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Comment by the8472 | Hacker News Reader

Here's a nice illustration of mechanics vs. graphics. https://twitter.com/robotduck/status/759529875992698880

Oh my gosh I couldn’t disagree more! I have a friend who often plays games muted (on Switch, handheld) and it’s like a completely different experience without the dramatic music. The “decorative” aspects definitely make a game more immersive and add to the emotion of whatever it is you’re trying to accomplish.

Hmmm, the author of the tweet goes into more detail later in the thread. In this case their point wasn’t so much about adding decoration but about lying to the player about the danger.

The game is presenting one thing “this is very dangerous you could slip and fall and die at any minute!” while the mechanics are saying another thing “There is no danger just a linear path”.

It’s not that the author thinks we should remove decoration but that the decoration should be authentic to the situation the player is is in.

If the game is presenting danger, BE DANGEROUS! If the game is presenting anxiety, BE STRESSFUL! But this in between of presenting danger without the play mirroring the experience is disengenuous.

Amusing. I felt the same way in tomb raider. But then I don't find any video game to be particularly immersive (and to pre-empt the inevitable responses, no VR is not immersive at all either). That's not universally true. Many people freak out when something like this happens to their avatar. But tomb raider was the epitome of the cinematic but braindead AAA gameplay genre. In terms of content its actually pretty lean. The game has a linear story and every moment is handcrafted faux-cinematics. Probably a problem, but certainly a different problem than the bloated content issue.

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