[Daventry]

Originally Posted by Simo Sakari Aaltonen

Excellent point here, however, I would like to qualify it, as far as my own preferences are concerned, by specifying that the areas we do get to visit and explore should be open to extensive poking around and examination. Everything on the screen should be possible to interact with in some way, even if it just a LOOK comment.

I feel the same should apply to the sight of a distant village in the horizon. If the player character refused to even acknowledge it (like most of the environments in many of the Lucasfilm/LucasArts games), it would render it insubstantial to us. I think this was implicit in the original post, or at least that is how I interpreted it.

But as stated in the original post, it would kill the imaginative engagement if everything was hermetically sealed with exposition or mere explanation, which is why in this example it would be better to have the player character willing to comment on the village in the horizon, but at least somewhat unfamiliar with it. Then we would share his curiosity.

So my personal modification of the wish would be, "Less is more; too much is less; too little is nothing."

Simo, I couldn't have said it better myself!