The importance of theme

So in this blog entry, I will seemingly become a hypocrite and state that while I think story is mostly irrelevant to game design, I think theme and setting are incredibly important to game design, perhaps so much so that they are at the very heart of what we do.

In my last blog, I talked a little about story, and the discussion that followed brought up some points related to the story being important. I actually think that the individuals who posted 'pro' story are not actually pro story put pro structure.

A story can give structure to a piece of entertaniment. But in a visual and interactive medium, it is not the only thing that can give structure, and in my opinion, one of the least effective ways to give structure to a game. A strong theme and attention to the setting gives structure to the experience, and I think this is where designers should be focusing their energies.

So where does this opinion of mine come from? Well.. school mostly. My education as an artist has taught me that people respond to visual design in ways that can be controlled and expected. One can manipulate the visual components of an image (or film, or webiste, etc..) to bring out certain associations and emotions. There is not some magic to making art for the purposes of communication. It is more of science with 'do's' and 'don'ts' that can be controlled.

In terms of controlling an experience itself, in order to learn more about it, I looked to architecture. I read a really good (long) book called A Pattern Language. A wonderfully wordy book, I talks about how humans interact with their environment and gives examples and exposes design patterns which one can use to create livable spaces that humans will respond to positively.

Understanding how people act and react is far more valuable to the medium of interactive design (in my opinion) than the ability to tell a story or understand story structure (which I also recommend). If one can have command of how to design 'something' so that they can have control of the interaction, they will, in my opinion, make better games than those that focus upon the very heavy handed approach of using story to control the experience.

This leads me to themes. the theme of a game, is to me, incredibly important. The background and setting of the game can communicate to me a great deal of information. A theme for a game can get the game player to bring to the table their experience and expectations and make the process of getting them to immerse themselves in a game that much easier.

This is a two way street. Setting up a theme or setting that violates expectations can damage the game. In order to successfully create a theme, one needs to be aware of pop culture and historical representations of certain experiences and use these to craft an experience that builds on those expectations. I see 'Schindlers List' - 'Saving Private Ryan' - Band of Brothers' as the most successful set of films to add to the canon of visual style. The cinematography or each has now become ingrained in the populace of what is the 'definitive' war movie experience (note that these built upon the groundwork laid by Aopcalypse Now'

Science Fiction has a great number of 'cliche' thematic devices. I hate calling them cliche, as what they are is a common shared set of expectations of what 'sci'fi' is. I used some of these in thinktanks. The idea of aliens stealing brains and putting them in war tanks is a sci- fi 'standard'. I used the convention to poke fun at (and pay homage to) the genre in a whimsical way. In some ways, it was an easy way to inject soul into a small shooter. It adds to the game, and does it in a way that adds to the experience without placing artifical contraints on it.

anyway.. hopefully this will help to clarify some of my views on story and theme and how they relate to game design.

More next time. If anyone wants me to devote a blog to anything specific in relation to the experiences I have had, please let me know. I know I have not delivered on my promise to outline some of the more useful techniques I try to use.. so help me to refocus these blogs into something that might be more useful in a practical way as I am starting to depart a little too much into theory.