by out4blood
DaviddesJ wrote:
skipsizemore wrote:
You and I have had this discussion before and agreed in principle that complexity, by itself, is a negative thing. Just adding complexity without a corresponding benefit makes a game worse.
I would say that most people have a target level of complexity. Adding complexity beyond their desired level is a negative thing, but reducing it below their desired level is also a negative thing. I think almost all of us can think of games that are too simple for our tastes, just as we can all think of games that are too complex for our tastes.
Games with extremely simple rules, like Go or Backgammon or Hex or Sprouts or Diplomacy, fail to engage some people specifically because they are too simple. That's not the same as shallow or facile; they have been reduced to their "nonsuperfluous" core, but not everyone is looking for that.
Yes, of course, but is it because they are missing the extra complexity for its own sake or because they are missing something else which can only come with the cost of extra complexity?