Game Jargon Definition: “Flavor Text”

Flavor Text (noun) - fla · vor text / ˈflāvər tekst /

Text that may be on game components (such as cards, game boards, player mats, books, guides, manuals, and so forth) that serves to add realism or background information to that component. Flavor text can best be characterized as an aspect of the artwork, and is thought to contribute to the worldbuilding of the game and to further immerse players in the world that the game simulates. Flavor text is used in tabletop games, console games, computer games, and apps.

Flavor text usually has no effect on the mechanics of a game, and as such, may be typeset differently to help players distinguish it from game text (e.g., italics, offset, or written in a different color). However, some games have embedded keywords that impact game mechanics into the flavor text so as to further enmesh game mechanics and setting (e.g., Star Wars: The Customizable Card Game). Others may use flavor text to hide relevant clues to in-game puzzles (e.g., Myst) or to special abilities (e.g., Borderlands). This  increases the depth and breadth of player discovery in all aspects of a game’s elements. 

In adventure and puzzle games (most notably in escape rooms and escape-room-genre tabletop games), clues are often hidden in plain sight in the form of flavor text, and only the highly observant, cognitively flexible, and systemically thinking (or just desperate) player is able to see the seemingly inconsequential text for what is truly is: a link in the chain of clues that may lead to solving the puzzle.

Flavor text sometimes comes in the form of quotations, either from fictional characters or fictional documents that populate the world of the game, and may come in the form of narratives, poems, letters, idioms, proverbs, or jokes. Additional sources for a game’s flavor text include real-world public domain sources such as religious texts, historical documents, or literary works such as the works of Shakespeare.

“O Gamer Girl, Gamer Girl! wherefore art thou Gamer Girl?
Deny thy football and refuse thy sports;
Or, if thou wilt not, be but sworn my love,
And I’ll no longer—yeah, screw that.
I’m not giving up my board game collection.
Byyyyyyyyeeeeeee!”