In a nutshell, I wanted to make a game very similar to Starcraft the Baord game(SC) and Forbidden Star(FS) and make a parody of it called Ratscraft. It features various faction of sci-fi rats fighting each other. The most important part of this design are the mechanics which has a lot of similarities with SC and FS.
When my friend heard of Ratscraft, he was expecting something fluffy and funny à la Munchkin. But in my case, the game I am trying to make is completely the opposite, it a complex and deep game. So my friend confronted me by saying that I should re-theme to something else if the mechanics was the foundation of the game because people would expect something more fluffy.
By thinking about it, it is true that the theme might not be that important, and thought I could be retheming to a cyberworld like Tron where programs fight each other over different servers.
Lately, I had some problems designing units thematically since it's an illogical theme. I also had problem figuring what would a map space represent thematically. So retheming could be solution I did not consider.
What are your thought?
Well since for that game idea, the mechanics are what needs to be kept, maybe I could drop the theme. Most people would associate the title with the video game instead of the board game, so I might not lose an important connection with the original.
So far, the cyberspace game theme seems a plausible replacement where planets are actually servers, and units are computer programs. The artwork of the game could be pretty much abstract symbols. (see shadowrun video game RPG cyberspace program icons)