Today I have a ramble with the brilliant Will, The Board Game Wizard. We dive deep into game thematics, so strap in for the ride. When you’re done, you’ll find a few other blog posts at the bottom that might be of interest. Make sure to subscribe for new blog posts.
Joe: Will, The Board Game Wizard, thank you for joining me on the blog. I’m excited about this conversation, we’ll hopefully go deep into the importance of theme in board games design.
But before that, can you introduce yourself – who are you and what brings you to the world of board games design?
Will: Hey Joe, great to be here… thanks for having me! I’ve been working in a board game cafe for 5 years in Birmingham, in that time I won a competition with a publisher to get my image featured in a game and then met them at the playtest event they run at the cafe I work at. I started getting ideas for games and the designs just came from there.
Joe: What was the game?! And what was it about the playtest event that made you start running with ideas – was there a moment when it clicked for you?
Will: The game was Solar Sphere by Dranda Games, in which you are building a Dyson Sphere and one of the actions is that you can hire crew… I’m one of the crew!
On a side note, (you know me, Joe, always going off on a tangent🤦♂️) from the back of this I started volunteering for them at conventions and demoing the game I was in. I love to add narrative to a teach as I strongly believe merging theme with mechanics is important for immersion of players and I made a bit of a splash when I cosplayed as my character … but I digress…
I think the friendly crowd and willingness to listen to feedback drew me in.
You asked about the playtest events… I think the friendly crowd and willingness to listen to feedback drew me in. I recall getting such a great feeling after we played a game that didn’t really work well, we gave feedback and they made up a new iteration on the spot based on our ideas. I felt like I could do this, and that my input was valid.
Joe: Thanks Will, I get a similar feeling from the playtesting process. Playtesting holds a special place for me, as I think it does so much more than people realise (more on that here).
Over the summer we played a few games at AireCon NW. One that stands out for me was your teach of Galactic Cruise. I could see your love of theme and mechanics coming through during the track and then the game. First up, can you tell us a little about why you love that particular game?
Will: You’re very kind to say so! I do love a game with immersive narrative and the company who designed and developed Galactic Cruise, Kinson Key Games, is big on making games which are ‘theme-forward’ and I can totally get behind this. It holds a special place in my heart as when I taught it at Essen (the biggest board game convention in the world) people were surprised that I could teach a game that seems so big, heavy and dry and turn it into a fun, exciting and amusing experience.
The only reason I could do this? I’ve always said a great game is like a great movie. If you’re watching a blockbuster and someone does something out of character just to move the plot along then you’re going to feel disconnected and enjoy the film less. Same in a board game, if there is clearly a mechanic that does not mesh with the theme well and is clearly there just to balance the game, it will remove you from the immersion of the narrative. My teach went down so well and my narrative flourishes commented on so much that Kinson Key reached out and asked me for a breakdown of my narrative teach and some of them have made it into the rulebook.
Joe: That’s something to be proud of for sure!
Let’s dive into this a little deeper, I think we’re viewing the game as a story, and the players as characters in that narrative. I think this is true for even games that you might not feel have a narrative, but we can get to that later.
Can you tell me a bit more about that marriage between theme and mechanics?
Will: Ooo… sure I can… do bear in mind though this is all just personal preference, I am fully aware that there are some players who just want interesting rules to figure out best strategies, but these days I think the hobby has become more inclusive and humans are clearly creatures that thrive and remember better with a good story – so we should give them one when we can to get them to remember those tricky rules easier.
Let’s cycle back around to Solar Sphere as this is a great example on how I took a mechanic in a game and added a story to it to make it easier for people to remember what’s going on… It actually involves those crew cards in the game. As per most euro ‘worker placement’ games there is a location you can go to get a crew card for your ship. If nobody buys one they get a bonus token on them at the end of one round, another at the end of the 2nd and then are replaced in the third round. Simple enough, but what’s going on here?
Well, here’s the little story I put together about what’s happening here…
Well, here’s the little story I put together about what’s happening here… These crew members are sitting around in a bar waiting to be hired, clearly there’s one thing you do in a bar and that’s have a little drink, I mean, one drink on the company is alright, yeah? So if you hire someone who has been in the bar a while, they are quite fun to have on the ship (the token improves morale!). Wait a bit longer and they are hilarious to have on your ship (2 morale tokens!) , now leave them too long in the bar and they make a fool of themselves and get kicked out so they have to get replaced, naughty…
Now I love teaching games by stories and my job in the board game cafe, when I get the chance to, lets me do this to the general public and it always goes down well. Would you believe I even have a narrative teach of the very abstract game Azul? One day I need to put it on film to show people! I’d love to show it to you at some point. I’ve had people come back to the cafe so I can do the very same teach to their friends as they enjoyed it so much the first time. That’s just reaffirming the power of a great narrative and it’s amazing job satisfaction.
Joe: I think what you’re saying affirms the fact that stories are integral to the human condition. We innately love stories, and your teaching method for games plays beautifully into this.
But when we look at more abstract games, it becomes more about the personal story we create in the act of playing the game.
I wonder if we take this a little further, I have a theory that all board games are stories. Even the most abstract games have really clear stories. Root, for example – you can easily pull yourself into the narrative and picture yourself as a fuzzy little creature. But when we look at more abstract games, it becomes more about the personal story we create in the act of playing the game. Pitting ourselves against an opponent, and coming out triumphant (or losing); or perhaps racing from behind to clinch a victory from the jaws of defeat. The act of playing the game becomes the story that we tell later.
Will: Hmmm… all board games are stories… lets go even deeper into this… a board game is just a curated experience, whether it’s abstract, role-playing, strategic, cooperative… they all need to engage on some level. What’s a story but a curated experience too?
At its core… engagement is what all stories, board games and experiences are really about. I guess it’s those primal urges that are hard-wired into our brains through our joint evolution that are what we really want to excite. Firing off our neurons is something that rewards us on a base-level and something we all do is seek patterns. Be it visual or narrative, what’s a story but a pattern for our brains to latch on to?
All creative types, including (but not limited to) authors and board game designers, seek to create patterns that will engage and thus be enjoyed. As you know, I have a signed game, at its core it’s a game of getting to know people but one of its hooks is that there is a restrictive decision space where you have to make a tough choice, whether you are the focus of the round or you are guessing what the focus has answered, it makes you think and in that moment you are hunting for the answer to be rewarded with points. It’s only part of the game but it engages that hunter instinct that we all have. The fact that it then opens up afterwards and people naturally tell stories about why they answered what they did is a bonus, making people tell their own stories about themselves and the other players then creates a personal narrative for the group. Wow, way to make a guy think deep Joe!
Joe: I try my best! I think that board games are sweet too because they allow immersion in a narrative, but with agency. Taking a good book as a comparison, a well written compelling story should make you feel like you are there alongside the characters, living that experience. But a board game, that’s the the story but you are able to change its direction. I suppose that’s why TTRPGS and D&D are so popular, you get to live that story.
Let’s explore theme in the context of designing games. For me, theme always turns up first, i’m not sure why but unless I have that story in place to start with the rest of the game cannot follow. I imagine this varies massively across different designers. Where does it start for you, and how do you then integrate mechanics and theme?
Will: For a guy who loves narrative so much, strangely, my designs mostly come from a mechanics first direction. I’ve definitely woken up in the morning and scrabbled around for a pen and paper to write down an idea that has come to me overnight. The Game Formerly Known As TONS (TGFKAT) came from a structured conversation that I overheard in the kitchen at the cafe I work at. Inspiration, as you know, comes from the most unlikely places.
I’ve tried a theme first design route but, for me, I kind of stall in the process. I find getting core mechanics down, making the game playable and then looking for a theme that resonates with the way the game is put together is the route that works best for me.
When linking the mechanics to a theme I tend to consider and discuss during playtesting, what people naturally lean towards gives me the ideas and a direction. Inspiration from the words they use and the conversations they have around the playtest really help zero in on what vibe people get.
Clearly, I have my own ideas but as I’ve found out sometimes there are unforeseen barriers even in the name of a game.
Joe: I’m completely the opposite, I need the theme first. As I’m wandering through life I’ll spot something that starts a train of thought that I just can’t stop until the game turns up. The theme can change and be totally different to the original, but I need that spark.
In your last answer we were talking about TONS, can you tell us a little bit about the game?
Will: Of course, who doesn’t want to talk about their own games? I was recently lucky enough to get interest from a respected games publisher for one of my designs but it almost didn’t pan out, just due to the name!
As you know, Joe, I have a solid little party game that people enjoy. I put the time in, developed it to a point that it was honed enough to show off to publishers and then came across an issue.
Clearly publishers want games to sell, they have a market they envision and look to remove barriers that will get in the way of sales. As mentioned before, it was the name of the game that was stopping publishers getting involved. The issue is purely what a word means in American English and the word, unfortunately, was the name of the game, TONS. I was using it to mean an alternative to lots but the main use in American is purely measurement of weight. Sadly I had pretty much based the game around it and couldn’t remove it easily so I kind of ignored it. Until I played it with a friend of ours at Airecon NW last year!
Joe: I’ve played it and love it. But what happened next?
Will: Well, it turned out I got exactly what I needed from this exchange. When playing the game with an American friend of ours from #boardgameprotohype group, they had a confused look on their face and didn’t understand what TONS meant in the terms of the game. Seeing this made me realise how the name MUST be changed if it was going to sell well in the US. So when it came to changing the name of the game but keeping the mechanics the same, I was very happy to go through ideation with the publishers and we have made some great steps forward!
Moral of the story? Don’t get too hung up on any aspect of a game when you are dealing with publishers, and be careful when self-publishing, get people outside your normal circle to play the game and consider themes and terms carefully…
Joe: It’s so great that TONS ( with a new name) is going to be a real thing.
I’d like to round this post out with one final question. In your opinion, how can designers better leverage theme within their games? When we’re theming what should we be thinking about?
Will: When theming your game, consider the audience. Who is the game aimed at? What will engage them? Are they going to pick it up off the shelf of a games store next to the other myriad of games? Remember that a ‘pasted on’ theme isn’t going to get your game to stand out; work it into your mechanics. Research the theme (I know you’re a big fan of research Joe, hats off… I salute you!)
Most importantly, doing what you know or love is always a great idea, your enthusiasm for the source will show through. If you’re just doing something ‘popular’ but don’t care about it then why should anyone else?
Thanks to Will for joining the blog this week. You can find him hanging around on instagram here, I’m sure he’d be well up for a chat if you dropped him a follow and a message. You can also find him blogging on the Chance & Counters blog – go and have a read, he has some wonderful things to say.
Next, there’s three more ace posts you can read below and if you like what you’re reading consider subscribing to the blog.
