"Theme as metaphor" seems fairly self-evident to me. A game's theme packages mechanisms in a way that makes them easier to understand and might even evoke some emotional response.

"Theme as allegory" is somewhat less obvious. But if our experience playing this game has strong parallels to its theme, we speak of "immersion", which is what theme as allegory effectively is. It's an (often intentional) parallelism between play and fiction.

What I'm less certain of, is "theme as text". In other words saying that a game is about its theme, and comments on it. I know that some games try to go that route, but I'm not certain they're particularly successful that way. Their seriousness is often overbearing and they run the risk of marginalizing play to deliver an "argument".

There's also "theme as metaphor, as text" which is when a game's theme allegedly comments on something indirectly. While I understand the appeal of feeling smart how you've picked up on those hidden connections left by the designer, I worry it leads to a sense of elitism. Where you only fully "get" games, if you're familiar with very specific discussions, arguments or references to other games.

This year we changed a few things in the #Scoutaktion

One of them was that the Scouts could not only rate the games with ⭐stars⭐, but also assign ✨predicates✨. The most frequently mentioned ones were displayed in all lists for a better understanding.

Hope this was helpful for everyone!

#SPIEL23

#boardgames @boardgames