Overplayed and Underplayed Board Game Themes

Tired of yet another cozy mushroom harvest or another horde of shambling minis? We take a scalpel to today’s most overused board game themes—nature deluges, zombie burnout, Cthulhu overload, space saturation, and farm fatigue—and talk about why they once worked, why they’re stale now, and what could replace them without losing the fun. Along the way, we dig into how theme shapes mechanics, who feels welcome at the table, and which stories actually stick after the box closes.

We make the case for underrepresented directions that deserve more love: sports built around the emotional arc of being an athlete rather than spreadsheets; healthcare games that blend spatial planning, capacity tradeoffs, and ethical choices; and historically grounded designs that respectfully center minority struggles, from Votes for Women to Molly House. If you enjoy modern systems with real stakes, we also highlight the untapped potential of contemporary commerce and logistics—think Smartphone Inc. meets supply chain resilience, carbon costs, and port delays—where every decision reverberates across a living economy.

For IP fans, we go beyond shallow reskins and imagine mechanics that honor the worlds we love. Picture a Pokemon board game focused on exploration, set collection, and campaign growth instead of card duels. Envision Sanderson’s universes as tight, asymmetric strategy with oaths, storms, and faction politics. And don’t miss our sci-fi pitch for Children of Time as a compact 4X where uplifted species evolve unique tech and collide at first contact. Ready to refresh your shelf and spark better table talk? Hit play, then tell us the themes and IPs you want publishers to tackle next. If this conversation got you thinking, tap follow, share with a friend, and leave a quick review—what theme should we explore on a future episode?

Chapters

• 0:00 Warm Welcome And Setup
• 0:19 Overplayed Themes: Nature Deluge
• 1:56 Zombies And The Search For Replacements
• 5:33 Cthulhu Fatigue And Space Saturation
• 8:36 Farming Burnout And Why It Persists
• 10:19 Sports On The Table, Not The Screen
• 12:55 Designing Sensitive Stories With Care
• 15:20 Hospitals, Research, And Real-World Systems
• 17:14 Modern Commerce And Logistics As Playgrounds
• 19:05 Dream IPs: Pokemon And Sanderson Worlds
• 21:08 Sci-Fi Pitch: Children Of Time As 4X
• 22:46 Listener Challenge And Sign-Off

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:15

Welcome to the Operation Game Night Podcast, back and better than ever. Today we are talking themes in board games, overrepresented themes, underrepresented themes, themes that we want to see out there in the board gaming sphere. Joining me as always, my co-host, Clayton Gable. How are you doing, Clay?

SPEAKER_01: 0:34

I'm doing good, Travis. How about you?

SPEAKER_00: 0:37

I'm doing great. Uh, did you like my pause for dramatic effect?

SPEAKER_01: 0:40

It was dramatic. I was like, it I didn't know what was coming. You know, sometimes you hit me with something that really catches me off guard, but that was a proper introduction, and I'm pleased.

SPEAKER_00: 0:51

Sometimes I like to go straight down the barrel and do very serious intro just to catch you off guard.

SPEAKER_01: 0:57

It really puts me on the spot when you say something super witty, and then I have to try to summon within myself something witty in return, and I never I never meet the mark. So that's right. I was happy to have the proper just hi clay. How's it going? That's right. I can I can respond to that.

SPEAKER_00: 1:14

This is Operation Game Night, your favorite improv podcast. And today we're talking themes. So, Clay, I let's just go down the list, let's talk about themes that we think are overrepresented right now in the board game sphere. What are things that are overplayed? There's so many games out there, the market is saturated. What do publishers, designers need to scale back on right now?

SPEAKER_01: 1:41

You know, I hate to start with this one because I actually like this theme. Yeah, but ever since the booming success of Wingspan, we have had an abundance of nature, ecology, zoology themed games. I mean, you can't you can't miss them. I mean, we got a game literally called Nature, and then there's nature spin-offs. We got the zoo game, Arcnova, and then the spin-off Arcnova. We got the Finn spans. I mean, what's the harmonies? We got games about nature and just cute and cozy nature themes coming out our ears right now. Oh, yeah. It's not a bad thing. They're they're welcoming, they bring in a larger audience than your some themes we'll talk about probably in a minute here. But I think you know, maybe it's time to put a couple of those to bed and move forward with something a little different.

SPEAKER_00: 2:36

I think we reached the peak of this theme when we had two separate games about mushrooms coming out at the exact same time. I think at that point it's like we need to reevaluate how we're theming our games and what we're really getting after here. Because I I love mushrooms, don't take that out of context. I I like mushrooms out in nature, I like how they work, I think it's interesting. I like the ecology of mushrooms, uh, or fungi, if you will. Uh, but you know, maybe it's time to find something else to theme our board games around.

SPEAKER_01: 3:09

Yeah, that's number one. And I'm a biology major too, so I definitely have a soft spot, but I'm calling it out straight away.

SPEAKER_00: 3:16

That's right. Uh, I'm gonna go ahead and say zombies. Zombies peaked a long time ago, kind of along the same vein as like pirates and zombies and aliens. We kind of had this like vein of games that came out all at the same time that were all zombie-themed or zombie-coded or just had zombies on it. There was a Z before or after every board game title, and it just got played out real quick. They were riding the high of like shows like The Walking Dead, um, 28 Days Later, World War Z, and they just tried to pump the market full of zombies. And it was it's not just board games, it's kind of mass media as a whole. You saw movies, you saw TV shows, and you saw board games, you saw tons of video games. So it's not the board gaming sphere's fault, but uh zombies, time to go back and be dead for for good because it's just a played out theme right now.

SPEAKER_01: 4:17

I don't don't don't care for it anymore. How can we replace this though? I mean, zombies just kind of fill a nice spot in board gaming for just generic things you want to kill and fight. Yeah, you know, it's it's easier, it's an easy one to do when you just are like, hey, I just want to kill and fight. This is the game. Uh, zombies are a great target to have, is that so I don't know what what's gonna replace zombies, maybe um you know, fleas on dogs. I don't go back to the nature themes, yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 4:52

That yeah, that's a good point, right? Like if you have people fighting people, it becomes a little overly violent and it might not be suitable for kids. But if you say this used to be a person, but it's not anymore, it's a zombie now. Go ahead and blast it with a shotgun, you know. Uh that kind of changes the narrative around the game. It changes kind of the framing behind the combat. So you're you're right. There's probably a replacement out there. Maybe they just need to go back to like old school fantasy and say that these are gelatinous cubes or your orcs and goblins and stuff. There's a lot of fantasy stuff out there too. Uh, that's a bit overplayed, but you know, that's that's a good point. We have to find a replacement for zombies. So what's it gonna be?

SPEAKER_01: 5:33

It's probably shouldn't be Cthulhu, which is our number three overrepresented theme in board gaming. I don't these don't draw my interest at all, but I see Cthulhu games all the time. I I own one myself, I think, which is uh Death May Die. And I used to have Unfathomable, which is Cthulhu. Even if it doesn't have Cthulhu in the name, it still can be Cthulhu. I didn't even realize that. I love craft's a whole thing. I don't know much about it, but I do know I am sick of it.

SPEAKER_00: 6:16

Yeah, I mean there's something to be said about like the I I don't want to use the word theme in the definition of theme, right? Like we're kind of splitting hairs here, but the Lovecraft is all about this kind of twisted worldview where you're losing your mind and your sanity is falling apart, and your mind can't comprehend these elder gods that have been around since the dawn of time and putting madness in the minds of men. But I don't know, it is a bit played out, and there's something about the original literature, uh HP Lovecraft, maybe not such a good guy through the lens of history, uh, and maybe his theme needs to go away. But I think that the next theme that needs to go away is space exploration. So the front of everyone's mind already, you know, if Katy Perry can go to space, maybe it's not that far-fetched that the rest of us can get there too. So space exploration, while it is kind of something that we've been dreaming of for the past 50, 100 years, you know. Um, I think in board games, it's a bit overrepresented right now. I don't think it needs to go away entirely, but I think that maybe we can scale it down a little bit or maybe reframe how we represent space exploration. Um stuff like MLEM. You're it is it is you know, paint the theme is painted over the top that your cats in space, right? But it's not a game about space exploration, it's a game about rolling dice and pressing your luck, right? So I think that there's ways to represent space exploration without making it a game specifically about the space exploration.

SPEAKER_01: 8:02

Does that make sense? It makes sense. I just this one of all the ones hurt me the most as a uh former guardian of the United States Space Force. Um, I do still like a good space game, but I agree they are plentiful, and maybe maybe we can explore something else, something more interesting than space, be deep sea explorers.

SPEAKER_00: 8:27

I like that. That's what came to mind first. Let's let's conquer our own planet first before we go and explore others. How about that?

SPEAKER_01: 8:34

Yeah, yeah. Number five. This is our last one here on the overrepresented. We have farming. I this should be this should shock nobody. We have farming games coming out the yale. We got harvest, we got agricola, we've got pretty much everything that Mr. Rosenberg does is some form of farming, yeah, with with various polyominoes. So, I mean, I get it, farming is inherent to what it is to be human, cultivating the land, growing things, sustaining yourself. Um, but it's just getting boring at this point, you know. How many different times can you plant a field and then reap it, you know? Reap and sow. I don't even know which way those go do I I sow and then I reap. That's right. I sow and then I reap.

SPEAKER_00: 9:28

I don't know how you reap what you sow.

SPEAKER_01: 9:30

Yeah, I'm sick of sowing and I'm sick of reaping. I want to do something else besides farm.

SPEAKER_00: 9:36

I'm sick of tending to these sheep. Yeah, I mean, it there's something cozy about it, right? Like there's a reason that Stardew Valley made a bazillion dollars because people like sowing and reaping, and that's cycle. It's something that is built into us as humans that we enjoy doing. Um, that repetitive nature of it, that kind of planned, like it's like seeing a plan come together, right? You put everything down, you come back later, you reap what you sow, and then you earn those bonuses to then go forth and do it more. There's something cozy about it, there's something that fires off that like satisfaction in your brain. Um, but yeah, it's it's a bit played out. There's better ways to do it, and there might be better themes that you can get that same benefit. Let's talk under represented themes. Um, what do you want to see represented more? What can uh publishers and designers do and put into their games that you want to see more of?

SPEAKER_01: 10:33

Travis, you and I were both athletes, and I don't see enough sports games out there. You know, I mean, this is an untapped gold mine. Yeah, and I guess maybe it's partly my fault because when one did come out recently, um, it was that 11 game about managing a a soccer team, or as everybody else calls it, football. Football, I saw it and I was I was interested because of the theme, but then it didn't it, I didn't buy it. And so maybe my lack of supporting a game of the sporting genre theme um is is what's really stopping other publishers from pushing these projects down our throats because I'm telling you, I mean, there's I don't know. I don't know how you would do it. I mean, I guess you know, managing teams is interesting. There's a lot of ways you can take it. I mean, you could make yourself the main character, the sporting hero, and you know, training up for something. I don't know. I just want to see more jocks on my shelf.

SPEAKER_00: 11:44

Yeah, and I I think that there's probably listeners out there that are screaming, screaming at their phone right now, like, oh, what about this game? What about that game?

SPEAKER_01: 11:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 11:53

And and there are sports games out there, and there's no there's always sports games coming out. I get that. Uh, but a lot of them are either lean way too heavy into like the management side where you're like balancing stats. Like you look at board games from like the 70s and 80s that came out about managing baseball teams, about managing basketball teams, it's all stat driven. So you have a card that looks like somebody's you know, rookie basketball card, baseball card. It's got all their stats on the back, and you're trying to balance all these numbers, and it's basically like spreadsheet the game, and there's not enough theme built into it. You look at like all of the popular sports games that come out, the NBA 2Ks, the FIFA's, the you know, whatever they call it nowadays. The part, I mean, besides playing the games that actually shines is like that single player looks like I'm building my character to be good at this position, and I'm going out and facing challenges as my player. You're kind of role-playing in that world. I think there's an opportunity for sports games to get that right in board game format. That being said, the next theme that I want to see represented more are those minority struggles. We talked about, oh, I bought my mic. Uh, we talked about Molly House on the podcast previously. You you got to play that. We played it a couple times on BGA. You have like votes for women. There are these games out there that represent very specific times and peoples, and they are trying to convey a difficult message through a board game. Not an easy thing to do. And oftentimes you kind of have to walk this tight line of like, I you want to be respectful of the people that went through that period while also being sure to that people walk away with that message of challenge and struggle and strife. Uh, so that's kind of a difficult line to walk. And I think a lot of publishers might shy away from that. But I think it's important in the board game space to show that people are represented and to show people that that their stories matter through something like a board game. So uh I want to see more minority struggles in board games coming up, um, just so that though their stories are known and out there.

SPEAKER_01: 13:59

Yeah, this is definitely one that I can see why it doesn't happen that often, because like you said, it it requires such care. But board games are a form of art and you can learn and you can feel things through board games. Uh, I've found Molly House anyway, it's so interesting. I mean, I knew nothing about that time period, and the game, although it's not one I'm playing on the regular, I keep it around just because I think of it as a piece of art that tells a story. And I think if more people did this, I think there might be more approachable forms of these types of games and you know, more refinement. But as it stands now, the ones I can think of, he votes for women, I don't think is very complicated, but I'm thinking of like there's that underground railroad game, which is from what I I would I believe to be pretty darn complicated from my brief look at it, and then Molly House. But yeah, definitely an important important place to go with our hobby.

SPEAKER_00: 15:05

Yeah, absolutely. Uh any other underrepresented themes that you think need to be um portrayed more?

SPEAKER_01: 15:14

Maybe, you know, there and again, you everybody will be able to say, yes, there's what are you talking about? There's this game, that game, but I think more healthcare themed games. There, I mean, I'm thinking of Clinic right now that exists as a kind of heavy euro, and there's like Rush MD, but I don't know, I can't think of many more off the top of my head where you're like either working as a healthcare worker or trying to manage healthcare facilities in some form or fashion. Maybe pantem pandemic is like broadly like at a macro level, yeah, healthcare related. But that and scientific research, you know, just digging into those themes a little more would be interesting.

SPEAKER_00: 15:58

Yeah, I and I think we have so many city building games like let's build the skyscrapers. If you can scale that down, like let's build a hospital, and you have to lay it out and have your research labs and and fund those, and it's kind of like an Arc Nova, but for hospitals, or build a fire department, or build an emergency response, or build a FEMA headquarters or something. There's something there that is not being exploited or um you know represented in board games right now. I like that one. Um, yeah, and finally, I think I'm gonna say modern commerce and modern logistics. You have games like um food, food chain magnate, and that game is widely regarded as like a great game. It's very expensive, it's hard to learn, it's pretty complicated, but it's modern commerce, and people love it for it, right? Um, there's like little niche kind of markets that people try and tap into. You're running a coffee shop, you're running a brewery, you're running this, you're running that, and these kind of microcosms like small shop living. I find those a little stressful because you know, small businesses fail all the time, and it's that stresses me out that I might like fail and run my business into the ground in a board game. But um, you know, modern commerce is something that probably needs to be represented more. Uh, and I say modern logistics because you have things like you're building out these huge train networks in ticket to ride or whatever it is, um, but there's something so complicated about getting things from A to B in today's world with today's technology that I think something with up-to-date technology and up-to-date methods of communication, lines of communication being logistics, um, that I think that could be a really fun board game right now.

SPEAKER_01: 17:43

Yeah, I agree. I and I think uh smartphone ink is kind of a a good take at this. Yeah, you know, talking about being a cell phone manufacturer and you know, ramping up the specs of your cell phone. That's a cool game. And yeah, I it doesn't get talked about enough. I need to play that more. But again, maybe we're the problem. If we like these themes, gotta play those games, gotta buy those games when they actually do come out. Yeah, that's fair.

SPEAKER_00: 18:13

Good deal. Uh tell me, is there a theme or an IP that you want to see represented more out there? Um that like is close to your heart, something you want to see the next big wave of board games has this theme or this IP represented in it.

SPEAKER_01: 18:30

Listen, I don't know if there's some like legal issues with this or if whoever whoever's in charge of Pokemon is holding the uh holding the IP very close to their vest, but trading card game is awesome. All right, and there's no doubt there's a Pokemon trading card game, but I think you could make some pretty cool board games about the Pokemon world. Yeah, and I'm not just talking about you know the boxes of games that just tell you how to play the trading card game. I want to see like I'm exploring. Um I mean, think about like Clank, and you're you know unveiling new parts of the dungeon, but instead you're unveiling new parts of the world, and you know, you can find Pokemon that are living in the tall grass there by reaching into a bag. Who knows? I just think you know, the act of collecting Pokemon is cool, and maybe it's a set collection game. Who knows? I I just I like Pokemon, I think I've it's always been near to my heart since I was a little kid. So I'd like to see a board game version for the people that aren't into ripping packs and just playing the competitive game.

SPEAKER_00: 19:45

Yeah, good call. And something that would probably make a bazillion dollars. Yeah, uh, here's one that I think will happen. Brandon Sanderson just signed his mega deal with Apple, I think it's Apple to do the Way of Kings and the Mistborn series TV shows. They're gonna be everywhere. They're gonna push these things super hard, they're gonna invest a ton of money into it. I think there's already a misborn game, but I can guarantee you you're gonna see a Way of Kings series board game at some point in time. So be on the lookout, invest now. Brandon Sanderson, write me the check. Apple TV, write me the check. I'll design your board game. That is what is going to happen. You're gonna see them out there. Um, I'm still working my way through it. You got a lot of reading to do, man.

SPEAKER_01: 20:33

It's hard. It's a it's a long, it's a long book.

SPEAKER_00: 20:36

It's a slog. It's a slog for sure. It's not a slog, but it's it is a long book. There's a lot of pages and a lot of words on those pages. Yes. The thing that I want to see out there, here's my here's my pitch. Children of Time. Have you heard of this series?

SPEAKER_01: 20:51

I've heard of it.

SPEAKER_00: 20:53

Okay, it is like an award-winning sci-fi game. Um, and the very first one is about humanity goes out into space to go seed these planets with different species to try and see if life is viable on these distant planets. They launch these spaceships, they go out there, they send these pods down with like uh the very first book book is about spiders. They're gonna go down, they're gonna send these spiders down to this planet and see if they'll live. Well, the spiders evolve way past what they thought was possible based on the conditions of this planet, and they evolve super fast. So when the humans come down to check on their spiders that they planted, they are these like super sentient species of spiders that have taken over the planet. And I think that a series based on this book series, novels, would be really cool because the other books are about monkeys and about these other different types of creatures that get sent to these other planets. Um, I think it would be cool to start with these individual factions, kind of build them up over time, up until a certain range. Or a certain point, and then they are pitted against one another. And I think this kind of like development, it'd be like a miniaturized 4X game where you can kind of build up your own civilization and then send it to war with another faction, being like the humans, the spiders, the monkeys, you know, whatever it is. I think stuff like that would be kind of cool. And I think the novelization is great. Um, it's it's kind of a space exploration sci-fi theme, but um I think it's a underrepresented I I think uh not an underrepresented, I think it would be a cool theme on a board game or a cool IP to apply to a board game.

SPEAKER_01: 22:37

Uh you've interested me in the IP for sure. I didn't know much about it.

SPEAKER_00: 22:41

So yeah, it's great. Um anyways, we've got we've run long already. Uh if you are listening to this, tell us what you think is underrepresented or overrepresented at board games. Tell us if you have an IP or a theme that you want to see on the next board game to come out. Clayton, thank you for being here. Thanks for talking themes with me. This has been Operation Game Night Podcast, and we are out of the world.