Are most people like you ? Because it seems like everyone in my game thread says no to sandbox.. ah well. I guess I gotta put up a poll
Clearly not or I would enjoy a lot more games
, but when I talk to people who hate them, it always comes down to those two things.
Too much grind. (not too bad here).
No idea about what to do. (descent hint system here)
Both of these things can be avoided with not requiring grind to do anything, and having a good hint system. Many sandbox games get this right, and this is one of the better ones.
There should be fun repeatable events, but not make them required to do anything, and try to provide some variation in there. Most of all, they need to be fun, not just there to be there. Never put in grind for the sake of grind if you can avoid it. Any thing you do want to do, make sure it make sense, is fun, and not too repetitive/hard.
Make sure you have a journal or something to track your progress, and tell them what they need to know. It can be hard to find a balance between being too direct or too cryptic, but this game usually gets it pretty well.
The thing is, you can't make a game that will make everyone happy, some people like to think, others want their hand held the whole time and told exactly what to do. It is hard to make both groups happy, no matter what you do someone will complain, and sometimes the ones who complain the loudest are not always in the majority. Polls are good, to some degree, but you might want to have a public one, and one for your supporters. Though, sometimes things get a bad wrap, some people will always thing of the worst example, and hold that up as an example of the whole genre, like sandboxes or Unity games.
Obviously, some things will attract a big crowd, like incest, but games like this do fine without it, even though you can't go a few pages without someone asking for it or complaining it was removed. What really matters is that you are making the kind of game you want to play. It is hard to work on something you don't like, and when you love what you do, people can see the passion. Ignore the haters, and just try to make the best game you can.
