For me, it’s important that the theme supports the gameplay, but never at the expense of a clear mechanism. That means that I will never include a detailed rule just to be closer to the theme.
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.
