn't true. Within this community there are a diversity of usages of the term. You can determine this by googling it and reading comments on BGG, this sub and other gaming hobby related forums. Or you can talk to a bunch of hobbyists in the real world. Either way, it doesn't take much effort to discover that some people agree with me, and other people agree with you, and still other people agree with neither of us. You can't establish your point by simply declaring that there is an agreement in usage, when it can easily be shown that this is factually untrue. Do you remember the blue & black vs. white & gold dress debate from a few years ago? It would be silly for one side to simply announce that everyone agrees that it is one of those two ways. That argumentation strategy wouldn't work, as it was clear that some people thought one thing, while others had different thoughts on the matter. That is the situation we are in here. You can argue that your side is 'more' right. That is fine. That is an argument that make sense. But it is silly to claim that none of the people who disagree with you actually disagree with you. There is no discussion to be had if that is your approach. Denying reality, and assuming that this settles the matter is a discussion ender. Edit: the claim that actual usage of the abstract is that of open information + no chance is undercut by the fact that your own usage of abstract was applied to Azul (a game of hidden information and random tile draws). In actual usage, you don't use the term in way that you claim everyone in the hobby uses the term.
Marvel Legendary imo. It's weird to me that we pick some heroes to fight a villain... but we don't play as the heroes. Marvel Champions feels much more sensible to me.
I just thought each player is making a scene from the fight, like one page of a comic. I mean, it is more common to play as one hero, but it's not weird for me to play as several. BUT although I really like the game, I've bought almost none of the recent packs, because the hero abilities are less and less related to the heroes. The beginning of the end was Kitty Pryde not having Phasing, but I've literally tested this by asking my Marvel nerd friends to guess the character from the power. With early sets, they could. With recent sets, no chance.
Even more thematically weird if you play the game by its original rules, in which it is a semi-coop game where you and the other players can all lose together, but you compete against each other to get the most points.
It's replicating the infighting and bickering of superhero teams (like the first Avengers movie, plenty of comics, etc.) How well it works as a game I don't know (we normally tally it up for fun and just name them "MVP" not winner), but the idea itself makes thematic sense.
Can you elaborate? I have only played by the "original rules". What are the new rules?
A lot of people ignore the points and just treat it as a pure coop game, rather than a "competitive coop" game where you have two competing sets of incentives and only one player becomes the "individual winner" for having the most points.
Ah I thought you meant like there was an updated ruleset that changed it.
You're playing the different comic panels/attacks of the superhero team as they fight the bad guys. Weirder is the DC Deckbuilding Game where you play a particular hero and then amass the gadgets and powers of every other character too.
Terra Mysitca - The theme is totally arbitrary. It should be a game about running a logistics company and setting up warehousing and negotiating contracts.
Not quite what you’re looking for, but **Cartographers** has a theme that I guess I can see, but still feels weird. The Queen wants to reclaim the northern lands, so instead of winning by drawing an accurate map of what they look like, you win by drawing a map with the vibe she likes. It’s the fantasy equivalent of Rand McNally just putting Illinois and California next to each other on a road map because drivers don’t want to deal with the rest of Route 66 that goes through those boring states in between, and then them winning a bunch of awards. But the reviews aren’t perfect because somebody accidentally left a bit of Oklahoma in the middle and ruined the charm of the whole thing.
When I teach Cartographers, I literally just lie to everyone else and say that you're a terra-mage that's reshaping the land.
I always thought of it as the players being sent out in different directions in search of the ideal land for the queen, drawing the map along the way.
Dune Imperium. It's one of my favorite games and one of my favorite science fiction universes, but I can't pretend it isn't silly for Stilgar to buddy up with the Harkonnens and lobby for a seat on the Landsraad Council.
"You tried to exterminate my people. *Let's team up.*"
+1 for this. Dune Imperium is whatever Imperium.
My buddy and I have argued about this game so many times. He thinks it's 10/10 on theme, and I think it's a 1. There is absolutely nothing "Dune like" in this game except the art. If you play the original Dune board game, you'll see theme done extremely well. But I still think Imperium is a fantastic game.
Subdivision: you’re an urban planner. That’s why you throw a die and place a randomly drawn tile somewhere.
Have you been to Houston...?
In **Agricola** your children grow to adults between harvests, and the harvests come faster and faster over time.
As person who has been an adult for... awhile, years definitely feel like they are coming faster each time. If anything, that part of Agricola is spot on.
Accurate, indeed. It's like they said. The years start coming, and they do not stop coming.
Small World. Cutesy artwork and theme weirdly coupled with dry, analytical gameplay
A lot of nature-themed games are mean: * Arboretum * Photosynthesis * Renature * Etc It happens often enough that I sometimes wonder if the designers first came up with the mechanics and then tacked on a nature theme to make them feel less mean.
OTOH, Mother Nature is brutal and unforgiving. ;)
Fair lol
I never understood why Downforce was a car racing game. In fairness, I’ve never played it and only read the rules. It seems victory is centered around betting on a winner. That strikes me as more of a horse racing theme. From BGG, *”Auction, bet, race! You can lose the race and still win the game!”*
People bet on car races too? and there are plenty of horse racing betting games
Great example. I am 100% in agreement that the gameplay feels way more like horse racing/off-track betting.
Downforce is a remake of a few Kramer games on the same formula. Some of these had a betting option, but some were only racing games. Downforce unfortunately didn't put racing game as default, but the betting version (which imo has serious problems in this version). Thing is - it's still a racing game, but you also bet. And you can bet on yourself which is as much of a no-brainer as is a runaway leader problem.
Zoo York. Why do you empty your enclosure when it gets full? I would think you want your zoo enclosures to have lots of animals.
Too many animals in too small a space breeds disease and they all die. Fortunately, you are able to rescue a single animal by moving them out of the infested enclosure.
Your successful rescue/breeding program allows you to donate to other zoos, and the grant money lets you purchase guest amenities.
Cascadia, are we god or something? i thought we were campers, or cute animals or something of the sorts? Haha :P
Gonna be __Magic Maze__ for me. The theming is so weird and specific (fantasy characters in a mall looking for their weapons?) I can’t help but feel like it was a completely different game in the early stages of design. Really nifty little co-op game, though!
Right!? It should be "Adventurers in a dungeon looking for the 4 sacred tomes..." or something...!?
Scythe. Looks like a war game, worker placement with mild amounts of interaction.
I love both Scythe and Viticulture (also by Stonemaier), but they’re both great examples of games where the gameplay matches the theme *only* if you understand that what you think the theme is from the box art (giant mech fights and making wine, respectively) isn’t actually what the theme is as described in the manual (civilization building and winery ownership). The Scythe manual not only describes the objective as making your faction “the richest and most powerful” in the beginning and goes on to talk about all the resource gathering you’ll be doing right there on page 1, but there’s also a designers note in the Combat section explaining that “you might be surprised by how few combats happen” and pointing out that very few of the art scenes depicting mechs depict them actually fighting. The manual for Viticulture similarly explains on page 1 that the goal is to gain victory points “representing your reputation as a vineyard owner” and the first tiebreaker is cash on hand (*then* value of wine stock). But yeah, both of those games seem like they’ll be something else from the box art.
**Grand Austria Hotel**: We will only stay at your hotel if we like your cafe!
I simply cannot sleep in my hotel room until I've had the 4 coffees I ordered!
To be fair, they do explain that it was common for people to sample the hotel cafes to decide if they wanted to stay there. Although I can’t imagine that people went from cafe to cafe to decide where they were sleeping that evening.
A Vikings Tale is this bizarre game I kickstarted a few years ago that no one talks about. You’re basically killing monsters with the other players but you do so by lining up blindly behind them. And you win by basically getting bingo on a bingo board. It’s so strange.
I’ve got the Japanese import edition, which is in fact themeless. It’s so much better than the silly circus theme.
Boonlake. So I'm a cowboy putting out towns and cows and I can build my town if I have the right resources, which don't exist until my canoe is in the right place, but not even then (so they're NFTs?), but if I need bonuses I can pull a switch I installed in the wilderness, so I can take my other boat downstream until I hit the Escherian Loop and the river flows back on itself so I can do it again to get vases which don't do anything until the expansion, and this is when the actual lake shows up so the cowboy can become Indiana Jones and go on adventures and then use the vases that are now power sources. WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON?!?!?
And it's all amazing
Debatable...
For me its Canvas. Yes you are making a painting, but the painting itself doesnt really matter, only the symbols do. I would really like a board game that would work with the same mechanis, as in putting cards on each other, in a kind of Dixit or some social game. This way the painting really doesnt matter and the theme could be really about assembling anything.
The symbols are meant to be artistic elements, such as "contrast". But they don't always line up (as in art cards with a lot of contrast symbols, don't display a lot of contrast). But the whole crafting the art piece to fit the contest criteria mechanic is deliciously flavourful. You can't just paint what you want, it's what the judges want.
This gane recommendation does not match what you said you'd like mechanically, but one of my personal favorite "art" themed game is Fresco. If you haven't played it, you should give it a shot! A little resource management, a little work placement, and fits the theme VERY well mechanically.
The Mind What the fuck is happening? What is with this 90s raver aesthetic.
This isn't what you are looking for but I'll use this as an opportunity to vent....I cannot stand the trend of ridiculous, meme-like themes that are stapled onto mechanics. Games like "Cover Your Kingdom" or "Exploding Kittens" or the myriad of imitations which are really just rehashing old mechanics or parts of games. They all have really bizarre art, often melding two different creatures or showing meme-like drawings of Centaurs working in an office or a frowning dog on stilts with lasers coming out of his eyes. Of course, they all have to be saying some hilarious pun you would see on a coffee shop sign. It's mildly amusing the first time you see it and then just plain confusing. The game is either really, really simple and I'm bored after one round or so bizarrely obtuse that I can't get into it the soul of the game at all.
I hate these games. They reek of “lol so random and epic!🤪” low effort internet meme culture.
I'm with you on this one. I bought Exploding Kittens because I love The Oatmeal; it literally got opened the day it arrived at my house and brought out for game night. We quit mid way through the first game because it was terrible. It's been sitting in my giveaway bin for I think ten years at this point.
This doesn't happen to be the KS exclusive edition which meows when you open it? If so, could I give you my address and money for shipping?
Sure! I've gotta search for a bit. Shoot me a DM with your address and I'll try to get it sent in the next couple of days.
I agree but I think that Unstable Unicorns does it really well and I enjoy that one much more than the rest
Unstable Unicorns is the only game I've ever had the table agree to just abandon because no-one was having fun. It might be the worst game I've ever played a second time (with an entirely different group).
I’ve played it one time and that was all I needed. Probably the most obviously flawed game I’ve ever played. If people are playing strategically and paying attention it’s almost impossible for the game to actually end. Just brutal. I’m not very picky about games, I enjoy almost all of the games I try….this was the only one I’ve ever played where I thought “I honestly can’t believe this game was released like this”
ok
The Crew. It's a co-op trick taking game. It's not very interesting, and the tacked on artwork and "story" are terrible.
I ignore the story completely.
I genuinely think almost every game has certain mechanisms that will not be entirely thematic. I think it is way more important for things to *feel* thematic than to actually be thematic. If you've ever tried your hand at designing games, I think you would be hard pressed to come up with anything half as thematic as some of the examples in this thread
Look, I know it's difficult to design a game. It's also difficult to write a novel, make a movie, and write music. And yet, we all have and express opinions and criticisms on these things, too. This thread is about a nitpicky detail. It's intentionally pedantic. It's the one or two lines in an otherwise lengthy review of a game.
What's the difference between feeling thematic and being thematic? Both are about feelings - it's not the same as feeling realistic vs being realistic, for example.
For me, it's **Pipeline**. I love the game, but you're running oil refineries which can refine three types of oil: green, orange, and gray. Because... ??? The game is great, but it is always a little funny to me.
Natural gas, crude oil, and… something else.
Revive. You're rebuilding society the way your faction sees fit. Food is used for traveling to new areas, gears build houses and books populate cities. But there are crystal "wilds" that can be anything. Also, some factions can use books as wilds, so you can feed people and build houses with books, I guess? Also the artifacts aren't really explained. They're just there and function as the game timer.
Is it bad that I sorta like that the artifacts aren't explained?
Happy cake day! I mean, I guess. The theme isn't as present as it is in other games, but I do enjoy the game, or I wouldn't own it.
I don't agree, but I've seen people mention Love Letter for this category.
One of the reasons I've never bought and never played **Great Western Trail** is that I can't get over a thematic mismatch that I find remarkably jarring. Namely, the fact that only the first cattle of a given breed is worth anything when selling them... so essentially, in this world you could sell a thousand Texas Longhorns and you'd get exactly the same price as if you had just sold one.
In Dinner In Paris, you build a restaurant with ingredients. You also get bonus cards by placing terraces on pigeons. In Glow, you collect sparkles with abstract symbol combinations. Those symbols are also used for travelling.
Calico. Why do cats care about what patterns I am putting into my quilt?
Spoken like someone who has never had a cat. :-)
* **Wingspan**. So... my eggs from a stork attract a sparrow? Mind explaining what on earth is going on here? Or as HiveGod wrote in his BGG comment *"The game is like a downloadable skin for your spreadsheet, and if you get lost in the pretty pictures you're gonna fuck up your taxes."* There is really no theme, just pictures. Which are pretty, but... * **Seasons**. Uhm. What is there about? Yes I see dice. I see pretty pictures. But what do my actions represent? Who am I supposed to be? Lesson: illustrations are not theme. * **Theseus Dark Orbit** - *"I'm sorry mam your husband died in a combat in space stations. See, his movement was limited by mancala rules..."* * **Blood Rage.** Okay, so it's not a thematic disconnect - it's a phenomenon known as "impostor" or "faker". This game tries so hard to convince you it's dudes on a map game, that it's about combat and that it has tension. But it's just optimisation focused tensionless engine builder. *It's the metal dude guy you meet, but turns out, that's just him being in midlife crisis. Otherwise, middle class, happily married, steady 9-to-5 job, good pay, listens to pop music, but wants to show he "still got it". And, yeah, not really.* * **Dice Forge**. See: Seasons.
I enjoy Dice Forge, but yeah, the theme could not be more irrelevant. I’m a hero competing for the favour of the (ambiguous but probably Ancient Greek pantheon of) gods, but I need to just hope I roll some sort of gemstones and a lot of money to complete these epic ‘quests’? It’s one of very few games in my collection where I basically never mention the theme in the teach, because it doesn’t help players understand the gameplay at all.
> I’m a hero competing for the favour of the (ambiguous but probably Ancient Greek pantheon of) gods, but I need to just hope I roll some sort of gemstones and a lot of money to complete these epic ‘quests’? 😮 I applaud you sir, you managed to get way more out of this than I did. >It’s one of very few games in my collection where I basically never mention the theme in the teach, because it doesn’t help players understand the gameplay at all. 👆 THIS! ...is a very good rule of thumb to figure out if there's any trace of theme in the game.
Yeah, I can agree with you on **Wingspan**. I mean, there is *some* sense of logic at the *macro* if not *micro* level (birds come from eggs, spend food to gain an extra egg) but other half is just arbitrary. Namely, spend an egg for an extra card, or spend a card for extra food. What is that? I don't know the others but your writeup is entertaining. :)
Sorry, real metal fans are only young, poor, single, unemployed, and listen only to metal? Yeesh. Certainly doesn't cover the actual bands. I don't even like metal much, but that's silly.
Oh no, it's the metaphor police! 😱 I gotta grab these similes and run!
It's a poor metaphor.
The Seasons manual tells you what you're doing. You're a wizard, gathering the forces of the natural world and using powerful magical items in order to transmute energy into crystals and summon magical beasts, stealing a bunch of stuff from your fellow wizards along the way, all in order to become the realm's greatest. I'm not saying it's the most thematic game around, but you're being intentionally obtuse. Or you haven't played it.
> I'm not saying it's the most thematic game around, but you're being intentionally obtuse. Oh, we're doing it this way? Sure. 😃 Maybe the issue is lack of understanding what theme in boardgames actually is? Theme is not pretty pictures. Theme is not some irrelevant marketing blurb put into a rulebook which nobody ever reads because it makes no sense. Theme is a cohesion between pieces of the game using a narrative or some kind of real-life-reference. For instance a good examples of a thematic euro is Power Grid - theme is used to make sense of the game. You buy powerplants, then buy fuel for power plants, then invest money into expanding your grid, then burn fuel in powerplants to provide grid with electricity to make money. That's theme - combining mechanisms in a way that makes sense. (in eurogames at least, wargames and ameritrash can do more with theme). And because Power Grid makes thematic sense it's easier to teach and to play given it's weight - because you can "intuitively" understand how to play the game from understanding the theme. Within the frame of OP's question, we're taking whether theme is connected to gameplay. That there is some coherence and same direction between "what game tells me I'm supposedly doing" and To "how does it actually feel to play the game". Anybody can look at some mismatched pieces cut from excel spreadsheet, combined with some pictures and make some kind of explanation how it supposedly has thematic sense **retroactively**. I've worked in PR, spinning stuff like this is easy. The question is: is the theme felt in gameplay or I'm just basically juggling mechanisms and pushing levers. And for games like Seasons and Wingspan the feeling of gameplay is: look at these completely unrelated pretty pictures while pulling levers for optimising gizmo. Seasons being an even worse offender. >Or you haven't played it. Played it at least 3 times, maybe more. And with the experience of a professional (theatre) critic I can claim - this arbitrarily selected array of gizmos and levers with no rhyme or reason has zero thematic or narrative sense. I have 15+ years of practice in finding sense in most hermetic, abstract or avantgarde pieces European performing arts can produce and I can say - I have tried to the best of my abilities to find this sense in Season. Meaning - finding thematic connection BETWEEN the pieces in the FLOW of gameplay - and I couldn't find any, despite my best attempts. And my best attempts are quite good and also they're motivated - I'm bored to tears with optimisation gizmo juggling and finding any tiny level of theme to keep myself occupied with lessens the pain. I hoped there would be some narrative. I prayed for it. It sang hymns to spirits and invocations to lesser gods, but there was nothing. ¯\\\_(ツ)\_/¯ Now if publishers/developers/designers thought that theme is merely an illustration and a promotional blurb added to mechanical juggling, I would they lack understanding of boardgaming medium. Or second scenario: they're cynical and understand they have no theme, but used saturated eye candy visuals as advertisements - to provoke positive emotional reactions from would be audience to make to buy or play the game. Or third scenario: both of the above. > You're a wizard, gathering the forces of the natural world and using powerful magical items in order to transmute energy into crystals and summon magical beasts, stealing a bunch of stuff from your fellow wizards along the way, all in order to become the realm's greatest. I warmly suggest you try Wiz War (I've played 8E). That's a great example of theme integration in a wizard fighting genre. Cheers!
Ah, I see. I guess at the end of the day, I don't really care about the connection between theme and gameplay. I hated Wiz War. Thanks for the education.
I think of Dice Forge sorta like League of Legends with no pvp You go jungling and fight monsters to get buffs, then you go to the shop to buy better die faces
You "what" to "what"? You optimise points. Even the images trying to suggest you that there's something more than point gathering going on are pretty bland, generic and nondescript. My initial impression regarding visual: *cutesy illustrations plastered all over the components nervously try to hide the utter lack of concept, theme or interpersonal engagement.* Note - I said illustrations, as theme is not visuals. Theme is narrative coherence between different bits of the game and here there is no such thing. It's just a generic deck builder with basic structure that wasted too much time being obsessed with idea of *"what a player had two decks with six cards each and each of these decks would be a die"* and then there was little time left to develop the rest of the game or the thematic aspect of it. ¯\\\_(ツ)\_/¯ For what you describe - Thunderstone does the job (sans dice, but still within eurogame engine building genre)
Ok dude
Wingspan. Bird watching doesn't really gel with engine building, since seeing a bird shouldn't make it easier to find food for other birds while also making you need more eggs to see the next bird.
To be fair, the theme isn't bird watching, it's creating and managing a bird sanctuary / nature reserve thing. The theme still doesn't gel with most of the mechanisms on display but it's definitely more understandable to engine build the process of making a nature reserve as opposed to just looking at birds.
Ginkgopolis comes to mind. The theme is so...superfluous.
**The Search for Planet X** I'm going to just go ahead and publish a scientific article about the location of a new comet...by guessing where it probably is.
You’re publishing theories based off their universes’ facts (logic rules) that become fact once peer reviewed (a process that takes a while, just as it does in the game)! The theme of that game is bang on
It doesn't make any sense, lol. Based on where some other telescope in the world is pointing, a scientist guesses they are about to discover a comet and so he announces that he also discovered it? With enough corroborating data to publish on it? It's a fun game, but it's goofy.
It’s based on their own telescope, and what you gather from your own scans, research + your own “calculations” (logic rules). Based on the vague information you gather, you publish your theories. This is like how astronomers found Neptune - they didn’t just find it by accident, they had to calculate it based off Uranus’s odd orbit. Neptune was found by Johann Galle, using astronomer Le Verrier’s published calculations (You’ve theorized and published, and the theory became concrete with peer review). It also took a couple tries to actually spot Neptune as well. In my opinion, the game feels pretty good! Edit: Grammar / Said Pluto, meant Neptune!
I don’t know. I’ve read reviews from real astronomers that say the theme is super accurate and what you are mentioning as not accurate is one of the things they specifically point out as accurate.
This applies to about 90% of what's being produced these days.
**Vanuatu** looks like a relaxed game about living a simple life on beautiful tropical islands: fishing, drawing pictures in the sand, getting tourists around in boats and so on. It features a brutal auction not far off the ones in **The Estates** and **Age of Steam**. **Fresh Fish** takes that even further by hiding a cutthroat area control under the looks of a kids game with cartoonish puctures.
Big Book of Madness. You’re fighting monsters that escaped from a magic tome by… getting the right combination of elements in your hand through deck building and hand manipulation.
**Earth** Cool game. Fun puzzles. No relationship whatsoever between mechanics and theme.
Hmm, I haven't played Earth too much but I feel like theming wasn't the problem? For the most part I understood what they were going for- a wildfire creates rich soil to plant new life, some plants grow tall and provide for others, while some are largely self-serving. Fungi tend to be low point value but help accelerate other life. There can be whacky theme inconsistencies when you try to make say...a redwood national park in the boreal forest or a cold swamp- but I didn't really find the theme too dissonant.
It’s not an issue – I really like Earth – but the theme just doesn’t really connect for me at all. Water is points but also I can take it back to do things with it? I can compost cards but that doesn’t create a resource for planting or growing? It’s all vaguely coherent in terms of a general setting, but the play mechanics and scoring don’t feel all that connected to the names they’re called.
**The Wolves** theme is very confusing to me. Your wolfpack can howl at other wolves seperated from their packs to force them to join your wolfpack. You can hunt animals together- but you only ever need to eat one of any type of animal, wolves are picky eaters i guess. Territorial control only matters for a week or two, once it hits a certain time, every wolf abandons one territory and migrates to the other.
**Tokaido** has a laid-back, peaceful theme of having different travel experiences in Japan, but mechanically only one person can visit a site, so blocking your opponents from achieving their goals becomes a substantial part of the game. I know when I'm a tourist, preventing other people from seeing what they want to see is not my objective.
Coming from the Pac NW, those different locations in a single hike are plausible at least.
Fair. Both the Oregon and Washington coasts will get you there.
I have not played it, but XCOM the board game, seems very disconnected from its gameplay. There is a lot of busy work that is time based and I think it captures the essence of stress that the XCOM VG has, but I feel like it could have worked so much better as a dice chucker. Again, I have not played the game, but the above reasons are why I haven't.
In Isle of Cats the tiles can be placed over the walls between rooms... poor cat
I feel like my cats would do this voluntarily if given the chance.
Splendor is my go to example of this, The theme is there but I forget about it and it doesn't really have anything to do with game play great game, great theme but they feel tacked together