Great games make you travel through time and space.

Your favorite game was probably designed years ago and far away from you, but I bet its meaning still lives in you today. A well-constructed game is not a big planet full of flora and fauna but an entire system of planets orbiting around a massive center. That central pivot maintains order and consistency among all game elements; it's called The Primary Theme. By injecting it into your day-to-day work, you will develop your style as a Game Designer and go beyond "mere fun" by showing your unique perspective of the world.

And the final result is not just a game but a whole emotional, meaningful experience.

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By the end of this article, you will know how to:

• Distinguish Themes and Messages
• Define a Thematic Structure for your game
• Make the Theme emerge from your gameplay

Without further ado, let’s jump right in.

Theme And Message Are Not The Same

The Theme is the context, and the Message is the statement.

Many people treat them as synonyms, but they’re not. A Theme is a context the game revolves around (don’t mistake it for the Setting, which is the place where the game events occur). Instead, a Message is a statement linked to the Theme that communicates what you, the designer, want the player to experience through the game. The easy way to identify a Message is to ask yourself: “Is it something I can agree or not with?”. Let me clarify it with an example:

• ”Love” is a Theme because it’s generic and not a statement; it doesn’t make sense to agree or not with the concept of love.
• “Love is stronger than hate” is a Message because you can agree or not with this statement.

But a Theme is not necessarily just a word.

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It can be simple or complex as long as it follows the definition.

The Theme's semantic complexity is never a concern. For example, "War" is a generic Theme, and it's okay; however, "The struggle of war doctors" is also acceptable. You can see that the second one is more complex than the first one, but it's a Theme nonetheless because it's a context and not a statement.

With these elements, you can create a Thematic Structure and use it as a guide for your Game Design decisions.

Themes and Messages are two different things. The Theme is the game context, and the Message is the statement the Game Designer wants to communicate. Mistaking one for the other makes your game a mess.

The Thematic Structure Helps You Define Your Purpose

The Thematic Structure has 4 components.

• The Primary Theme: It's the main Theme the whole game revolves around.
• The Secondary Themes: There can be one or more of them; they can be linked to each other, and they all should support the Primary Theme.
• The Main Message: It's the central statement you want to communicate with your game and is always linked to the Primary Theme.
• The Secondary Messages: There can be one or more; they are less visible than the Main one and are linked to one or more Secondary Themes.

The Thematic Structure can become quite complex, but the Primary Theme always has a special role.

The Primary Theme is the foundation of the game itself.

When you insert a Theme, you do it for a reason. If you eliminate the Primary one, the whole game falls apart because every game element will lose consistency and meaning. However, if you eliminate one or more Secondary Themes, the game will just lose depth, but it remains standing.

But what about messages and their relationships with Themes?

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A Message is always linked to at least one Theme.

Remember that a message is a statement. So it cannot be without context; therefore, the absence of the Theme implies the absence of the Message linked to it. Also, a Message can refer to two or more linked Themes because it can revolve around two or more contexts.

Here's an example. In "Persona 5" by Atlus, the Message "You have to act to change things" can be part of the Rebellion and Power Abuse Themes at the same time.

Remember that adding a Theme to a game comes with some concerns you must consider.

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A game that has many Themes has probably also many Messages.

As you raise the complexity, the game becomes deeper; but pay attention because more Themes often lead to more Messages and a harder structure to manage. Take, for example, a complex narrative game like “Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain”.

Among many Messages, the game tells us that a world lingua franca would be a mass cultural disaster ("Language" Theme). Also that you can see a person as the hero, but it's only a "media construction" ("Demystification of the hero" Theme). As you can see, when you link a Message with a Theme, you increase the depth of the game's layer of meaning along with its complexity.

This can become quite hard to manage, but here are some guidelines to get you started without too many headaches.

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Start to build the Thematic Structure in the first stages of development.

The Thematic Structure is a crucial part of the Game's Direction. So setting it up from the beginning of the development (in the Concept Phase), along with the gameplay and the art style, keeps everything consistent. If you leave it aside for too long, you'll feel lost and could end up with game elements not linked to each other.

So what are the first steps to properly creating a Thematic Structure?

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Set your Primary Theme and Main Message, then add the Secondary Themes.

As we’ve said, the Primary Theme is crucial and sets the baseline of the game experience. Start by being clear and explicit about the Theme you want to discuss in your game and define the Main Message you want to deliver to the player. Be specific, don’t just write it down in a document corner as a side note, be sure to describe it until you can fully explain it to someone else. The sharper it is in your mind, the better you will manage it. Only after that can you add one or more Secondary Themes (hopefully with their Message attached) to support the Primary one and enhance the Main Message.

I bet you will have a lot of fun adding and linking Themes you love to talk about, but…

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Don't overdo it; even just the Primary Theme and the Main Message are enough.

It's much better to talk about one thing in a good way rather than a lot of things in a messy way. Especially if you are not used to managing Themes and Messages, just focus on the Primary Theme and the Main Message. Games like Papers Please, Florence, Inside, Celeste, Spiritfarer, Gris, and many more, get away with just one Theme and one Message in a superb way.

And, if you're thinking of stealing something from these games, you'll be disappointed.

You will gain a little by analyzing other games' Thematic Structures.

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Focus on others' game's meaning to fuel up your Creative Engine.

Every game is an island. This means you can't copy-paste or even compare the Thematic Structures of different games. The Thematic Structure is a guiding tool for the game designer, not the player. So instead, aim to extract meaning from other games; try to understand what they want to communicate with their elements and take notes about your thoughts. This process will increase your insight about one or more Themes, so you can feed your game Thematic Structure with that newly acquired knowledge and exponentially increase the depth of your game.

Now let's get deeper and see how to apply the Thematic Structure to a game and why the gameplay has a central role in this.

The Thematic Structure keeps the Game System in place. The Primary Theme is the center of gravity, and the Main Message is its gravitation pull. It’s the strongest and sets the orbit of the Secondary Themes with their own pull as the Secondary Messages.

Gameplay Is Much More Than A Set Of Actions

The player must feel the Theme through the gameplay.

Inserting a Theme and a Message in a game doesn't mean you can throw them in with just a cinematic sequence or a dialog. It's not enough. You must link the Theme with the gameplay so the player can directly feel the meaning of his actions. Remember that a gameplay mechanic has a different meaning depending on the context in which it is performed. It's your job as a Game Designer to link context and gameplay to communicate the game's Theme and avoid inconsistencies in the player experience.

But how do you do it?

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Make the meaning of gameplay actions match the Message you want to communicate.

To make a Theme visible (but not obvious) to the player, you have to make gameplay and the Message attached to that Theme interact. You can create the link by approaching from 2 sides.

Given a Theme and a Message you decided to talk about, try to find some gameplay actions and one or more specific contexts where the player can use them. The critical point here is that the actions performed in that context must metaphorically communicate the Message. Or you can start from one or more gameplay actions in a specific context and try to find the Theme and Message that fit with them. In this situation, ask yourself: ”What sort of Theme do those actions suggest, and what is their underlying meaning (the Message) given the context?”.

If all of this seems fuzzy to you, I got you covered.

Here are some real-life game examples to clarify what you’ve read so far.

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Catherine talks about the struggle of the protagonist through challenging puzzles.

In Catherine, by Atlus (2011), the protagonist is stuck in front of the choice of two women. The time constraints imposed on the already tricky puzzles the player has to face symbolize the struggle he's experiencing. Also, every puzzle revolves around a specific situation in the protagonist's life.

This is an example of the meaning of a whole system, but sometimes you need just a single action.

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Ico symbolizes the bond with Princess Yorda by holding her hand.

Ico, by Fumito Ueda (2001), uses mechanics to convey a specific sequence of meanings. Such as the fact that you are a helpless kid, so it's hard to control the character. When you encounter princess Yorda, the game forces you to hold down a button to guide her around and simulate intimacy and connection between the two.

Another outstanding example is a game that aims (and succeeds) to represent a mental disease.

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Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice uses illusionary puzzles to communicate schizophrenia.

The player must solve environmental puzzles trying to see the game world from absurd perspectives and looking for clues where they don't seem to exist. It communicates and tricks the player in ways rare to see in other games. Also, the game uses binaural audio, as none did before, to simulate the voices inside the protagonist's head.

However, sometimes you even don't need an avatar; you can just use UI elements.

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Florence talks about the struggles of a romantic relationship through UI puzzles and difficulty modulation.

Florence by Mountains (2018) is another example of a game that conveys meaning through game mechanics without saying a single word. It tells a love story between a boy and a girl, and on your first date, the conversation between the two is represented by simple puzzles. In a relationship, the more you know each other, the easier it gets to manage; this process is represented through puzzles that become easier to solve as the relationship progresses.

As you can see from all these examples, Themes and Messages are a means to an end.

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Adding Themes and Messages to a game creates a layer of meaning and enhances the player experience.

As a Game Designer, you should express yourself and communicate your vision through the games you make. As we've seen before, themes and Messages organized in a Thematic Structure are the best way to create an emotionally engaging experience. Players voraciously search for meaning in games; discovering it makes them resonate with it and remember that experience forever.

This is a huge power we have as designers, but we may destroy our experiences without control.

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Ideally, every game element should support at least the Primary Theme.

However, it's not always possible; sometimes, there has to be some element only for functional needs. That's fine.

The situation above is ideal; you must tend to it, but reaching it's the most challenging task in making games. The focal point here is that interaction between the Message and the gameplay takes the game to the next level as long as they create a balanced experience. So don't force the link between elements; otherwise, players will catch that artificial feeling of the experience.

If all of this seems hard is because it is, but the first and most important step you can take is to get used to expressing yourself.

A Game Designer can add meaning to every game element, but when he does it to Gameplay, the game suddenly gains unbelievable depth. The player can feel the brain shaking while playing and realizes he’s not just pressing buttons.