This blog is written for the assignment of the GSND 5110 course. I am commenting on the MDA framework in game design, which states that all games consist of three parts: the mechanics, the dynamics and the aesthetics.
Okay, so first, before answering the requested discussion topics, I want to shout out:
No. It is not M-D-A; it is just A.
To me, aesthetics is the only "root" factor that drives the game designing process. Let me explain why.
First thing first, we need to get straight a couple definitions:
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An art is a technique or skill to deliver feelings/experiences. For example, drawing is a handicraft to present visual stimuli, and music is a mixture of composing skills and instrumental performance to deliver audible experiences.
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Aesthetics is the feelings of people towards something that make them like/dislike it. These feelings don't have to be good, like horror films create a horrible feeling which is usually considered bad; and the object doesn't have to be an art piece, like most people find nature beautiful.
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A (digital) game is a piece of interactive art (and presented in an digital media).
You might disagree with my definition of games, like, it has nothing to do with what we would usually think about games—"fun". But I would argue that this is a more generalized definition that fits not only for the classical kinds of "fun" games, but also many new things that are often not considered as games, e.g. an interactive video or one of those kind of foolish interactive webpages. You could say that, in a sense, that part of "fun" is just one (major) kind of experience that interactive media could deliver, but there are way more other kinds of experiences that could be delivered. For example, have you ever seen a kiosk in a museum that explains something being exhibited? That delivers knowledge. And could we consider that as a game? Yes, educational game!
Anyway. I hope you could accept this definition of game of mine. So in this definition, a game is just a piece of art, and what's most important for an art? It's deliverables! For a game, the deliverable is just the A—aesthetics, which in this case literally translates into player experiences. All the other factors—the M and the D—are just the skills used to create the desired kind of A that the designers wanted to deliver to players.
Now back to the requested topics.
What is my favorite aesthetic in games and why?
Urban vibes.
I play many games that are related to settlements: Cities: Skylines, Age of Empires, Grand Theft Auto, Euro Truck Simulator, Minecraft, etc, etc., and I really like to focus on urban construction or the urban vibes in these games. Like when I play Age of Empires, I only beat bots and I'm never hurry on rushing enemie's towns; instead I control the lands and develop my civilization. After I completed the storyline GTA V, I don't continue on playing the online mode, but instead I like to take virtual trips in Los Santos occationally as a way to relax my mind. I've been playing Minecraft since primary school, but I had never slayed the dragon for once; all I did in that game is just building little towns, alone or with friends.
Looking at these screenshots now I genuinely feel missing.
The urban vibe and the feeling of using creativity is one side, the other side is about reminiscence. I've always wanted to recreate the block I was born in with Unreal engine, but sadly I'm just a developer, I don't have those required skills to make the models and the materials, so it still just remains a dream. I also wanted to make a open-world story game like GTA, but the map would be a smaller version of my hometown Beijing, or my undergraduate university. I've designed the maps already, but still I have no idea where to start on actually making it. Sad.
As for the reason, I don't really know why I liked these elements, and I don't think I can ever explain them, just as I can't explain why I liked bitter beers. But if I had to say something, I'd address this result to random fluctuation. Similar to human language—why does English treat number as a grammatical feature but Chinese does not? It just happened to be so! There had to be a choice because a language must exist, and the history radomly made its decision. Same thing on me—I must have a preference and these elements happen to be them. I hope this would be a satisfying enough answer.