As with most hobbies, board game players have developed a lingo all their own. They rely on certain terms and phrases to convey specific points and to simplify conversation. Call it jargon or call it slang - salespeople, reviewers, game industry folks, and the fans themselves use it. This entry attempts to define - or at least demystify - some of these words for you.

An abstract game is a “themeless” game, or nearly so. There's no back story, no setting, and almost no resemblance to a real situation or occurrence. There may be a board with some geometric pattern, some pieces to place or move around, and some objective that's usually about forming patterns or eliminating the competition.

Usually an abstract game is also a “perfect information” game — that is, a game with no hidden information. Pieces on the game board which are in full view of all the players, or cards face-up on the table provide perfect information. Blokus, Pentago, and Mills are in this category, and usually (but not always) "cooperative" games are as well.

Chess, although it is loosely called a “war game”, is quite abstract. Shogi is less abstract - Wei Chi (a.k.a. “Go”) is more abstract. Games like Checkers (a.k.a. “Draughts”) and Halma, Seega, and Salto are very abstract, whereas Battleship, Stratego, Arimaa, and Dominion are less so because the pieces, or the cards, represent capabilities and relationships.

Card games that use a standard poker deck are abstract because the cards do not really represent kings and queens and so on. Some game designers have attempted to change that situation by giving those cards some personality, but really they're just sets of numbered cards. Likewise, Uno and Rook and Sorry are themeless abstract games.