Image credit: Grey Alien Games / Night Signal Entertainment

Like a tag team of oiled snakes that have entered a wrestling contest, theme is a difficult quality to pin down. A game can be well designed, but if it lacks a coherence between those mechanics and its appearance, narrative, and its framing, there is a dissonance that can be hard to ignore. I realise I've just stepped into an old argument by using the word 'dissonance' , but Hocking was right, games that don't cohere can be jarring. A developer may desire that sensation of discomfort, but often it is accidental and unwanted.

(Much like opening an article with a simile about wrestling snakes when there is nothing connecting that image to a game about solitaire.…