Cottage Life? Evil Landlord? Fantasy Serfdom?: Developing a Theme

After having chosen "Cottage Life" as my game idea, it's time to develop the theme so that I can unify the idea into one coherent message. As a refresher, this is the basic idea of the game, although many of these mechanics will see changes as I develop the theme:

• players begin as pioneers on separate plots of land
• each player must fight to start their farm, fend off beasts, and build their homes
• tool based game, all actions are complete through the building of and using of tools
• ex: build axe first ->able to get wood, can be burned for cooking or warmth, but houses made out of wood aren't as sturdy as a house made with stone gathered with a pick axe
• players are only allowed a certain number of tools (don't know why yet, maybe explained by lore)
• would like the game to be story based

So to start off I should briefly explain what I think the game has in store for audiences. What do I think the theme should be? Here I've got a paragraph that explains the essence of the game in more specific detail than my first iteration of the idea:

A magical overlord has taken hold of a feudal manor, and in doing so now owns all its serfs. Working together, the serfs must escape the tyrannical grasp of the evil force by using the labor skills they have learned over the years. This is a story about removing a dictator-like force from ruling over the lives of innocent workers. 

So at its essence the game can be described in the following concept statement: 

"Freedom is inherent, evil that limits this freedom must be destroyed"

I think this covers a lot of the ideals in the game like good vs. evil, righteousness, and determination.

Now clearly the idea of serfdom leads the game into a specific time period. The setting is the high middle ages, more specifically I would like to set the time at around 1250 in central England which saw a huge population boost before the onset of the Black Death 100 years later, but was ridden with poverty. This was a time where serfdom, essentially a form of slavery, ran rampant through Western Europe. Serfs were laborers bound to a lord's property, and once a person became a serf they remained so for the rest of their lives, passing on the status of being a serf to their children. Serfs were afforded a few more luxuries than slaves would: a home for their family, a plot of land to farm, and the ability to buy and sell goods in the local villages. Freedom could be bought, but few serfs would ever be able to afford the price. 

The art style must lend itself to exploring the contrasts of freedom and servitude. I must ask myself what in my game should represent freedom and what should represent the bondage of slavery. In actions that the serfs make, I want to express freedom. With each move a player is able to make as a serf they should feel they are heading towards freedom. Conversely, with each move made by the lord the players should feel more restricted. 

For the players' actions I want the art to seem bright, clear, and colorful.

For the lord's actions I want the art to reflect a darker, dirtier, and more menacing theme. 

These color schemes should seem to oppose each other in many ways. On one hand I want the serf's colors to reflect nature, and especially nature during the Fall since this is when they will be harvesting Summer crops that they will be able to both sell and eat, making it a prosperous time. On the other hand the lord's colors show the more unnatural side of life. If I want to express freedom as being natural and inherent, then the logical step should be to represent restriction in an unnatural way. 

In order to balance the two very different color schemes, I intend to make the lord's theme dominant and the serf's theme subordinate. In doing so, the small pops of the serf's theme will stand out more and hopefully enhance the victories players will reach as they progress through the game. 

Stylistically I'd like to make the game less about realism and more about a caricature of society. I want the game to be approachable by various audiences, and I've found that darker, more realistic looking games tend to put consumers off as not everyone wants to play a super serious game. To be successful, the game should strike a balance between the whimsy of a stylized cartoon and the very simple but hefty notion of freedom versus servitude. 

All of these aspects should now hopefully come together to create a game that is constantly reminding its players that freedom is at the core of everyone, and to gain it back after years of servitude is a huge victory that one should feel proud of.