I recently received some feedback for one of my games, Lily Livered Scallywags, where I was told by multiple reviewers that my game’s theme was boring. At first I wanted to ignore the feedback, not because it was negative, but because I was told theme doesn’t matter much. Most publishers will just change it anyway, and I don’t mind that. But still, I was never a fan of the theme, so maybe I should rework it anyway.

What is a boring theme?

The first thing I needed to do was pick a new theme. But hold on, that’s how I got in this situation! I had a mostly complete game, but had to put some kind of theme on it. If I picked a bad theme once, what’s to stop me from doing it again? So I asked around, trying to find out how to define a boring theme. Part of it was simple: google the theme and see if there are a bunch of games already like that. Another part of it was specificity. A cat game is kind of overdone, but a cat café game might feel unique. Similarly, one suggestion was to put a twist on things. Take on theme, but mix it with something else. You’re running a shop, but your customers are [blank], or your products are made of [blank], and so on. But I wanted to try and really pick the right thing for my game specifically, not just another game.

Resonance

Resonance is the key term when it comes to theme. A theme needs to resonate with the game mechanics. What you’re doing thematically needs to line up with what you’re doing mechanically. As soon as you do something that’s a little off what’s expected, it can throw the whole thing off unless you find something else to ground it. You can also be resonant on a grander scale. Sometimes it’s about emotion or tone. You pick a theme that makes no sense but evokes a feeling. Skull is a game with effectively no theme but the titular skull and the flowers give it a feeling of impeding doom and relief, respectively. But there’s another major reason people want resonance.

Teaching

Resonance serves to inform the player. When they don’t know what to do or what they can do, they can think of the theme. What would the character they are portraying want or need to do? If your game has good resonance, then they can intuit what the answer would be. If they aren’t given the option, then your playtesters will ask for that option. Maybe they’ll even suggest renaming an option to more closely match their expectations. The better your theme is, the easier it is to learn your game. If someone says your theme is not great, it might be because they are having trouble learning the game. But there’s another huge thing about theme.

Engagement

If someone says your theme needs to be better, it might be because they want more engagement. Engagement is something every game strives for. It’s practically the whole reason we play games. Theme is one way to engage with games. Role playing games are almost entirely about engagement through themes. Thematic games let you get attached to characters and moments and drawn in to the game more and more. It gets people talking about the game in a whole new way. If you can’t do anything about the theme of your game, try working on other forms of engagement. This is how abstract games get away with it. They’ll either focus on strategy or on social aspects or on pure push your luck excitement.

Conclusion

I tried my best to go through how to change your theme and why to change your theme, but also the sort of feedback that might be hidden behind the initial feedback. A game is a lot of little pieces working together, and theme is a major piece of it.