In last week’s accidentally-long post on immersion and engagement in games, I touched on something that I realized could be its own (much shorter) post: the difference between mechanics and theme in a game: Mechanics are the cake. Theme is the icing. And I am physically restraining myself from making a Portal reference.
Mechanics are the rules, actions, and victory conditions that make a game a game. For example, the mechanics for a FPS videogame might include moving, shooting, picking up power-ups, and hacking devices with minigames.
Theme is the thick, gooey layer of story that’s lovingly poured over the top of the mechanics to give the player’s actions some context. For example, in our hypothetical FPS, you might be an amnesiac gunslinger trapped in an underwater city, fighting your way through mutants while trying to escape. (This sounds like fun. I wish someone would make this game.)
Mechanics Come First
You can have mechanics without theme, and have a legitimate, fun game. (Tetris, anyone? Dominoes? Bejeweled? Most board games out of Germany in the past ten years have theme so thin as to be non-existent.)
But a game with all theme and no mechanics is… bad, and not really a game. Maybe it’s an interactive movie. Or a novel. But it’ll be a bad movie or a bad novel, because games aren’t the proper medium for telling stories in that fashion.
In a perfect world, a game’s theme is wedded so organically to its mechanics, we can’t imagine any other theme that would fit. (“Of course the game of hurling objects at other objects is about birds and pigs! What else could it be possibly be about?”)
But as long as the mechanics are sound, players are surprisingly forgiving when the theme doesn’t quite sync up with the story being told. (“So I can either bid these green blocks to make it rain — but only on my farm — or save them up to pay taxes to the King when he shows up on Round 7? Okay!”)
Mechanics are what the game is really about.
The back of the box says the game is about saving the princess. Mechanics say the game is really about reaching the end of the level without running out of lives… Or collecting 15 victory points before your opponent does. Or leveling up your character until you can defeat the big bad guy at the end.
Theme is why you care.
I found a Marvel Avengers game that loaded Thor or Iron Man or Cap into a cannon and shot them at bad guys surrounded by wooden planks. Yes, it was Angry Avengers Birds Assemble. It did seem weird, but it worked.
Raph Koster once described a game with a big hole in the ground that you threw dead bodies into and watched them pile up. Which was creepy until you realized he was talking about Tetris.
I dunno, I think maybe Mechanics are why you want to play, not so much what the game is about. That sounds more like Theme’s job.
What’s a fun video game you like to play on the computer?
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