Two weeks ago, I wrote about setting in a more mechanics forward way. This post expands upon that one by exploring the types of thematic elements to be considered when expressing setting in a game.
The key to a good setting that is integrated into a game is research. Unfortunately, you can have a research degree in your theme and still not know how to express those details in your game. Design is the process by which we curate which details are expressed and in what way. Setting is a very broad term that can be broken down into a few more specific categories. Not every game needs every possible expression of setting, but hopefully thinking about setting in a variety of ways will help you to come up with more immersive, thematic solutions during the design process.
Setting as a Physical Place
Geographic location can be shown via maps and illustration or thru the types of actions and resources available. A house will be illustrated differently than a mountain but will also provide a different environment for players to interact with. Maybe a necessary resource isn't found in the location where the game takes place. One way to show that would be to have that resource only available thru purchase rather than collection. Different locations will also have different accumulations of natural phenomena. While laws of physics don't change, natural forces will be more present or less present in different locations. Game designs may seek to capture temperature, precipitation, natural disaster, gravity, air current/wind, biome growth, natural selection, etc. in their mechanisms. The Coldest Night models severe cold thru negative effect cards, and most of the game focuses on building a fire without smothering it. Attention to the amount of thematic time elapsed within turns and between turns can make actions feel more grounded in reality. Some actions may take longer to accomplish than others; actions that require more time mechanically should also require more time thematically (and possibly vice versa).
Setting as Anthropology
Settings that contain intelligent life forms will be impacted by those life forms even if they are not represented in the game. Petrichor has players controlling clouds whose stated purpose is to water crops, specifically, as opposed to plants more generally. The existence of crops (and, in an expansion, cows) provides a setting where human farmers are active participants in the life cycle, even if they are not depicted in the game. Where intelligent life has an impact on setting, there are a number of ways that can be represented. History, like geography, can permeate illustrations as well as mechanisms. On the illustration side, shiny new buildings deliver a different concept of history than ruins do. On the mechanic side, knowing your setting's history can help tailor the rules to give a better sense of why things work the way they do in this setting. Games with combat especially benefit from having a sense of why the conflict exists, of what is worth dying for. Local laws or politics also add justification for certain rules, but in turn can add immersion by implying there are in-world lawmakers behind the rules. Even if you are playing as the lawmakers, older laws or traditions could impose restrictions on how you must act. Traditions are one aspect of cultural mores. Cultural mores are social guidelines that are enforced by a particular culture. Cultural mores could include religious practices, acceptable dress, food taboos, good manners, etc. Many laws are universal across cultures, such as prohibition of stealing, but cultural mores are distinct to a specific culture. Representing cultural mores or values in some way helps your setting feel like it belongs to a specific culture instead of using that culture as window dressing.
Setting as Artistic Expression
Setting does not have to be simply a realistic representation of the physical or cultural traits of a location. Setting can be stylized for emotional effect. Time, as artistic expression and not realistic simulation, can be used to give a sense of urgency or calm: the pace of the gameplay is a major component of a game's emotional atmosphere. Color choice and line quality are aspects of illustration that convey atmosphere. Being able to communicate what kind of atmosphere your setting has is important even if you aren't a visual artist. For example, you may need to give guidelines to an illustrator that the art should have muted colors and flowing lines, or dark, saturated colors and sharp, abrupt lines. Those instructions leave plenty of room for the creativity of the illustrator but they each convey very different atmospheres. Genre tropes can provide shortcuts to conveying atmosphere thru illustration or thematic labeling of actions and resources. By presenting familiar tropes, you provide players with clues for what to expect from the experience of play. The relative intensity of gameplay creates an atmosphere for the game that will either work with or against your setting. Tight and tense mechanics provide a different experience than cozy and breezy mechanics. The setting can reinforce the experience of the mechanics or it can mitigate that feeling (e.g. Root) or it can provide commentary on the type of experience provided by the mechanics (see below) or it can feel mismatched and lead to player dissatisfaction.
Setting as Commentary
Setting can never be totally divorced from the cultural context of the audience that is consuming the media. Setting a game in a particular time and place will convey meaning to players, often in the form of subtext. The Grizzled works as a commentary on war because it is set in a particularly horrific war that is also far enough removed in history that no one alive today fought in it. The intended audience is also familiar enough with WWI that they can jump right in with limited explanation. The commentary is fairly surface level (war is more sad than fun), thus not risking misinterpretation. Some games present certain themes as good in order to point out that they are bad, to mixed results, especially if the game lionizes particular behaviors. In other media, settings can be metaphors used to comment on contemporary issues. Board games are only beginning to explore satire and commentary, and I am unaware of a published game that makes a point about something different from what the game purports to be about. (The play The Crucible, for instance, is set during the Salem witch trials but is a commentary on McCarthyism.) I anticipate that over time board games will expand more into the territory of intentional commentary. I wouldn't recommend new designers start at this point. However, it is important to acknowledge that the hobby is filled with games that are unintentional commentaries in which perspectives they elevate and which they ignore.
This is the kind of work, the sorts of considerations, required when we so off-handedly say, "Just integrate the theme with the mechanics." In addition to story structure aligning with game structure, we also must give our settings enough touchstones to provide a sense of place: geographical, anthropological, atmospheric, or metaphoric. While it sounds like a lot of work, really what you will be doing is imagining the world you are trying to evoke and limiting some of your design decisions to options that best evoke that world. Most of what I write is just a detailed exploration of ways of imagining solutions to design problems. That's really what design is: imagining possibilities, curating ideas, and implementing the best ideas into the whole project.
ShippBoard Games is a board game design blog that updates most Mondays.
No comments:
Post a Comment