"Bang", "Settlers of Catan", and "Puerto Rico" are good examples of well themed games. Actually, I do not like it so much when a theme is pasted on an abstract game, or when a game is developed without so much care for the theme. For example, I played "Lord of the Rings - The Confrontation" a few times: I enjoyed it, but all the gaming time I could not avoid thinking that a game about the Lord of the Rings Company that prevents you to have more than one or two characters in the same region is a game that betrayed its theme in the first place. In my little experience, I personally prefer to start designing with the theme in mind, even when I have to design a German-style boardgame. I also had to design a few games under license (about Dragonball Japanese cartoons and an unpublished one about Roger Rabbit), and a dinosaur game for Clementoni at the time of Jurassic Park. I think that this aptitude brought to games that gave more satisfaction to the enthusiasts than, let's say, the Dragonball chessboard on sale in Italian newspaper kiosks. Last example is a little card game about WWI air duels coming out in those days, that I made with P.G. Paglia. By the way, it is an evidence - if you needed it -theme is fundamental, and a lot of people is showing interest even if they never saw the game or the rules, probably just attracted by the colorful biplanes and their epic flavour. The game is not a simulation wargame, or at least it is not so complicated to have a good simulation detail: but every rule is designed to be compatible with the theme, and in the end you can feel it even in so a simple game. Even more, we added rules (or mechanics obtained by specific gaming materials instead of rules) to be sure to include effects of rotary engines, machineguns jamming and other typical WWI air combat ele-ments that the enthusiast would expect. This is what I call "simulation spirit", that in my opinion is also good in a just themed game that does not want to be a simulation: of course, it is good if you are able to make things simple anyway and you do not fall into the "let's add another rule" trap. After all, it often does not cost so much to make a ruler more "realistic" as far as the theme is concerned, when you have to choose among two or three alternatives. And it makes the game more involving and intuitive. But this is an aptitude that many German authors, and non-German ones who want to follow their path, seem to lack of. Good for them, anyway, since they sell so much anyway! ;-) Back to Table of Contents -- Game! # 2 To Game! List of Issues To MagWeb Master Magazine List © Copyright 2004 by George Phillies. This article appears in MagWeb (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other articles from military history and related magazines are available at http://www.magweb.com