Klemens Franz studied “Information Management” in Graz and “Digital Games Research and Design” in Tampere, Finland. He worked as an assistant for new media technologies at the FH Joanneum. In 2006 he founded the atelier198 where he has worked on over 400 analogue games as an illustrator, graphic designer and editor. In the last couple of years he started to talk about analogue games and his experience with their visuals. He worked on the interactive aspects of exhibitions, held game-design workshops and wrote about gaming culture. He teaches “Digital Imaging”, “Cultural Studies” and “Media Theory” at the FH Joanneum.
Thematic Transparency – How metaphoric Structures in Analogue Games can help us understand
FROG 2024 – Talk
There are board games focusing on the apocalypse, the post-apocalypse, and how we could rebuild our world. They deal with topics like surviving, gathering resources, feeding people, killing Zombies and renaturing the environment. The post-apocalyptic setting is great but maybe too far along the road we are heading. Analogue games can help to really understand how fragile structures and systems are and how they work and feel. All because players are forced to execute all those things to keep the game alive.
This talk gives an overview on how the apocalypse and its surrounding topics are handled in analogue games. As it turns out the deepness of the thematic integration varies heavily. In many cases those games are just a retheming of existing mechanisms. But some of them combine those mechanisms to create a challenge that addresses actual problems.
An interesting potential of analogue games lies within their biggest flaw: Players have to know the rules, execute the procedures, overwatch the handling, manage the bookkeeping and move pieces on the board. Analogue games are transparent.
If all those aforementioned actions are implemented in an evocative way into the core gameplay they not only make it easier for players to get into the game and keep all the rules and procedures in their mind. They also create relatable and comprehensible experiences.
Two main examples will highlight this approach: Atiwa by Uwe Rosenberg and Forest Shuffle by Kosch. The theme of both games is how nature is interconnected and players have to manage those interdependencies to gain as many points as possible. Both games achieve this in a different way but give players an insight on how those processes work and therefore create an understanding based on experience rather than theory. The core gameplay integrates those thematic metaphors in a comprehensible way. And to experience the fragile structure of our planet is an important step toward more awareness and prudence.
So analogue games really force us to understand processes. They are not hidden. You want to understand them. So you can play–and probably win–the game.
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