Talk:Themes

Please feel free to adopt one of these for your own roguelike project, select one of the zillion worlds described on a world construction hobbyist's website, or come up with your own ideas. I hope on the wiki, this list will finally grow. --Rdanhenry 22:15, 8 May 2005 (CEST)

The reason HHGG and Red Dwarf weren't listed is that they are individual works and both merely *examples* of a single theme -- comic SF. I suppose I should include parody/comedic worlds as a specific theme. Individual works, where they are listed, are usually merely exemplars of a particular theme (or because that's how they were originally posted and I was too lazy to come up with a good generic description of the core concept) -- most single works really aren't enough to build a game on. Another example of trying to be too particular would be to list Doom and Diablo -- DoomRL and DiabloRL are two example of a single thematic idea, "video game adaptation", not two distinct themes. Going down the road of listing every single book, movie, game, etc. that could be mined for ideas is a path to madness. What I do hope to do is make additional pages about some of the themes, addressing possible approaches and difficulties and a list of recommended reading/viewing/playing would go well on those pages. -- RDH

Ah, but then why (in an analogous fashion) are classic mythologies broken out?

Seems to me the same path toward madness to list out the individual mythologies of various cultures rather than to use a blanket term such as "Classic Mythology" with examples, by your logic (with which I agree).

Isn't it supposed to be a mine for ideas, not a classification of possible games? When you try to classify, you generalize and lose elements that are sometimes important in the specific idea. If this list is supposed to be a classification of themes, then I vote for creating another list, merely a list of theme-related ideas.

-- TheSheep

I guess I'm a bit lost as to what the distinction is between "theme" and "theme-related idea" ... ?

I guess it's like... a theme is a more general idea (like Classic Mythology), while a theme-related idea is something more like the things listed here. Incidentally, I'll fill some of these pages whenever I get time. I've already made Wuxia. Viridisium 02:58, 13 December 2007 (CET)