I used to have a really long rambling description of my aesthetic preferences on boardgamegeek and I’ve been wanting to cut it down to the simple statement:
I like asymmetry.
But yesterday, I just realized that is not exactly true. I do indeed love asymmetry as the most heroic of aesthetic gestures. But I may actually have a greater appreciation for tightly constrained variety, such as Bach’s Goldberg Variations, the literary style exercises of the Oulipo group, and boardgame designs like Coloretto or Container.
There was one other word I wanted to slip into the short statement – elegance. But it is a very slippery term which needs explanation, and I couldn’t figure out how to do it elegantly. Maybe its better to just let it sit unspoken in the background. So for now I think I’ll go with:
I like asymmetry and systematic variety. A saber and a box of chocolates.
Less pithy, but a bit more picturesque and maybe a little more accurate.