Cody Miller wrote:Even though you locked the thread because nobody was understanding, I believe I can provide an example of a seemingly purely aesthetic choice that actually affects mechanics, and vice versa.
If we tackle your example of the font in a heads up display, making the font uglier does in fact have an influence on the mechanics. Part of many games involves knowing information presented to you in the HUD, whether it be your life count, your score, or your chains. Making the font uglier would make this information slightly harder to discern during action occurring in the game, because all other things being equal, it would require more focus to keep track of the values (because they are harder to discern, it may take a few more milliseconds to process your chains in Ikaurga for example.) If the typeface is made so ugly that the chain information is not discernible at all, then it requires even more focus, since chaining would involve mentally keeping track of how many enemies of each color you have killed and what number your chain is at. Thus, every change to the HUD to make the font uglier is widening the skill gap between the best and worse chainers, because the more clearly the information is presented to you, the less focus it requires to manage it.
Likewise, in choosing to have a score or a rank in your game (a mechanic), you are making an aesthetic choice because you are saying that a certain type of play is more perfect than another. In Ikaruga, chaining gets you a higher rank, therefore the designers aesthetically value chaining more than they do mindless shooting.
Very much enjoy your site, and am looking forward to your book.
This is the same facile form of thinking that everyone above has adopted: I say purely aesthetic change, and they give me a change that is in no way purely aesthetic. Then I clarify that I want a PURELY AESTHETIC change, and they again give me the same shit, AS IF IT WAS NOT THE SAME SHIT!
Why does UGLIER have to be HARDER TO DISCERN? Of course it doesn't -- it could in fact be EASIER TO DISCERN. All you are doing is connecting two unconnected things in order TO APPEAR to answer my question, while in fact YOU HAVEN'T EVEN GRASPED IT, let alone answered it.
A purely aesthetic change, in this context, is a change THAT IS IMPOSSIBLE TO CONNECT TO MECHANICS, as we understand the term mechanics -- AND YET EVERYONE IS GIVING ME CHANGES WHICH ARE CHILDISHLY EASY TO CONNECT TO MECHANICS. "Blah blah blah hard to discern bullets, colors blah blah blah."
ENOUGH ALREADY!
Anyway, I guess this thread has served its purpose, which was to demonstrate to me that no other human being could even begin to understand the question, let alone answer it.
See the problem is that when you make a purely aesthetic change to a game, you do not in any way affect its possibility space. And if you do not affect its possibility space then you are certainly not affecting its mechanics -- at least in the way that we commonly understand the term "mechanics".
But the way we commonly understand the term mechanics is a very narrow one, and when looking at the greater picture we must replace it by a greater one. It is this greater one which I am referring to in the title of this thread -- and the same goes for the term "aesthetics". For there is a narrow definition of aesthetics as well as a greater one. It is the two greater varieties that blend together and are ultimately impossible to distinguish, whilst the narrow ones are quite easy to tell apart.
More in the article in which I'll be dealing with this subject.