I believe that starting a game from the theme is impossible and untrue. When you say, “I’ll make a game based on Star Wars,” you’ve said absolutely nothing. All you’re doing is procrastinating the process of thinking about the mechanism.
So I prefer to be involved in the development process as early as possible. Publishers as well as authors don’t necessarily realize that we can contribute a lot through images, that it’s possible to work in depth on the link between mechanics and images. We can thus avoid having illustrations that only “paraphrase” the mechanics.
Just as the core of a novel is its plot, not its plot hook, so also the core of a game design is the mechanisms and patterns of play, not the theme.
[…] There are many different factors a game reviewer has to take into account when it comes to developing an opinion about a game. Firstly, the game mechanics need to be examined for their originality, their coherence and their elegance. Flaws in this category often prove disastrous since the game will lack a proper backbone, but, on the other hand, a game which scores high in this area still is not necessarily a smash hit.
Often a mechanic hints at more than one potential theme, and some thought needs to be applied as to which will be most suitable. In the best instances, a good theme goes on to inform further refinements of the game mechanic. In some cases a theme is temporarily attached to a design […] before another theme subsequently emerges. […] Thus a design informs the theme and vice versa.
