Without a Theme and a Message, your game won’t turn into a meaningful experience.

You’re missing the core elements that make meaning emerge from the game, and your game is one of thousands. Understanding the Themes and Messages in games and their differences is the way to go. You’ll be more intentional in your design process and have the raw material to create a resonating and meaningful game experience.

This week I’ll define the concepts of Theme and Message for you with practical examples so you can discover the core of meaningful games.

This episode starts a new topic series about Game Direction; we’re just setting up the base for more exciting and in-depth episodes.

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We’re going to discover:

• Let’s Define Theme & Message (Once And For All)
• Some Practical Game Examples To Make It Clear

Without further ado, let’s jump right in.

Let’s Define Theme & Message (Once And For All)

A Theme is a context the game (or part of it) "talks into".

Don't mistake it for the Setting, which is the place (real or fictional) where the game events occur. This misconception often comes from BoardGames where the term "Theme" is sometimes used as the place where the game is set. A Theme, on the other hand, is a topic (it could be anything) the game's interpretative meaning points to.

Here are some simple examples:

• Love
• War
• Happiness
• Death
• Etc.

I'm sure you can think of many more.

Let’s make a counterexample to clarify. If we take God of War (2018), its Theme is not “Norse Mythology” but “Father and Son Relationship”.

Note that a game can have one or more Themes depending on its scope and what the designer wants to achieve.

Now let's see what a Message is.

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A Message is a statement that revolves around a Theme.

It communicates what you, the designer, want the player to experience through the game. It’s always an assertive statement (it can be affirmative or negative though). Every Message is always about one or more Themes, like every statement in a language is always about one or more Topics.

Here are some examples that pair with the Themes above:

• Love is stronger than hate.
• War is the irrational answer of the desperate.
• Relationships are what make you happy.
• Death gives shape to life.
• Etc.

As you might have guessed, a Theme can have many Messages.

We’ll deepen this further, but note that the Message is the most important of the 2 since it’s the main precursor for a meaningful experience.

Now, let’s make a crucial sidenote about the concept of Theme.

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A Theme can have different levels of specificity.

The examples I gave you are super basic and popular, but you can be more specific with them. For example, “The struggle of war doctors” as a Theme is perfectly fine.

It’s also a topic and can have many Messages (for example, “War doctors are invisible warriors”). Don’t be tricked by the fact that it’s a sentence rather than a single word. By the way, let me give you a simple trick to easily distinguish a Theme and a Message.

Ask yourself: “Is it something I can agree or not with?”.

• If the answer is NO, you have a Theme (agreeing or not with the concept of Love doesn’t make sense).
• If the answer is YES, you have a Message (you can agree or not with “Love is stronger than hate”).

That’s the easiest and fastest way.

Good, you should clearly understand the 2 concepts by now (if not, ask as many questions as you want).

Let’s see some “real-world examples” then.

Some Practical Game Examples To Make It Clear

There are many games with Themes and Messages, but they’re not (unfortunately) the majority.

The concept of Theme is not new, but it’s a lot abstract (it should not be for you anymore though), and difficult to implement. The guilt is the lack of specificity in the definitions and how to manage these concepts in the design process (more on this in future episodes). As a consequence, few games do a good job in this compared to all the games released in the market.

Nonetheless, we can find many interesting examples:

• Inside (Control)
• Omori (Guilt)
• Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain (Language, Demystification of the Hero)
• Undertale (Violence in relationships)
• A Way Out (Trust)
• The Stanley Parable (Free Will)
• Etc.

These meaningful experiences are much more of the sum of their game elements.

Don't get me wrong; you may not like any of these games. That's not the point; just because you have a Theme and a Message doesn't mean the game is automatically good; we'll also address that thorny topic in future episodes.

Before you go, let me clarify a point you must never forget.

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Themes & Messages are a guide for the designer and an interpretation for the player.

When you play other people's games and feel they're talking to you about something, you can identify a Theme and a Message. Yet, they're your interpretations of what you experienced in the game.

They are part of your Player Experience, and they're subjective. This means that someone can have a different interpretation (even one you disagree with); you cannot impose yours; you can just share and discuss it. On the other hand, Themes and Messages are part of the Game's Direction and work as a lighting guide for the Game Designer.

Therefore you choose the Theme and the Message for your game and use them as a north star in your development process. They're far from only theoretical and abstract concepts; they're concrete and practical.

We'll see much more about that in future episodes (much more than you think).

Here we've just set the base ground necessary so you can steer your ship toward meaningful experience.

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Key Takeaways:

• A Theme is a context the game (or part of it) "talks into".
• A Message is a statement that revolves around a Theme.
• Themes & Message are a guide for the designer and an interpretation for the player