Creating Resonance with Thematic Tabletop Game Design

[Music] thank you my name is Sarah Shipp and this is creating resonance with thematic design my background is in professional theater so I approach game design from A Fine Arts as craft perspective I have about eight years experience doing theater professionally I've only been designing board games for about three years but a few things have struck me about how board game designers view design compared to theatrical designers I feel that starting out many board game designers view game design as an engineering problem but I contend that game design isn't engineering it's architecture architecture needs Engineering in order to build buildings but architecture is also art

game design needs math and probability and a solid technical Foundation but if we stay there then we will stop developing as a field we need the language of art to move forward this is especially true when it comes to designing themes yes I said designing themes thematic design is just some smudge about which thematic details you include as it is about how the mechanics relate to the theme to that end I've pulled from Classical Renaissance and modern thinkers to create a formula for resonance within thematic design I'm using the term thematic design to indicate that I am designing both the theme and the mechanics and I use the term resonance to refer to how players respond to the presentation or experience of a design I don't use the phrase experience design very often because I feel that it isn't specific enough to the aspects of design I'm talking about you can design for experiences in a

themeless abstract game I have an entire series of blog posts discussing different categories of experience design that I've developed if you're interested in hearing more about my thoughts on that but what is resonance every designer wants to make a resonant game it's one of the current buzzwords in the industry used to describe games that really stand out but it's a term no one can Define opera singers know that resonance is depth shape and Clarity of tone that's also the dictionary definition to create resonant themes we have to strive for those qualities in our games as well or we could avoid themes that are amorphous muddy or shallow other terms you may hear when talking about resonance are evocative sticky or memorable I originally stopped my definition of resonance as depth shape and Clarity of theme but I think there's a more useful

definition for the designer I'm going to be talking about how to make themes that are more resonant mechanics can resonate with players but only to players who are inside the gaming ecosystem nobody outside of gaming knows what a worker placement game is I personally didn't learn the names of board game mechanics until I started designing in spite of several years of exposure to to Hobby Games before then when someone asks what a game is about we usually respond by telling them the theme resonant themes are the best tools we have to pull new players into the hobby By ignoring certain aspects of thematic design by not treating theme as a skill that can be learned you will severely limit your potential audience when asked many designers will tell you that resonant games are the ones where the mechanics and theme align I think that's putting the cart before the horse in terms of a good definition

first we have to understand what theme is theme encompasses the settings story and tone of the game theme is expressed in a variety of ways and board games illustration components mechanics narrative description and flavor text I'll be referring to these as a game's elements elements of a game can be motivated or unmotivated I'm talking I'm taking these terms from theatrical lighting design a motivated element is one that has an in-world explanation for why it exists unmotivated elements may not be abstract but they do not have a clear reason for existing in theater light shining through a window is motivated we imagine the sun causing the light on the stage whereas if the light suddenly shifts to Red that's unmotivated we cannot imagine a realistic reason for the light change iron ingot components in a game about manufacturing are motivated whereas the

same components are unmotivated in a game about butterflies the player pieces in Monopoly fall into this category in spite of their interesting history they are not motivated by the theme of the game unmotivated elements are not inherently bad but they can make a game feel seamless or like the theme is pasted on motivated elements add resonance because they are a form of World building when you're what you were saying when you include motivated elements is that these things exist in your game world for a reason some unmotivated elements are necessary such as scoring conditions that can't logically arise from the theme the trick here is balance there it needs to be enough motivated elements to offset the necessity of including elements that Aid rules comprehension and gameplay if you don't find this balance the game will either be incomprehensible or the theme will feel pasted on

I refer to games where the theme and mechanics mesh well together to produce a complete experience as being thematically well integrated an element could be motivated and still not be integrated when this happens those elements will either feel Superfluous or like the theme is pasted on each individual card in the hand building game fantasy Realms is thematically motivated but the experience of gameplay lacks a thematic cohesion cards go in and out of your hands quickly and for no thematic reason once you finish the game you can describe the world you created but the focus of the game is on getting the most points not establishing a believable world comparatively in the deck building game Star Realms no relation each turn visualizes an episode of space Commerce and combat and politics I won't go into all the ways this game works

thematically because I'm going to take a close look at some other games but I would recommend these two games as a solid examples of the spectrum of how to implement theme both are saturated with motivated elements but Star Realms has an integrated theme and fantasy Realms does not thematic games don't have to be sprawling epics to be considered thematic motivated integrated themes will feel resonant even in filler length games I think we as a hobby are prone to confusing thematic games with games that are narrative heavy until a complete linear Story by the time you finish playing I reject that narrow definition for me a thematic game is any game where the players can feel the themes through the gameplay let's move on from general principles and look at specific ways to make games more resonant but first here's my definition for resonance

resonance is familiarity less unexpectedness minus chaff this is the formula I developed to explain what makes a game resonant this formula is inspired by Concepts from made to stick why some ideas survive and others die by chip and Dan peace they developed the success model which stands for simple unexpected concrete credible emotions and stories it's a handy mnemonic but the authors admit it doesn't show a the relationship that exists between the traits that they outline I reworked the model to show the interconnectedness and I cut out the element credible that is mostly outside the scope of design credibility can be built within a piece of entertainment or art by having internal credibility through the Hills supporting the core idea but I'm proposing that by following my formula for resonance you will be producing that

feeling in players anyway so this trait would ultimately be redundant internal credibility is a product of resonance not a cause and external credibility is outside the scope of this discussion now let's break down what familiarity plus unexpected unexpectedness minus Chef means familiarity is a concept that should seem obvious but it's got a lot going on with it familiarity is best described by of course moments of course wheat makes bread or flour or charcoal or cattle of course the ground floor must be built before the second floor the more the audience already knows the less you have to teach them which makes rules intuitive familiarity Taps into show don't tell which is the major major Axiom of Storytelling you don't have to explain that two

factions hate each other if the emotion comes through in your game just because you state something in your lord doesn't mean the gameplay will support that story you have to show players what the world is like through your gameplay let's talk about how familiarity can be expressed in two ways through emotions and through story elements we want players emotionally connected to our games we want them engaged a game that touches us emotionally gets talked about more than a game of similar weight that is merely a good puzzle essentially this is the difference between pandemic and pandemic Legacy season one designing for emotions and players who play our games seems like a daunting task but it's worth striving for it's a skill you can get better at when designing for emotions it is important to remember that everything has emotional content

game elements can be divided into tangible and non-tangible or physical and mental the way physical and visual elements produce emotional responses is the subject of entire fields of design we are used to the idea that colors can create certain moods but so can shapes or textures rhythms or sounds we see this in board games with upgraded components players like metal coins because they have a more pleasant emotional response to the weight and texture of metal coins than cardboard Jets spanning a games Tempo can create emotions spanning the Spectrum from methodical to Frenzy how players move their bodies where they look what they reach for what

they hold in their hands all produces emotions in players studying areas like product design or visual design color theory can increase your awareness of how these types of physical elements can affect players think of it as cross-training to improve your design muscles but don't overlook studying body language of your players this is a big reason why Digital Play testing will never replace in-person play testing board games are physical objects with layers of emotional content non-physical elements such as ideas also produce emotion emotional responses narrative elements such as settings stories or even characters are capable of producing complex emotional experiences just ask anyone who's played time stories in addition to other narrative elements

strategies and other elements of emergent gameplay can create emotions and games I'm not going to touch on strategy here though because there are other resources out there that discuss game marks and player engagement a lot better and more in depth the point here is that everything produces emotions and the only emotion we really want to avoid is boredom emotions are something to be aware of and even play test for but they can be somewhat ethereal when we are attempting to list design principles designing for emotions comes with practice so let's move on to story elements which are more concrete and easier to implement into design in 1570 ludovico Kessel Metro co-divided what became known as the classical unities of theater Unity of action Unity

of place and unity of time this meant that a story the story of a play needed to occur in one location during one day and be about one thing this was supposed to prevent audience confusion about what was taking place on stage anyone who has watched Hamilton knows that these unities didn't stick as guiding principles however we can use the classical unities as a jumping off point to create of course moments in our game stories the purpose of the classical unities was to make sure that the audience knew what was going on one of the traits of resonance is clarity I know I said one of the other traits was depth but we need to prioritize Clarity because players need to be able to see what they are doing clearly before they can appreciate the breadth and scope of your game world

our players need to know why they are performing the actions of the game to design a more thematic game there needs to be Unity of action between the mechanics and the theme I label this as plot game objectives should align with the theme which is to say the plot of your gameplay should align with the plot of your theme and themes should be complete sentences not just nouns dogs is not a thing dogs chasing male carriers is a thing can the dogs work together to protect their house from trespassing mail carriers that's a resonant theme should have verbs verbs indicate actions themes without verbs almost always feel pasted on themes should be able to be stated as questions because the outcome of the game is not predetermined the way the end of a novel is make sure how you win the game is the Crux of your theme the game claims to be about conservation

but the main mechanic is cutting down trees to build Lumber Mills the theme is not in line with the objective every action a player takes should further The Narrative Arc or to put it another way the actions taken in the game are the story and the theme should match the action don't claim your plot is something other than what is present in the gameplay one way to achieve this is to try to incorporate as many evocative actions as possible evocative actions are game actions that use thematic words as the names of the actions they evoke the theme so you build a house instead of placing a piece there is a balance here with rules comprehension but when done well evocative actions will actually make your rules easier to learn yes these are all technically ways to create mechanic theme alignment but this

is a more detailed story focused perspective this is the process of thematic integration well there's more but we're getting to it since we're discussing plot I want to address fluff which is the term I use for flavor text and lore that is not required reading in order to play the game my particular concern here is the fluff found on the first page of the rule book introductory World building fluff at the beginning of a rulebook ideally should lead into gameplay by explaining why characters are in the position that they are in on the first turn of the game because the goal of every thematic detail in the Box should be clarity use the lore paragraph before setup to create incentive to play the game to find out more about the world including too many thematic details when players are trying to internalize rules can contribute to information overload

this is where Unity of action really comes in I've read a number of rule books where the lore fluff didn't seem to have anything to do with the actual game this paragraph or two is an opportunity to set the stage and establish the tone for the actual game don't waste that opportunity by trying to cram in all the world building you possibly can there are places for your world building but the page before setup isn't one of them now let's turn to Unity of place which I call location location isn't just setting it's also World physics and character physics setting is where an event takes place World physics is the manifestation of the rules of that world such as gravity propulsion heat or visibility character physics usually manifests as direction of movement and speed but it could also be inventory size or strength need to eat

Etc I include character physics and location because all game physics helps establish the rules and feel of your world location can be expressed through illustration components and mechanics the conveyor belts and sushi roll are such a small addition but they do so much to add sense of place and Sushi go players collect Sushi to form their meals but they seem to do so in a void by that I mean there is no indication in the game where the players are when they are collecting sushi the only sense of location is the Chopsticks which reminds us that we're not eating with our hands not only are the conveyor belt tiles and sushi roll useful mechanically but they go a long way to evoking location we are in a conveyor belt sushi restaurant that's a way cooler place to be than a void the building rules in walking in Verano

are one example of how using recognizable physics can help teach the rules of the game and Verano players are constructing buildings one floor at a time but must build from the ground up unless they use scaffolding as a temporary floor it seems like such a little thing but a board game that acknowledges gravity clearly sets that game in a world that player that is comprehensible to the players and because the world is comprehensible the rules are easier to remember I may be alone in this but I'm a big fan of of the rondelle mechanic and Scorpius freighter action locations are visited by ships that are slowly orbiting planets this mechanic ties the circular rondelle shaped orbits and the limited movement per turn evokes the vastness of space whether or not actual orbits would be that slow location is about creating a sense of reality through game elements as humans we can relate to physics that matches

what we see in the real world however I'm not saying that the physics in the game needs to be scientifically rigorous merely something logical to players but the Pagoda and four Gardens doesn't create a sense of location because its physics are not analogous to the real world even skyscrapers with spinning restaurants only spin part of the building and only one way there's nothing in the physics of four Gardens that evokes the real world just being a pagoda is setting it's not World physics however that doesn't mean for Gardens isn't resonant at all but it does mean that it's not using World physics to build on presidents more on that later the next story element is time I know view time exactly the way Unity of time works in theater

games don't have to tell linear stories or to in order to be understandable by players time behaves differently in games than in linear entertainment this is because perception of time passing has a lot to do with how a player feels while playing a game time is about pacing and Rhythm and scale not about game length or linear narrative how we theme our games should be informed by the pace of the gameplay game progress should align with the amount of time represented by the game's theme Sid games tend to be slow because accumulating that much history is slow some themes need to feel pressed for time on diffusal Games should avoid analysis paralysis for instance turn length round length and scoring style affects the pacing of the game but a player's physical movement and handling of game components can also

contribute to the perception of time scale in a game an exciting game with a short round structure can actually feel like a shorter game than it actually is stinky game will feel slow even if the game isn't very long combining time and location I use the phrase find the movement as a great place to start when re-theming a game start with the what the game feels like it's Rhythm how things move and build the theme from there I do this because the pace and physics of a game are what will contribute most to a feeling of verisimilitude between the theme and the mechanics this method is harder than just picking a cool sounding theme but it yields better results alternatively be prepared to change your mechanics to match your theme I add to castlevestro's list of plot location and time character

I think of player characters more like miniature plots unto themselves I separate character from plot because in storytelling characters are often at odds with the overall plot characters have desires faults and ideals so this category is more about a character's goals than about their physical traits which I place in location characters in World desires should match their mechanical goals in good fiction writing characters have goals and obstacles to those goals good day good game design works the same way so it only makes sense to have a character's deepest desires line up with their win condition root does this surprisingly well in that the mechanics and win condition of the different factions are expressed so much expressed so much about the socio-political environment of that world individual characters are easier to identify with and thus more empathetic than faceless collectives like factions

or corporations humans are also more empathetic than aliens remember the goal is to create an emotional response in players and one way to do that is empathy we like what we can relate to one concrete element that can add a lot of emotion to a theme is relationships this doesn't have to be fully developed fog of Love style relationships two brothers raising armies and going to war is a better story than two factions going to war I experienced this with my first designs first signed game I started with a game about how the aristocracy built generational wealth but I felt the theme didn't resonate well it didn't resonate as well as I wanted I didn't really care about money being passed on generationally from father to son I wanted players to play as a single person they could identify with however a single person receiving

inheritance from multiple sources becomes increasingly implausible with each inheritance I wanted a stronger sense of relationship than that that would raise the emotional Stakes of the theme so I changed the theme to Victorian women killing their husbands for inheritance money and called it deadly dowagers in addition to only playing a single character the wreath theme adds relationships between the player characters and the NPCs admittedly this may not be a theme that pulls everyone in but it is memorable evocative and resonant familiarity isn't enough to make a game stand out unexpectedness adds spice to familiarity unexpected elements grab attention and generate interest through breaks in a pattern however this requires that you establish a pattern before you can break it if everything is unexpected nothing is

unexpectedness can occur thematically as Whimsy Fantastical elements that depart from reality as reversals or flipped tropes as uniqueness and Innovation or as high production values but again once everyone has games with Miniatures or the latest hotness that ceases to be a draw for any particular game the trick to adding unexpected elements is to keep them unexpected I explained Whimsy as the defining aesthetic of a Miyazaki film in design language fantasy means images and themes that depict things that could never exist in reality more along the lines of the flying whales from Fantasia 2000 and less medieval Wizards if that makes sense Whimsy is the inclusion of fantasy elements with possibly a lighter touch this is where four Gardens fits thematically for me

a 3D rotating Tower of resources is Whimsical and creates the unexpectedness needed for resonance reversals take familiar story lines and flip the script this is an easy unexpectedness hack but not everything is made better by using a reversal the story you tell still needs to feel motivated by the actions and needs to create the proper emotional responses and players in order to feel thematic tropes aversion doesn't have to be a complete reversal however subverting expectations can be a powerful storytelling method and resonance generator reversals or subversions can create feelings of imbalance in players that can draw them into a game emotionally because they no longer know what to expect while we're talking about tropes reversals are a good way to avoid stereotypes however regardless of

whether an element is presented as true to type or as a subversion we should take care to present our themes in a manner that is well thought out and respectful I find that most harmful stereotypes appear in designs in which the designer simply didn't care enough to put to put in the work to make the theme more vibrant and respectful I hope that one takeaway from this panel is that good themes don't just happen they take work Innovation or other forms of uniqueness will always create excitement but just like production values there's a limit to how far uniqueness can take you Innovation generally will lead to more critical Acclaim than Commercial Appeal and uniqueness is difficult to set as a design goal while it's great to stumble into genuine Innovation high quality iteration is easier to plan for and to achieve and by making a really resonant game you can make a game that feels Innovative even if the concept is a rehash of something else a lot of games rely on production values

to generate excitement previously production values were a type of uniqueness I'm a proponent of good looking high quality games but as high production values become commonplace unexpected they will no longer be able to be relied upon to single-handedly generate interests in a game in other words production values can still provide a hit hit of uniqueness but the juries out on how much longer that will remain true also as a designer production values are typically outside of my control as I don't plan to ever self-publish there are Trends within product design the product there are Trends within the product design of a game to try to generate interest Miniatures custom shaped or screen printed meeples scenario books that replace boards apps Etc one that I find interesting is verticality the implementation of components that make significant use of the y-axis I find

verticality interesting because some designs seem to include it only to increase table presence and don't connect it to gameplay which is not very resonant speaking of table presence let's talk about gimmicks gimmicks rely on big splashy elements to grab attention anything that does that can feel gimmicky instead we need to be asking interesting questions of our design what component would most help drive home the theme what would make players care more about the characters or story in the game how can I subvert expectations I particularly like Trope flipping because it requires a minimal amount of effort to achieve results theme forward techniques like that that don't increase the cost of the game in the way adding Miniatures does is a

low impact way to get a lot of results it's cheaper asking questions of your design requires you to engage with your theme never ever ever expect your audience to do the imaginative work that you were unwilling to do I don't mean that you have to spell everything out for your players I mean that you need to critically examine your theme to see where engagement or interest could be added engage your theme and interrogate it you'll be surprised where you end up when you know what your theme is it's plot location Rhythm characters and twists cut everything else out do as little as possible to build the world beyond what is represented by the game figure out the core of the theme and get rid of everything else try to always leave your players wanting more that feeling will drive engagement more than extensive World building well feel

free to write a novel about your world but don't put it in the game box however putting a limit on the amount of detail expressed in your theme is not licensed to skimp on Research really good research will inform which details are most necessary and evocative the components ought to be so firmly compacted that if any one of them is shifted to another place the hole is loosened up and dislocated for an element whose addition or subtraction makes no perceptible difference is not really a part of the whole this is my favorite quote about board game design even though it's actually about theatrical design many people have said similar things throughout history but not only did Aristotle say it first he said it best side note the classical unities come from the neoclassical era but they were an attempt to build on Aristotle's rules for theater history has a lot of good and lots of good advice for board game design good design is about removing clutter

every detail of your game should reinforce The Core theme just because a detail fits into your world doesn't mean it belongs in the game if you really must add details I do recommend using illustration as a way to convey details that doesn't impede gameplay including a detail because a school will feel gimmicky because it is a gimmick I Define a gimmick as anything that brings a sense of novelty and appeal and not much else if you are including an unnecessary element that you don't think is cool why are you doing that don't do that a gimmick looks cool but either it isn't functional or it impedes usability a gimmick adds more cost than value of what is received every element should feel necessary to the game experience anything else is a distraction your core theme will create your core emotional experience adding extraneous elements salutes the

emotional experience in other words too much fluff makes your game less resonant but there is a compromise here I like to think of flavor text and certain other thematic details as opt-in details meaning a player can choose to ignore these details if they want flavor text is usually in a small font at the bottom of a card I have the choice to read it or not components even card art don't give me that option I can't opt out they're too prominent for my eyes to skip over that's the reason I get frustrated by the lore at the beginning of Roblox I can't tell straight away if it contains important information about the game or not if you want to include extra detail in your game that provides only flavor it needs to be the kind of detail players can choose to opt into or not removing chaff is also about finding the proportion between the familiar and the

unexpected too much unexpected is too much unexpectedness is jarring and will disconnect players from the theme too much familiarity only becomes a problem when the details Stray From The Core theme so generally speaking leave unexpectedness to a few surprising twists compared to the rest of the game foreign studies to see how they implement the traits I've outlined the first is takaido let's start with the rules lore to see what the game says about itself the players are Travelers into Japan in the days of old they will follow the prestigious to kaido and try to make this journey as rich in experience as possible to do this they will pass through magnificent countrysides taste delicious culinary Specialties purchase souvenirs and benefit from the virtues

of hot springs and have Unforgettable encounters or as most Gamers have described the game you're competing to have the best vacation I like the brevity here there's additional historical information at the end of the rulebook but the introduction only tells you what you need to know to get into the game it's not amazing writing but it gets the job done the board itself is fairly abstract but we still see a road clearly stretching across it with Wayside points to stop at in this case the suggestion of a road is just as effective as a more realistic illustration after all the character movement reinforces the idea of a road as does the elongated shape of the board without these signifiers however the abstract representation would not have been as effective cicaido is a master class of evocative actions let's look at the action names in the game well

first you a player moves a traveler and lands on a space I'd prefer if the player traveled to a location and visited or stopped there but we can't have everything however each of the spaces is evocative in a way that aids rules comprehension shops sell souvenirs temples accept donations encounters reveal people Inns provide meals ending a round or day with essentially dinner is predict particularly evocative the remaining locations require a small amount of imagination but we can assume that Farms Produce money because you spend time there as a day laborer panoramic views appear to produce panoramic artwork the location and the cards are just called panoramas which is a touch confusing and hot springs presumably produce relaxation nowhere on the board is there a generic board game symbol to draw a card the

Thematic graphic design is effective at reinforcing the rules while also helping reduce the abstraction of the board particularly the road cicaido deathly uses time and location elements to create the feel of gameplay without needing full bleed art on the game board this is good news for game designers you can create Rich experiences in your prototypes even if you aren't an artist the cards do have generic game graphics on them in the form of scoring tables and transformation arrows however the larger art of these cards as opposed to the locations on the board offsets the necessity of this information there is a balance struck between thematic expression and usability we find plenty of familiarity in shopping sightseeing stopping at an end for the night the unexpectedness of tokaido comes from the clean visual design of the board

coupled with the Thematic gameplay that same clean design keeps the game feeling uncluttered it's a rare feat in a point-solid Style game it's also still unexpected almost a decade later for the next case study I'll be looking at a much more detail films game everdel hello once again let's start with the lore in the rule book a new year begins within the Charming Valley of everdale beneath the boughs of towering trees among Meandering streams in Mossy Hollows a civilization of forest Critters is thriving in and expanding ever since the famed Adventurer porn evertale discovered the hidden realm long ago the citizens have prospered under the shelter of the evertree from everfrost to belsong many a year have come and gone but the time has come for new territories to be settled and new cities established you will be the leader of a group of Critters in tint on just such a task there are buildings to construct Lively characters to meet events to host it will be a busy year will the sun shine

brightest on your city before the winter Moon Rises it's not great there are too many details in general but also too many details that only exist in the rulebook and that don't appear in the game this is a game with a lot of flavor text both on the cards and in the rulebook including a short story and a poem in addition to this intro fluff but most of that text is very clearly opt in more the beginning of the rule book is a place most players don't want to dwell on lengthy fluff like this with lots of adjectives and place names feels like a loss of momentum before the game has even begun I would prefer something more like this within the Charming a new year begins within the Charming Valley of everdale a civilization of forest Critters is thriving and expanding but the time has come for new territories to be settled and new cities

established you will be a leader of a group of Critters intent on just such a task there are buildings to construct Lively characters to meet events to host it will be a busy year while the sunshine brightest on your city before the winter Moon Rises the focus changes from what the players will be doing in the game to what the players will be doing in the game not the geography and history of the world now don't get me wrong this is perhaps my biggest criticism of everdale's expression of theme and it's one that's shared by many games one lesson here is to read your lord fluff out loud to see if you're giving the reader too much detail let's move on the art of everdale is highly evocative reminiscent of other works such as the Wind in the Willows or the red wall series The Art immediately establishes the tone of the game cozy but not completely free from conflict

the resources in everdale are delightfully tactile the berries which are made of a squishy plastic or a standout example of how materials used in components can create resonance the rest of the resources are nearly as good the resin is translucent the Pebbles are opaque hard plastic the Twigs are made out of wood tactility that matches our expectations provides a strong emotional response sectility can also be an Avenue of unexpectedness I'm not sure that I can name another game that uses the same kind of squishy plastic as the berries in everdale the building Parts produce resources or effects that are highly thematic mines produce Pebbles Farms Produce berries storehouses store resources buildings also attract Critters whose profession matches the building postal pigeons move into post offices kings move into castles placing a closed door token on a building that has already attracted a critter is a simple and thematic reminder that that building is occupied

we get a sense of location from the materials used to build the buildings from how the buildings are used and from the critters that inhabit the buildings coupled with the game board everdel has a strong sense of place one small element of dissonance is that the positioning in your Tableau has no game effect now I'm far from wanting everdel to be more complicated but I wish that neighboring buildings or Critters had some slight mechanical relationship rather than just being a random assortment in front of the player while discussing location we have to talk about the tree the tree adds a sense of scale to a world relative to the wooden Critter workers it also adds unexpectedness through sheer verticality incorporated into the game board as a place to show our components which ultimately isn't that useful but I would rather have it have some use

than for it to just be a cardboard sculpture the tree impairs usability slightly by blocking lines of sight during gameplay and when it's awkward when scoring it um outside of the game but I suppose the lesson here is that if you are going to include an element that is even slightly difficult to use it had better be gorgeous and highly thematic to offset its potential downsides everdel is not the only game to divide rounds into phases or Seasons but it uses this structure pretty well to create a sense of time passing players can imagine harvests births and rests after long Journeys during the prepare for season phase my only complaint here is that the theming is so strong that it conflicts with the rules one player can move into a new season while the other players are still in the previous season which is so counter-intuitive that I got this rule wrong the first time I played everdale everdel uses illustration tactility and

verticality and timing to create a rich World while mostly not over cluttering this world with distracting details these were just two examples that used a variety of tools to create resonance particularly with regards to location and time I hope to see more games in the future that leverage character motivation and relationships for residents especially in shorter games campaign and Legacy games are already exploring more complex characterizations I hope that you leave today with a better sense of what it means for a game to be resonant resonance is a combination of emotions and story elements with some attention-grabbing twists that focuses on the core experience and nothing else familiarity yeah familiarity plus unexpectedness minus chef if you want to dig into more thematic Design Concepts I have a Blog at shipboard games.blogspot.com which

updates most Mondays thank you [Music]