Theme meme mimetics

On the one hand I’m fond of proclaiming that all games are abstract and that theme is merely a convenient source of nouns and verbs used to explain or visualise a game. Both statements are of course technically and logically accurate. I’ve also often said that I don’t care about theme, and that the first thing I do when playing a game is to remove the theme. Thus I was bemused to note how many times I referenced theme and historical or thematic accuracy in the design notes for ‘Ohana Proa and Muck & Brass. My playtesters have also commented on the thematic depth and accuracy of ‘Ohana Proa, which caught me a bit by surprise.

Why, when I approach a game design quite abstractly, do I keep colliding with historical reality and thematic accuracy?

I’m not sure, but I have a notion which if accurate is both rather neat and a useful feedback loop to employ deliberately as part of the game design process. I suspect that if a theme is selected which sufficiently accurately represents or epitomises the core logical problem of the game, then as the game design increasingly focuses on that core problem the more its natural game patterns will begin to model the actual historical processes which occurred. In short, the better the game isolates and models the problem, the more the problem solutions will begin to model historical precedent.

Which is both scary and cool. It provides a possible measurable feedback loop for game design:

The more your design emergently apes historical reality, the closer your game is to the problem you’re trying to focus on.

For ‘Ohana Proa I started with the core idea of a gift economy and the logic problem of How to win if your primary activity is to improve other player’s positions?. As the most well known gift economies were in the Polynesian Islands (eg Trobriand Islands) that seemed a reasonable place to start. Considerable reading later on the economic theory and historical precedent for gift economies (kula. open source software, potlatch, tithing etc) and I was off trying to design a game around those principles. The board was just an atlas image grabbed from the Perry-Castañeda Library Map Collection with nodes thrown on the bigger islands, edges put in the obvious places to make an undirected graph with a few small hints added from the historical migration paths of the islanders. All subsequent work was then centred around How to make an interesting Gift Economy game?

In the case of Muck & Brass I started with the concept of a share dilution game where shares could also aggregate. As the background intention was an obvious derivative of both the Prairie Railroads and Riding Series, a train-game presentation/theme was assumed. England was selected purely on the basis that the railway history of the Isle of Wight (a dreadfully small and yet railway-rich location as 1860: Railways on the Isle of Wight has shown) was probably representative of the rest of the country. I’d already selected mergers as the share-aggregation vehicle of choice, so the long history of mergers, more mergers and acquisitions in England worked perfectly. A map quickly grabbed from the Perry-Castañeda Library Map Collection provided both a map of England/Wales/Scotland and the paths of the primary railway lines. A few nodes thrown on the major cities (informed by my British education) with connections drawn to parallel the primary railway paths later and the first map was done! All subsequent work was then centred around How to make an interesting share dilution/aggregation game?

So for ‘Ohana Proa I focussed on gift economies and kept working to make the gift economy aspects of the game stronger, more interesting and more central to the game. How to build a pattern in which gift-giving was critical to good game play and yet perilously close to a losing strategy? The result was kula, kahuna, the most recent reciprocal giving proposal, fish and shells and their value ratios etc. And a game in which suddenly the movements of markets and player routes started aping historical migration paths, and the patterns (and supporting justifications) for gifts etc started to directly model the social structures of the Trobriands and other islanders. What? Yup, the logic and value structures and flexure patterns the players build in the game start to resemble those that formed the basis of the gift economies in Polynesia. Really, the players start to build simulacra of the value systems the islanders used! Whoa – all I tried to make was a gift economy game, not a historical simulation!

For Muck & Brass I focussed on company foundings and mergers of railway companies. How to build a pattern in which mergers happened in a player-controlled and yet interesting fashion? Next thing you know I’m fiddling with track distances and build costs and finding that the emergent value patterns are suddenly paralleling the historical company merger patterns. The NER formed here with this route being particularly significant, the GWR drove there with these areas dominating its early founding and petitions etc – and the same patterns and key routes are emerging from Muck & Brass as well.

The Muck & Brass case is probably less surprising as the routes I picked were all based on historical precedent so the stage is already set for the same routes that were historically key to also be the centres of focus in the game. But I don’t care. The game is starting to demonstrate historical fidelity and that suggests that I’m getting on the right track for the core logic problem of the game – and that suggestion is both very pleasing and a wonderful acknowledgement of the design process and core logic problem integration.