“You killed the theme, Scott!”
That’s how we ended a Wednesday meeting this month. We walked away telling ourselves this was an abstract game.
Two hours later, Scott brought the theme back.
Let’s go back to that Wednesday meeting.
In preparation for Cardboard Edison, we needed a name. At nine months out from crowdfunding, it was time to lock in the game’s name and branding. We couldn’t keep calling it Currents, Starfold, Tracing the Sky—it was starting to confuse even us.
The theme dictates the name, so that had to come first.
Then Mark threw a monkey wrench into the system by presenting a new theme: lockpicking.
I loved it—like I love anything new—on multiple levels. Tumblers. Pinfall. Quiet Tension. The terms were already firing in my head. I was redesigning patterns in Canva and mentally reworking the mechanics to better fit a lockpicking theme. Our game could have been a great lockpicking game several months ago, but we couldn’t retool it in time for Cardboard Edison.
We circled back to two options: an abstract theme, or stars—two friends looking up at the sky.
When it came time to vote, imsobad was adamant it should remain themeless. That was Mark’s preference too. And I’m an easy sell. I was on #TeamTheme, but I was willing to lose here.
We needed a name. We needed art and graphic design. We needed components.
Walking home, taking the meeting on my AirPods, I felt resigned—in some ways, even relieved. Like tech CEOs who wear the same clothes every day, it was one less decision I had to think about anymore.
At least for two hours.
Scott began his Discord thesis with one word: Uranography.
Urology? Urine? Radiology? Were we suddenly an abstract X-ray game about rebuilding bones? What is this…
He went on to explain there were no BGG hits for Uranography or Uranographer (yes, we know why), and that it preserved the star theme.
“You and your fellow uranographers search for new constellations. Whoever finds one first gets to name it.”
That’s when he had me.
It took a moment to get to the hook (he buried the lead!), but once he said it, my head started spinning. Whoever finds it gets to name it. I’d been searching for a unique selling point for months. The game was missing something—I just didn’t know what until I read Scott’s pitch.
Which was ironic, because it was Scott who had killed the theme just two hours earlier—when he himself asked, “Baring theme, are you happy with the mechanics of the game?”—and led us to contentment in a themeless world.
While our unnamed game isn’t a legacy game by definition, I love the inclusion of a legacy element. The pattern I’d been calling a rocket for months didn’t have to be a rocket anymore. We didn’t need an artist to force a rocket onto the card. It’s not that I loved this from a cost-saving standpoint—I loved it from an agency standpoint.
Just like two people looking up at the night sky can see different things: you see a rocket, I see a dragon… or a sunken ship.
We could do this with an abstract skin, but it fits so much better within the star theme. We know the sky and stars theme isn’t a path no steps have trodden black, but our mechanics—combined with a legacy element—let us confidently bring this game into that space. (See what I did there?)
It mirrors the idea of star discovery—which is a much better way of saying uranography, Scott.
Keep an eye out for the end-of-month newsletter to be the first to hear the game’s name.
— Jason