Opinionated in this context usually means “doing their own thing” or “trying again from basics” instead of following the herd and being like everyone else.
The standard new house isn’t opinionated - a custom build with features not normally seen could be.
Opinionated usually results in love it or hate it style design - unless they happen on something that just becomes standard.
The original Jobs iPhone was opinionated - an all touchscreen design went against the common “knowledge” that a physical keyboard was the way to go.
I was always stuck by how different all the cars in the BYD line are. There are some pretty bold styling and fitout choices between the models.
I have mostly driven BMW and Toyota sedan and fwd's. And as you progress in car price and size its a matter of getting more features, and a better version over the cheaper model.
Isn't that the opposite of being opinionated? In software I've heard "opinionated" about programs that limit configurability in favor of one fits all default. I believe it was Ruby on Rails which popularized the term.
For cars, I guess Henry Ford's anecdotal comment that "you can have any color you like as long as it's black" was a form of opinionated design. If BYDs cars are all different, surely they're less opinionated?
Instead of having a bland, don’t-take-any-strong-decision, please-every-one design ("un opinionated"), each car has its own very distinct design ("opinionated").
You could say that at a brand level, they are equally "opinionated" because the average car of each brand is average, but the OP argues that BYD does it by sampling N very distinct points from the car distribution, and other by sampling N times the same average point.
> In software I've heard "opinionated" about programs that limit configurability in favor of one fits all default
While this is one form of opinionated, it really just means that they are doing their own thing different from the other established players. This could mean MORE configurability in some cases. Another poster also said it, but opinionated just means that they have taken a stand in product design (features, looks, usability, etc) that they think it correct and it does not bow to 'the herd'. IMO, an opinionated design is neither good nor bad, but it is respected by me.
>Why is it ever different between winter and summer?
Because doing 120kph on an icy road or in heavy rain is a recipe for disaster. Northern Europe isn't California. The temperature ranges from +30C to -30C during the year.
SimCity and Railroad Tycoon have technological change over time, but it's just keyed to the date. It sounds like you want a game that nobody has invented yet; perhaps you should be the one who invents it.
I would loooove for a C:S like city builder where you start in something like a medieval age and then you progress through time. It would be amazing to have nice historical city centers like in Italy or Spain, and this could be heavily changed for different regions (make DLCs for different country styles, like Japan or even USA where you would get to build wild west cities before going into themodern age). Then your city would really feel as if it grew more organically.
Workers & Resources: Soviet Republic has afaik some degree of time progression and development. Overall its a game with surprisingly deep mechanics underlying a zany surface layer.
I'm intrigued. What do you mean?