Thematic

What it is about

A frame is a schema by which players read what happens in a game. It comes from what they already know and brings expectations with it: what is there, what happens, how it feels. The Frame stack has seven sub-decks – Thematic, Atmospheric, Genre, Situational, Social, Spatial and Temporal Modi – and a game always calls up several frames at once. A frame regulates nothing; it orients how the game is understood.

The Thematic Frames are the way in. Each of the 20 cards names a world that can be understood without prior knowledge of game design, from everyday life alone: Farm, Village, Bazaar, Tea House, Pirates, Expedition, Hospital, Temple, Workshop, Restaurant, Arena, Circus, Space Station, Detective and others, ordered into seven domains from nature and environment to frontier and secret. A theme calls up everything at once: a space, typical conflicts, roles, a mood, a rhythm. “Farm” brings fields and stable, harvest and weather, family and neighbours, an unhurried, hard-working mood and the seasons.

The front of each card names these aspects and the activities the theme suggests, with example games – for the farm, Stardew Valley and Agricola. The back proposes a surprising combination with another theme and refers to cards of the other sub-decks. A guide card, a separator card and a blank card belong to the stack.

How to use it

Method: (1) Lay out all 20 cards. (2) Each person in the team takes a card that appeals to them and says in half a minute why. (3) Together settle on one thematic frame – or deliberately combine two. (4) Read the aspects on the front: what does the theme bring with it on its own? Do we want that, or do we break something? (5) Read the back: the combination as food for thought, the references for the next sub-decks.

Variants: Random combination – draw two cards face down: your game combines both worlds. Break – choose a theme and then deliberately a card from another sub-deck that breaks the expectation: a tea house with the mood of threat.

Time: 5 minutes as a quick choice, 10 to 15 minutes as a discussion in a workshop, 15 to 25 minutes with random combination and a first concept idea, 20 to 30 minutes with refinement through the other sub-decks.

Sequence: in ideation, after the Desiderata, as the way into the Frame. Not all seven sub-decks are needed: for a quick start Thematic and Genre are enough, for mood Thematic, Atmospheric and Temporal Modi. Those who go through all of them begin with Thematic and continue with Atmospheric, Genre, Situational, Social, Spatial and Temporal Modi. In development the chosen theme serves as a touchstone: does what we are building still fit the world we called up?

Relations

A thematic frame is a bundle: it calls up at once what the other six sub-decks capture separately – the space (Spatial), the conflicts (Situational), the roles (Social), the mood (Atmospheric), the rhythm (Temporal Modi). With them a theme can be refined or deliberately rubbed against the grain. Genre frames come from play culture, thematic frames from everyday life; the two can be combined – a restaurant as a roguelike. A theme suggests activities: on the farm one cultivates, gathers, trades, builds. Which of them the game actually carries is decided with the Activities stack.

• Genre
• Atmospheric
• Spatial
• Situational
• Social
• Temporal Modi
• Activities