Critical Play: Theme Only Games

How might the theme affect games within the same genre?

As a big fan of strategy games, I decided to revisit and compare two tower-defense games that I used to play a lot and examine them through the lens of game design.

The first game I played is Plant v.s. Zombies, where you place plants with various abilities on your lawns to defend against the zombies coming at you. This game fits the theme very well with the genre of tower defense as “plants” are associated with something stationary and beneficial, and zombies as something harmful, slow, and lack of intelligence (only charge forward). The appearance and naming of each unit also align with the abilities that they have. Even the currency used to buy plants (weapons) are suns to associate with the theme of the game.

The second game I played is Kindom Rush, which uses a more common theme among these games, medieval fantasy. The players are given a god’s perspective and fight off intruders by building towers that serve different functions. The theme in this game is not as unique as Plant v.s. Zombies, but it surely conveys what it’s about. Each tower can evolve into higher tiers with increased attributes and additional abilities and these evolutions follow the theme of the types of towers. For example, Artillery Towers has a theme of AOE (area of effect) damage, so this ability is consistent across upgrades.