To give a somewhat contrived example, consider Super Mario Bros (the NES classic): One of the central mechanics of the game is the fact that Mario can jump pretty high. Indeed, inherited from his predecessor Jumpman, and carried through to modern games, the ability or inability to Jump Pretty High™ has been a staple of the series.
Now imagine, for the sake of argument, that a developer for SMB had instead decided to give Mario a much shorter jump height. The game would feel more constrained, and you'd have to be much more clever about how you navigate the game world. SMB canon gives a stro…