Thematic vs Looking fun

One of the more modern (in fact, pretty modern) games I play, this is with my father, is Zombicide. A pretty simple quick paced… mm.. I would say Skirmish game but that isn’t right.. the ‘Player’ has only a couple of characters (well, you can play solo with a team of 6, or really up to 6 people) where as the ‘Enemy’ is controlled by a basic system (If not on the same square as Player, move towards player. If on same square as player, attack player.. that’s basically it. some have slightly more advanced rules but pretty simple.. which works as Zombies are dumb.. though they aren’t zombies cause they are based on the Romero ‘ghoul’ but aren’t most things these days?.. but anyway, one of the key points is they are corpses or pretty much so, where the brain and higher functions have rotted away, or been damaged.. thus they can withstand some damage while being bloody dumb).

Anyway.. After being successful and selling to CMON (which I have a mixed relationship with) and still doing pretty well, they did Licensed versions and ‘flavours’ which keep.. most of the basic concept but have a different set of rules and styles. One of which was the Marvel Comics licensed version, where instead of playing as people fighting against hoards of zombies (and I mean hoards.. while you have the max of 6, you can easily end up with 50+ zombies on your tail.. and unlike you, they auto-hit) you play AS the zombified Heroes, against Hordes of humans (and non-zombie super heroes). It does also have a ‘classic’ play mode too if you don’t want to play as the Zombies.. Some of the hero choices are weird (its partly based on an awful comic series Marvel did back when Zombies were the ‘in thing’ for a while) but it’s enjoyable enough.

There is just one major problem I have.. the games do give a bit of Story and make things fit the theme but the boards are a killer of this at times.. The game is played using roughly 1 foot boards, which feature a number of rooms/zones and instead of moving in inches or squares, you move in zones. fair enough. mostly, they are arranged as 9 zones per-board, but shapes and some details can change. Doors are based on where the map shows them mostly etc. anyway.. For the Marvel one, they put a lot of ‘references’ into the boards.. so one board is meant to be the Daily Bugle building, another is meant to be Doctor Strange’s house etc.

Sometimes, the building in question is part of the plot, so that’s fine. But quite often you end up with buildings right next to each other that don’t make sense.. Or buildings kinda merging together (Hey, did you know The Daily Bugle building also contained the Hero for Hire apartment?) really, if you are trying to go for the thematic approach (which is also a bit of use when some rules start to.. be a bit undefined in some odd cases, which is always the case in most games) it can throw you right out when buildings just make no sense at all. There is always going to be some of this as all buildings are 1 floor (the Western flavour ‘undead or alive’ does have some balconies to reproduce something which was kinda major in any US Western style setting) but merging what are basically ‘famous landmarks’ together can just produce really weird looking maps if you pay too much attention. Of course, the boards are double sided but as the missions say which side to use, it doesn’t really deal with the issue.

This highly reminds me of other games and stuff which do this issue. okay, sure, it’s a minor issue, but there is an old comment by.. I have no clue.. about hiding ‘Easter eggs’ (hidden secrets) in tiles and dioramas. What you think is cute and fun, can be really annoying and deal braking depending on how and what you do. A fantasy dungeon with a bottle of Coca cola can really ruin it. And sometimes, too many companies and people don’t notice this. In the old days, Games workshop COULD get the mix well I feel, like if you look at some of the buildings, or more the extras for such, which were reprinted to make up Warhammer Townscapes (in 1988), you have bits like Wanted posters (Mad ‘Bobby’ Naismith, The Perry Twins, Johan Weiss?), You have an optional sign for a building labelled as ‘Games Workshop’ in a font which matches the time period more then the GW Logo, Most of the early art work often had references like staff members used for reference for faces or heads on banners etc. They are often done to a case which doesn’t pull you out of things, but works well. One board game has a hidden arcade machine in a fantasy setting, in some rubble which… doesn’t quite stand out as much as it could but.. its very tricky if that pulls out or not.

However, you need to be careful if you want to get the balance right. If done badly, a reference which someone doesn’t get but stands out clearly as a reference will just stand out badly and remove any thematic impression the game is trying to give. I think you can balance it right so it makes sense while at the same time it is also fun, but.. well.. too often it isn’t. so.. I feel like I’m just repeating this but there is a fine line between ‘Fun & Thematic’ and ‘Fun with a sacrifice of enjoyment’.