How themes work
A theme is the skin and vocabulary of a season, whether that's wizarding houses, high-seas crews, or galactic legions. Same engine underneath; totally different vibe on top.
Seven worlds, one engine
Every theme renames the competing groups and the currency people earn, and each one has a bit of flavor copy to set the mood. Pick a tile below and this page will change with you.
Go on, click one. You can also use the theme picker that follows you down the right edge of the page.
What a theme actually changes
Only the words and the look. Points, values, roll-ups, and seasons are identical in all seven, which is why switching worlds is a five-second decision instead of a migration.
Wasteland
Now showing
The Wasteland
Mad Slack: Fury Road! Only the scrappiest clans survive the inbox apocalypse. Award scraps for work that keeps the outpost alive and witness your tribe climb the war board.
Plain English
Wasteland
Competing groups
Teams
Clans
What awards earn
Points
Scraps
The sorting artifact
Medal of Honor
Bone Totem
In Slack
/award @maya Collaboration unblocked the migration on her day off
+25 ⚙️ Scraps have been added to BONE CLAN.
Same command, same points, same value tag. Only the words change.
Standings
- 1BONE CLAN1,240
- 2DUST TRIBE1,115
- 3RUST CREW980
One pooled score per clan, reset when the season ends.
Why a reskin is a reset
Seasons are time-boxed on purpose. Rotating the theme when one ends is the cheapest way to make the next one feel like a new game rather than a leaderboard nobody can catch up to.
Season 1 · Jan–Apr
Wizarding
Houses · 💧 Mana
Four houses, a sorting ceremony, and a race for mana that nobody can call until the final week.
Season 2 · May–Aug
Pirates
Crews · 💰 Dabloons
Ahoy! New crews, wiped standings, and last season's losers start level on the high seas.
Season 3 · Sep–Dec
Galactic
Legions · 💠 Credits
New legions, new rivalry, same people. A command board that wasn't already decided back in February.
Recognition history is never thrown away. The standings reset; the record of who was appreciated for what stays exactly where it was.
Six ways you could set it up
A theme is a starting point, not a template. Here are six setup sketches. Steal one, remix it, or mix pieces from a few.
For a 60-person fintech
Wizarding
Four houses, sorted on day one
Name four houses, turn on the enrollment ceremony, and let the Book of Abracadabra place every new joiner somewhere worth defending.
For a sales floor of 30
Pirates
Mixed crews chasing dabloons
Split veterans and new hires across crews on purpose so every quota win hauls in dabloons for the whole team.
For an engineering org of 120
Galactic
Legions mapped to the org chart
Platform, frontend, data, and infra keep their real boundaries but earn credits together when someone unblocks a deploy.
For a 20-person support team
Dojo
Schools of practice
Three small schools, spirit weighted toward the quiet saves that only show up in a teammate's thank-you.
For a ten-person startup
Wasteland
Two clans, one outpost
Two factions is plenty when you're small. Fifteen minutes to set up, and suddenly standup has a storyline.
For a team that wants none of this
Default
Just teams and merits
Same roll-ups, same leaderboard, no lore to explain in a leadership meeting.
What you customize on top
The theme hands you a vocabulary. Everything that makes it yours is up to you.
Faction names, colors, and icons
The theme decides that you have houses; you decide that they're VAULTKEEPERS and RUNESMITHS. Set a color per faction, write its description, and upload an icon or generate one with AI.
How many sides compete
Two factions is enough for a rivalry. Eight works for a large org. Split by department, mix departments on purpose, or let the enrollment ceremony sort people to keep the sides even.
Your values and what they're worth
Values live at the workspace level and carry across every theme. Name them after the behavior you want, give each one a point weight, and every themed award is tagged to one.
Whether there's a prize at the end
The Boon Shop is optional in every theme. Run purely on standings and bragging rights, or convert points into boons and let factions spend them on rewards you define.
The welcome moment
Each theme ships its own sorting artifact: the Book of Abracadabra, a Star Map, a Skeleton Key. Turn the enrollment ceremony on for a memorable first day, or off to assign people yourself.
Why any of this matters
A new theme is a clean slate
Programs die when the same three names sit at the top of the same leaderboard forever. Ending a season and opening the next one in a different world resets the standings and the story at the same time.
Fiction lowers the stakes
Nobody wants to lose a performance metric. Losing the season trophy to another crew is fun. The theme gives people permission to compete hard about something that is openly, obviously a game.
It creates an identity worth defending
"I'm on the data team" is an org chart fact. "I'm in Deep Space and we're 40 credits behind" is a reason to go thank the person who covered your on-call.
It sounds like your company
The vocabulary is yours, so recognition reads like an inside joke your team is in on rather than a notification from a vendor's HR portal.
Where the theme lives in setup
Theme is step one of the season wizard, before the name, the Slack channel, and the factions, because everything downstream inherits it. Change your mind later and you can simply run the next season somewhere else. The full walkthrough is in How to set up a new season, and the groups your theme renames are covered in How teams & factions work.
Frequently asked questions
How many themes does KaBoon have?+
Seven. Wizarding (Houses competing for Mana), Galactic (Legions and Credits), Kingdoms (Orders and Honor), Wasteland (Clans and Scraps), Dojo (Schools and Spirit), Pirates (Crews and Dabloons), and Default (plain Teams earning Merits).
Does the theme change how recognition actually works?+
No. Themes are presentation: names, currency labels, colors, and the flavor of the enrollment ceremony. Awards, values, point totals, faction roll-ups, leaderboards, and boons behave identically in every theme.
Can each season use a different theme?+
Yes, and most teams do. Theme is the first step of season setup, so a new season can mean a new world. Standings reset, factions can be redrawn, and the program feels new again without any migration work.
Can we name our own factions?+
Yes. The theme gives you the vocabulary (houses, crews, legions, clans) and you supply everything inside it: faction names, colors, descriptions, and icons you upload or generate with AI.
What if our company does not want a fictional theme?+
Use the Default theme. Factions are simply Teams and the currency is Merits, so the program reads like a workplace tool while every mechanic stays the same.
Where do I pick the theme?+
On the Theme step at the start of the season setup wizard. You can preview each option, and everything downstream (the words for your factions, the currency, and the enrollment ceremony) inherits your choice.
Pick a world and run a season in it
30-day free trial. No credit card. Pick a world, name your factions, and have your crew chasing dabloons by this afternoon.
