Worst Game Theme Ever?
I was at a game prototyping event a few weeks ago and was talking to another game designer about … what else? Games.
He was mentioning a poorly themed game about being stuck in traffic and we started riffing on other bad themes we’d never want to use.
Here are some we came up with including a few I’ve thought of since:
- Watching grass grow
- Things to do while waiting for a delayed flight at the airport
- School Janitor (oh no, someone get the sawdust…)
- Superhero accountants
- Counting Sheep: The Game
It’s funny, but sometimes brainstorming the worst ideas ever can make you think differently and a really great idea might come to mind.
What are some terrible or boring-to-tears themes that you’d never want to see in a game? Leave your thoughts below!
One comment
Tyler
A game about German Parliamentary politics…oh wait, they made that. It’s Die Macher and it’s pretty good if incredibly long. Otherwise the worst theme I’ve seen was for a card game Three Musketeers. The game was pretty good but the theme was completely wrong and ruined the play. You had to stab each other in the back in order to win. I’m not an expert in Three Musketeer lore but from what I know it is completely the opposite. It should have been a thieves theme. Maybe some upper manager thought there were too many of those.
A theme can do three things: enhance a game experience, be neutral to the experience, and rarely (as in this case) it can detract from the experience.
I know this wasn’t quite what the subject was but it was what I thought of.