So you need a theme—

This comes up rather a lot, so I figured I should put my advice in one place. 

What do you do when your initial idea for a game does not include a theme? (Or if you have to retheme?)

Interrogate your design. That is the one and only step, but don't worry: I'm going to unpack that into useful tips. (More about this concept here and here.)

Ask interesting questions. Interrogating your design involves asking interesting questions. If the answers you get aren't interesting, chances are the questions you're asking aren't either. You don't just want any theme; you want an interesting one. But where do you start?

Identify one element. Decide what one resource or card type is. Which is to say, don't theme your whole game first; theme one bit. (If this exercise doesn't yield a good direction to build out a theme, reset to this point and start over.) The element you theme should spark ideas for the rest of the game. I.e. the element you theme first should be interesting. How do you make a single element interesting?

Find the movement. I'm assuming that your initial idea for a game included enough mechanics to play at least half of one turn. (Yes, I said turn, not round.) Because you're moving forward with the design, that means there must be something in your idea that excited you. Within that idea, which pieces moved physically? Of those pieces, which piece moved in the most interesting way? Theme that piece first. Why does that piece move that way? Find the most satisfying explanation and you'll have a good start on your theme. Not every game has to have pieces that move in thematic ways, but this is a good exercise to generate theme even if you end up moving away from your initial concept. 

Build out your theme. Now that you have one element, figure out what the rest are. This should be fairly easy if your initial element really resonated with you. If not, you can always return to the previous step and continue brainstorming. Identify each element in a way that makes your initial element more interesting. If your design shifts focus to a new "most interesting element," build out the theme around that element instead. You also need to decide who the players are playing as in this stage. That includes the characters' motivations—why they want to be performing the actions of the game. 

Find the relationships. As you are building out your theme, establish how the elements are related to one another. If the names of your resources could be easily swapped out for their colors and players wouldn't notice, your resources don't have thematic relationships to each other. It is easier to remember that wheat makes flour than that brown makes white; so if your playtesters aren't using your resources names it is likely because they aren't really thematic. (Made up fantasy names can be some of the least thematic bits of a game. Use sparingly.)

Identify the boring bits and troubleshoot. Play your game and focus only on the theme. Did you care all the way through? Which parts were you less invested in? Did you care about your player character? Did you care about the NPCs? If you built something, did it feel important to you? It's easy at this stage to blame the boring bits on the unrefined mechanics. Approach this stage with the aim to make the story your game tells better. You may end up essentially retheming the game at this stage, and that's ok. If a mechanic no longer works in your game, you would cut it and replace it. Think about theme the same way. Keep what's interesting and ditch what isn't. One way to know if you're on the right track is if your elevator pitch gets shorter and punchier. (Test your elevator pitch. There's plenty of online forums that will give feedback. In the process, you are covertly testing your theme.) Be aware, this step is an ongoing process as you playtest and tweak your mechanics. For more practical tips to make your theme more interesting, read my posts on resonance

Hopefully, at this point you will have a not just a theme, but a thematic game. 

When to Ignore Playtesters

Playtesting is a huge part of the design process. Playtest feedback is vital to design progress. So how do you know when your playtesters are wrong?

First, let's address the easiest one. If you only hear one complaint about something out of all your playtests and you disagree with that feedback, you should ignore the it. (Ignore in this case means write it down but don't make changes. Always record feedback, even 'bad' feedback.) Outlier feedback can send you down rabbit trails trying to make everyone happy. Designing to make everyone happy usually leads to a less focused game because you have likely strayed from your design vision. If you disagree with the feedback, wait for more people to bring up the issue. The way you know something is an issue in your design is if more than one person mentions it. 

However, there are times when a lot of people could give the same feed back and you should not implement it. Usually, this happens when you playtest outside of your target audience. You should playtest outside of your target audience, at least some. Different types of gamers see problems in different ways and can give fresh perspectives on your game. However, most playtesters want your game to be something they would want to play. So they give feedback in an attempt to shift the game to their preferred style. Go too far in that direction and you could end up designing a different game. 

This can manifest either mechanically or thematically. Ask your playtesters what types of games they typically play for fun (either before playing or before feedback), especially when playtesting with designers. Game designers give very 'authoritative' feedback about the number of cards your game should have, how heavy the game is, etc. Find out what weight of game they typically design, and let them know what your target weight is. Your game's weight is dictated by your target audience, so be careful about changes that add or remove complexity. 

After playtesting, ask your players if the theme appealed to them or not. Be wary of players who don't like the genre of theme but give extensive feedback about how to make the theme better. They aren't your target audience. Generally speaking, if they wouldn't play a published game with your theme, don't listen to their feedback on theme. Ask them for feedback on mechanics, instead. However, if you can't find anyone who fits the target market for your theme, that's a bigger problem. Themes do need to be playtested, so make a point of playtesting with people who are interested in your theme. 

Another thing to watch out for when playtesting with designers is the 'tried and true solution.' Playtesting groups typically develop a certain amount of groupthink which is particularly pronounced in a group of designers. Observe other playtests and listen to see if you hear the same feedback over and over. Sometimes, the feedback is necessary (yes, you do need a player aid in your prototype). Sometimes, the feedback is a design shortcut that leads to less creativity in a design. Implementing those design shortcuts could lead to a number of games produced by that group that all have a similar feel. (Good news if you're a design studio; bad news if you're a group of aspiring independent designers.) Instead, listen to what the problem is that the shortcuts are attempting to address and try to solve it in a different way.  Crowdsourcing your design decisions to other designers won't produce a very interesting game. Also, make sure to playtest with a number of different groups, especially if you are looking for fresh ideas. By playtesting with multiple groups you will, at least, have multiple design shortcuts to choose from. More likely, you will have a better understanding of what the issue is and be more equipped to address it by combining aspects of different feedback into a solution that is uniquely yours. 

Casual players, gamers, and designers can all be wrong. What do you do if your publisher is wrong? 

In all likelihood, the publisher isn't wrong. If they are asking for changes in exchange for a contract (aka money), then they want a game that they can sell. I also want a game that can sell. If, like me, you want someone else to publish your game, then you can't take hard lines with a publisher. Honestly, my best revisions to my games have come after publisher feedback. Interested publishers make the best playtesters because they help shape your game into a product. However, sometimes the publisher will present an idea that doesn't quite fit with your design vision. The best thing to do then is to offer an alternative or a revised version that keeps the direction the publisher was headed in but is more in line with your vision. You know your game better than anyone else. Where I have done this most is flavor text, but I'm a writer. In areas like game balance, present your case but let the publisher decide. Worst case scenario, the game flops and you get the rights back to try again. (Always make sure reversion clauses are detailed in a contract.)

At the end of the day, all playtester feedback has to be filtered through your design vision. Playtesting makes a game better, but not all feedback is created equal.  

On (Not) Designing Boards

I dislike designing boards. Here's why.

Boards lack the constraints of cards or even tiles. Boards have a wider array of sizes and shapes which present nearly infinite options for how to convey information. 

On the other hand, boards set the layout of your play-space in stone. Boards define boundaries. If you want a different set up, you have to design a different board. (Modular boards, to me, just means designing lots of boards. Which I don't like.)

In spite of the array of options for boards, boards have a greater tendency to end up looking like spreadsheets. I greatly dislike rectangles, and many boards are rectangles within rectangles: actions spaces, tracks, grids, card slots. Then you add cubes. Good graphic/product design avoids becoming to spreadsheet-y, but that usually happens later in the design process. 

Shared boards have a perspective problem. Unless all information is radially symmetrical, someone will be at a disadvantage when viewing the board. Cards or tiles can be picked up and passed around the table, but boards cannot. Therefore, information must be presented clearly to every player position. (I think that's  best done by not putting too much information on the board and instead having player aids.)

Lastly, I dislike designing boards because they are more difficult to prototype. For all of the reasons stated above. Also, they require more material and can be more difficult to print and assemble. Cards or tiles can be edited one at a time or in batches, but changes to a board often requires printing a new board. 

I'm not against boards in games. I like a well-designed board. But for my preferred work flow and design style, I try to avoid boards unless the game requires one. 

Sources of Inspiration

Inspiration is a slippery thing. My early ideas for a game come so quickly one after the other that I cannot tell you if I started with a component, a mechanism, or a theme. (I don't think that's what the question "Are you a theme-first or mechanics-first designer?" means anyway.) Where that spark of an idea comes from is perhaps best left to philosophers and neuroscientists. What I can say for sure is that those sparks usually occur after a period of contemplation. I don't consider this contemplation to be brainstorming in the classic sense. I do have lists of ideas, but I almost never reference those. Writing something down is a way to get it out of my head; reading my lists would just invite those ideas back in. Instead, I spend time contemplating (and sometimes discussing aloud with my husband) along three lines of thought: aspects of published games that I like, aspects of published games that I don't like, and areas of life that I am passionate about. In other words, my sources of inspiration are derivation, dissatisfaction, and passion.

Derivation and dissatisfaction go hand in hand. Every artist builds upon the artists that have come before them. That's derivation. (I know that being derivative sounds like the opposite of inspiration, but stick with me.) Dissatisfaction is what drives us to create something of our own. If I was wholly satisfied with my game collection, I wouldn't be trying to get my games published. (Granted, some people may be doing it solely for ego, but I doubt those people make it very far. This is of course the origin of the term vanity project.) 

Most of the time, what I derive or am dissatisfied with is mechanical. For example, I started my forthcoming game, Deadly Dowagers, with the desire to take an aspect of Citadels—buying and building buildings into a tableau—and make that more of a focus. Disassembling elements of various games and reassembling them is the essence of derivation. However, I also wanted to develop on the tableau building of Citadels (and 7 Wonders) to make the buildings more interesting after they are built. I wanted buildings that were less static and more dynamic. Importantly, I felt this way about Citadels before I had the inspiration to design 'Inheritance,' the precursor to Deadly Dowagers, a game about how the aristocracy built its wealth. (NB: Deadly Dowagers is no longer centrally concerned with how the aristocracy built wealth, but those concepts are still present in what gets built and how buildings interact in the game.) I contemplated what I liked and didn't like in Citadels and those feelings made their way into my design. I developed a refreshable tableau that is akin to an engine builder without quite being one. Someone playing the game today might draw comparisons to 7 Wonders because they are both drafting games, but would likely never realize that my real starting inspiration was Citadels. 

For me, my passion is theme. Readers of this blog know that I am passionate about thematic integration. My dissatisfaction of theme in existing games drives me to write this blog and attempt to design games closer to my vision of how theme should work. (I don't pretend to be a brilliant designer; I've been designing less than three years.) However, my passion for theme is also a passion to design with specific themes. Every design that I have spent more than a week on has a theme I am deeply interested in. For Deadly Dowagers (and its earlier version), my interest in 18th and 19th century Europe and European Literature drew me to ask the question "How did the aristocracy become wealthy?" For my designs, I want to work on games that don't bore me. More than that, if the theme is something I care deeply about, I am more able to craft the experience I want from the game. Thematic integration is also easier. This is because I am emotionally invested in the theme and that comes through in my designs. 

Obviously, not all design work can come from all three elements at once. When working with co-designers, studios, or publishers, the slated project has to come before one individual's inspiration. I am not lauding inspiration (indeed, I have written about how little inspiration is worth compared to execution.) Since I have also stated my dislike of brainstorming, I thought I would dedicate today's post to what does work for me in terms of generating ideas. Contemplating problems—things I like, don't like, or love—and asking interesting questions is how I get my ideas. Derivation. Dissatisfaction. Passion. Interrogation. No lists or concept maps needed.