Hey everyone!
If you are willing to accept that everything lies on a spectrum rather than being black and white (not implying anyone is saying this), then all games are abstractions of something. Euros just abstract everything. Theme is simply a veneer to create what Greg Pettit calls "theme as metaphor". And what we call "pure abstracts" forego even that. Ameritrash games use "theme as narrative", but even then often do not apply the mechanics to the subject matter.
Sure, but a pure abstract doesn't relate. So Chess (and Go) aren't pure. Yet they are sort of the poster children
for what an abstract game is. Chess, Backgammon, Parcheesi, and Mancala are far better examples, IMO. One
could overlay meaning to even these though. There's some point in the spectrum where something is
more abstract than representational. It certainly is over that line when something doesn't have a formal
topic at all - but what if (like Chess & Go) there is a topic? How are these different from what I'd call
purely thematic games - wherein there is nothing to the subject really represented in a believable manner
within the game?
