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[rivon]

a lot of high level quake players actually play with the textures disabled.

Not only high players... Anyone who plays any Quake game (including Warsow etc.) even a bit competitively plays with r_picmip 16 which makes the textures one color and also brightskins. Seeing the enemy is the most important thing.

[Paul Eres]

I think I've mentioned this before. The purpose of graphics is twofold: (i) Create mood (ii) Communicate the game-state. Anything beyond this is superfluous, as well as distracting/detracting from what matters.

mood is kind of vague; it's hard to know whether some use of graphics qualifies as mood or not. it seems to be a catch-all term for 'uses which don't communicate game-state but which i like anyway'. could you give specific examples? i.e. name some graphical elements in a classic game that most of us have played, and classify them as either superfluous or as generating mood

[DavidCaruso]

I think I've mentioned this before. The purpose of graphics is twofold: (i) Create mood (ii) Communicate the game-state. Anything beyond this is superfluous, as well as distracting/detracting from what matters.

However, most people actually enjoy being distracted by superfluous graphical content, which is why games usually come with it.

If most people enjoy being "distracted" by superfluous graphical content then I'd argue it isn't so superfluous after all. It contributes to being immersed in the game, and many titles would lose a pretty important part of what I find valuable in them if not for aesthetics (e.g. classic adventure games.) I don't even think something like R-Type or DoDonPachi (going back to the whole shooter thing) would be nearly as fun if all the graphics were replaced by hitbox rectangles and sound was turned off.

[Paul Eres]

my mental example was this: remember how bosses exploded in mega man, with all those rings coming out of them? that could easily just have been a smaller explosion instead of the cool ring explosion. i don't think it contributes to the mood or game information, but it's still cool

but i wouldn't say the cool mega man explosion is superfluous, at least, if it is, it's the good kind of superfluous, not the bad kind of superfluous

[baconman]

It conveys a sense of victory/defeat that you don't get from minor enemies. I do believe that classifies as "mood." Winning fanfare (or abrupt music stop, in defeat's case) included.

I would say the pillars and windows in Castlevania, structures like that which fundamentally define CV as "a particular place," as opposed to copypastable sewer stuff. I mean, how many level designers have actually been IN an actual sewer system? (I'm SO GLAD they don't convey the sense of smell there.)

[Jasmine]

mood is kind of vague; it's hard to know whether some use of graphics qualifies as mood or not.

Yes, there isn't a dividing line. But I think the Keep-It-Simple principle applies with mood, as it's less about what is made, and more about how it is made.

So we don't aim to generate mood by adding lots of new things specifically for that purpose; rather we aim to generate it mainly by refining the things that already exist (or are needed) to communicate the game state.

[tesselode]

again i don't claim to know anything about sc2 but wouldnt lower detail mean higher readability in most cases? also from what i heard, the game's particle effects can obscure the action sometimes.

I was thinking that lower detail would mean less detail to distinguish between different objects, but you might be right. Higher detail = busier screen.

I haven't really noticed the particle effects getting in the way or anything.

[Paul Eres]

mood is kind of vague; it's hard to know whether some use of graphics qualifies as mood or not.

Yes, there isn't a dividing line. But I think the Keep-It-Simple principle applies with mood, as it's less about what is made, and more about how it is made.

So we don't aim to generate mood by adding lots of new things specifically for that purpose; rather we aim to generate it mainly by refining the things that already exist (or are needed) to communicate the game state.

this seems to contradict what you said earlier, because now you're saying that mood should only be generated through things which give information about the game state. wouldn't this mean that, for example, graphical elements which communicate no game state at all are always bad? for instance, the rain effect in a link to the past during the start of the game. or the little animals which run around in knytt and knytt stories and within a deep forest that the player cannot interact with. or shooting stars in the background of a starry sky. or little sparkle effects that occur on bodies of water in various games. i think it'd be a pity to remove things like that just because they don't provide information about the game state

[stevesan]

mood is kind of vague; it's hard to know whether some use of graphics qualifies as mood or not.

Yes, there isn't a dividing line. But I think the Keep-It-Simple principle applies with mood, as it's less about what is made, and more about how it is made.

So we don't aim to generate mood by adding lots of new things specifically for that purpose; rather we aim to generate it mainly by refining the things that already exist (or are needed) to communicate the game state.

this seems to contradict what you said earlier, because now you're saying that mood should only be generated through things which give information about the game state. wouldn't this mean that, for example, graphical elements which communicate no game state at all are always bad? for instance, the rain effect in a link to the past during the start of the game. or the little animals which run around in knytt and knytt stories and within a deep forest that the player cannot interact with. or shooting stars in the background of a starry sky. or little sparkle effects that occur on bodies of water in various games. i think it'd be a pity to remove things like that just because they don't provide information about the game state

Or the dialogue in Portal 1/2...

I think you absolutely can and should add things that only serve to set the mood. They should not, however, contradict or get in the way of the gameplay (unless you're doing this on purpose to make a point). "Keep It Simple, Stupid" is more of an engineering principle rather than an artistic one.

[Jasmine]

this seems to contradict what you said earlier, because now you're saying that mood should only be generated through things which give information about the game state. wouldn't this mean that, for example, graphical elements which communicate no game state at all are always bad?

Your use of Only and Always suggests to a dividing line, when I am arguing the opposite. That is why I did not use those absolutes...

we aim to generate it mainly by refining the things that already exist (or are needed) to communicate the game state.

[Jasmine]

"Keep It Simple, Stupid" is more of an engineering principle rather than an artistic one.

It's a principle of elegance, which applies to art as much as it applies to engineering.

[rek]

"Keep It Simple, Stupid" is more of an engineering principle rather than an artistic one.

It's a principle of elegance, which applies to art as much as it applies to engineering.

The graphic design equivalent is "Less Is More".

[Fallsburg]

a lot of high level quake players actually play with the textures disabled. i know a former pro counterstrike (pre-cs:s) player and he exclusively played the game in 800x600 for some reason i cant remember right now.

ive heard stuff about starcraft 2 players playing on the lowest settings to make the graphics more readable too, but i don't play sc2 so someone else can probably tell you more about that.

I think this gets at the heart of a lot of design issues, mainly what does it mean for something to be fun?

To the high level Quake player, winning is fun, and so anything that can help them win is going to make the game better; However, the average user would probably find those same settings to be ugly, and it would make the game less fun. 

So, I guess the answer is a hearty, "It depends."  Personally, I find mood enhancing graphics to be good, even at the occasional loss of readability, but others might feel different. 

[msilver]

@Fallsburg and I guess a lot of other people. Fun is really a red herring. Yes, games should be fun. They also shouldn't have bugs in them that cause them to crash. That isn't what games are about. Films should be entertaining, but film makers set out to do more than make something entertaining. They, in the case of films with artistic merit, have specific feelings and thoughts they wish to evoke in audiences. The entertainment and the fun are more emergent properties. Game creators should not be making aesthetic presentation choices on a "more fun" basis, not because more fun is bad but because that analysis won't answer your creative questions properly.

So, this argument of who should rule, design or art, is somewhat pointless. Great games are great in all regards. All the elements, art, sound, design... its as if you made boards for each of them... should work together to express the artistic goals of the work. I mean, who cares if particle effects on an explosion really count as sound design b/c the explosion was all about the kaboom? What you really want is for the player to feel excitement, or surprise, or sadness, or so on when the explosion goes off.

Fortunately for game creators, it seems you can get by with neglecting some of the areas, or even lacking artistic purpose. I think that may be what upsets OP about Angry Birds. But keep in mind, that they went a bit further with their aesthetic elements than many of the games it copied. And surely if AB had been just abstract and ugly geometry no one would have bought it. I'm not sure if the game in its finished form lends itself to any deeper artistic purpose though, so a re-remake might be misguided.

TLDR: What we should aspire to is making games that have really cohesive elements that serve a greater artistic purposes.

[C.A. Sinner]

So, I guess the answer is a hearty, "It depends."  Personally, I find mood enhancing graphics to be good, even at the occasional loss of readability, but others might feel different. 

the thing is that imo "mood" doesn't apply to most multiplayer games, and especially games like quake, in the same way. of course competitive multiplayer games can be intense, thrilling etc, probably moreso than singleplayer games. but i dont think ive ever played quake 3 and thought "holy shit im in a postapocalyptic world shooting people with guns," even though i dont play with textures disabled.