We agree. We hope to be the only exception, but we have to learn along the way, so every help is welcome.
Things like "Sandbox bleah" or "This update adds nothing" are useless. We already know that. Thank you.
People that pinpoint bugs or, like you, explain why sandbox is bad, instead, are very helpful.
So, let us explain what we have in mind for our sandbox.
Search for content: it's like the whole point of sandbox. But going around clicking everything is pointless. There will be an official walkthrough asap and, in the game, there will be tiers of hints, where the player decide how much he wants to be guided.
Skip time to wait for content: what is the points of this? I mean, it has some sense but, the only need for it is to "Next event with char is a midnight swim. You cannot have it in the morning". Except that, there is no point in waiting.
Progress with other char first: WHY? Like, if you have to have an event with two chars, just warn the player that if they don't progress with one of the chars, some content might be skipped or avoided or unavailable, but don't prevent the player to play the event anyway. In too many games you have to progress with a character that you don't have interest in, only to be able to progress with another one.
Grinding: there will be some minor grinding, but what is the point of repeat something only too many times to get a scene? Every grinding in our games will be easely skippable, if you want to.
Said that, I hope to have clarified how the sandbox tag in our game will be. We welcome advices and critics, but, please, avoid repeating over and over "Sandbox bleah". Thank you.
honest question:
If you KNOW that senseless clicking around is useless... and you already KNOW that you will have to put a walktrough to exactly tell players when, where and how to progress the game...
... then why adding sandbox at all?
You can keep the extra work and script a straight ordinary "oldschool" VN and have the same effect.
You basicially say that your sandbox will be a "guided path" (by walkthrough) - so please abandon wt and sandbox and do a nice VN.
Just saying: a sandbox where you NEED a walkthrough is EXACTLY that kind of sandbox we player complain about.
Sandbox games are hard to make the right way and definitively NOTHING for new developers for their first game at all.
(just my humble opinion)
EDIT:
Just to show you that there is absolutely NO reason to do a sandbox at all. A sandbox is nothing else but a normal VN with senseless clicking.
I show you why:
Let's have for example 10 locations with 5 sub-locations. Lets say at location 3.2, 5.3, 2.1 and 8.4 are events.
So in sandbox you have 4 events in 50 locations - you click through the 50 locations to find one of the 4 events - that's just boring.
You can do the SAME outcome without sandbox in a normal VN:
Once you reach that point, just open a menu:
"what do you want to do now?"
Choices:
1.) go to event 1
2.) go to event 2
3.) go to event 3
4. ) go to event 4
-> no senseless clicking, no sandbox needed (no citymap enviroment and no in-location-navigation), easier to code, but SAME effect.
Developers still think that sandbox gives players more free space to decide, but it never does. It always adds grind and senseless clicking.
The few good sandbox games, which actually really add the possibility to do several paths aside each other on free decition of players choice, are more than rare and VERY hard to code. Actually it's really nothing for new developers, and also big developers who know exactly what to do actually struggle to create good sandbox games.
So i would really advice to quit NOW as there is just few content, rather than later when a huge part is already done, which probably will mess up everything and maybe lead into a need to rework the whole game. Getting lost players back after they left your game is nearly impossible - already shown by other games which had to be abandonned because nearly no one supported anymore after a messed up sandbox-grind-feast.