- Jun 2, 2018
- 1,688
- 8,906
Sandboxes, why I hate them, and why I took it out.
tldr; most porn games don't really have sandboxes, they have boring grinds that waste my time.
There is no tag (well, maybe Scat (if you like it, that's fine, but not my thing)) that will make me click away faster from a game other than Sandbox. A game needs to have something truly special to make me endure the pain of a sandbox. But why do I dislike them so much? Simple, in most porn games, they aren't sandboxes, they are a boring grind of randomly clicking around (or following a guide, in or out of game) until the story decides to happen.
First, what is a sandbox? If you've only played porn games you might think it's clicking from room-to-room, wandering around until the story finally slaps you in the face. And, that isn't a sandbox at all. That's a wandering mechanic (I think popularized by "Milfy City"? and just copied over and over into every game since). So what's the difference?
Let me change the representation to help paint a clearer picture of what's really going on. Rooms/locations are just an affectation, at the end of the day, what's really happening is that the player is clicking on menu options. Some options take you to more menus with more buttons, some options take you to events.
In an actual sandbox game, most of those buttons will take you to an event (even if it's not the event you were looking for). Yes, some will still go to "sub" menus to do things like "navigate" or "manage", but most of the time clicking the button will launch an event, or give the player an interesting choice. And that event usually won't require that you have clicked lots of other buttons or watched other events first. There can still be story progression, but these are usually self contained, with maybe the occasional influence.
A good example of an actual sandbox porn game would be something like "Degrees of Lewdity", or "Corruption of Champion". Where the player can (at least try and) take the actions they want, without being required to do non-related events first.
In most porn "sandbox" games that is not the case. Most menu buttons don't do anything, they have no events or choices at all behind them, or they tell you to click some other button first. Instead of making interesting choices, and playing just the parts of the game you want, you're still playing a mostly liner game that either gives the illusion of choice, or forces you down a specific path. Want to see this character's next story scene? Well, maybe go talk to all her friends first and do their scenes, then come back. That's simply not a sandbox, but that's what most "sandbox" porn games do.
Or, a simpler example: let's say we have 30 buttons to click. 10 navigate and the other 20 all launch an event or choice. That's a sandbox. Have 30 buttons again, and again 10 navigate, but this time only 3 buttons launch an event or choice, one of which requires you to have click one of the other of those 3 buttons first, and the other 17 buttons don't do anything. That's a wandering game.
"Rick and Morty - A Way Back Home" by Ferdafs, falls into the porn game "sandbox-like" sand-pit of a wandering game. You can't just do one character's story, you MUST do other events first to advance, and a lot of clicks just don't do anything at all (I'm not talking about bugs, I mean when the game is working as intended). Summer is a good example of this in that you HAVE to do things with Tricia first before her story even starts.
And, that was my issue (well, one of many issues, but specifically on topic here the sandbox issue) with the original game. The wander mechanic is fun maybe the first or second time you do it, then it's just a chore. It's not an activity I ever looked forward to doing, and it was never that different from the last time I had to do it. To quote one of my favorite review lines: "You should never, ever, ever, reach that point where you're like 'eh I'll check it later' in a game about checking rooms!" And that's the wandering mechanic in a nutshell. I never want to do it. I have to do.
So a liner game is the solution, right?! That's why I ripped out the "sandbox" stuff an stomped on until I broke my foot? Eh, it's got its own design problems. In place of that wandering mechanic, there is more dialogue to help ease scene transitions, arguably more clicks in most cases. I am stuffing a square peg into a round hole, the story wasn't designed with linearity in mind. While I got it to mostly fit, it's not perfect and does have some issue with the order of a few events, as well as some abrupt transitions. But I would argue it has at least four big advantages:
First, there is no looking for the story, it's all there, you'll see everything.
Second, you don't have to waste hours trying to find the right button to click to take the next step.
Third, things can happen in a much more logical order (for the most part). You're not suddenly confronted by a girl who says she will never ever let you fuck her, right after the scene where you fucked her.
And fourth, it lets events be even more connected because the order they are seen is fixed. We don't need to worry (for the most part) if another event happened or not, and what influence it has on the current event.
Is it perfect, no. Is is better, I would say yes, but a lot of that comes down to personal opinion. If you enjoy the wander mechanic, by all means enjoy it! Don't let some random person on the internet tell you what to like. Am I ever going to put it back in this game? Fuck no.
tldr; most porn games don't really have sandboxes, they have boring grinds that waste my time.
There is no tag (well, maybe Scat (if you like it, that's fine, but not my thing)) that will make me click away faster from a game other than Sandbox. A game needs to have something truly special to make me endure the pain of a sandbox. But why do I dislike them so much? Simple, in most porn games, they aren't sandboxes, they are a boring grind of randomly clicking around (or following a guide, in or out of game) until the story decides to happen.
First, what is a sandbox? If you've only played porn games you might think it's clicking from room-to-room, wandering around until the story finally slaps you in the face. And, that isn't a sandbox at all. That's a wandering mechanic (I think popularized by "Milfy City"? and just copied over and over into every game since). So what's the difference?
Let me change the representation to help paint a clearer picture of what's really going on. Rooms/locations are just an affectation, at the end of the day, what's really happening is that the player is clicking on menu options. Some options take you to more menus with more buttons, some options take you to events.
In an actual sandbox game, most of those buttons will take you to an event (even if it's not the event you were looking for). Yes, some will still go to "sub" menus to do things like "navigate" or "manage", but most of the time clicking the button will launch an event, or give the player an interesting choice. And that event usually won't require that you have clicked lots of other buttons or watched other events first. There can still be story progression, but these are usually self contained, with maybe the occasional influence.
A good example of an actual sandbox porn game would be something like "Degrees of Lewdity", or "Corruption of Champion". Where the player can (at least try and) take the actions they want, without being required to do non-related events first.
In most porn "sandbox" games that is not the case. Most menu buttons don't do anything, they have no events or choices at all behind them, or they tell you to click some other button first. Instead of making interesting choices, and playing just the parts of the game you want, you're still playing a mostly liner game that either gives the illusion of choice, or forces you down a specific path. Want to see this character's next story scene? Well, maybe go talk to all her friends first and do their scenes, then come back. That's simply not a sandbox, but that's what most "sandbox" porn games do.
Or, a simpler example: let's say we have 30 buttons to click. 10 navigate and the other 20 all launch an event or choice. That's a sandbox. Have 30 buttons again, and again 10 navigate, but this time only 3 buttons launch an event or choice, one of which requires you to have click one of the other of those 3 buttons first, and the other 17 buttons don't do anything. That's a wandering game.
"Rick and Morty - A Way Back Home" by Ferdafs, falls into the porn game "sandbox-like" sand-pit of a wandering game. You can't just do one character's story, you MUST do other events first to advance, and a lot of clicks just don't do anything at all (I'm not talking about bugs, I mean when the game is working as intended). Summer is a good example of this in that you HAVE to do things with Tricia first before her story even starts.
And, that was my issue (well, one of many issues, but specifically on topic here the sandbox issue) with the original game. The wander mechanic is fun maybe the first or second time you do it, then it's just a chore. It's not an activity I ever looked forward to doing, and it was never that different from the last time I had to do it. To quote one of my favorite review lines: "You should never, ever, ever, reach that point where you're like 'eh I'll check it later' in a game about checking rooms!" And that's the wandering mechanic in a nutshell. I never want to do it. I have to do.
So a liner game is the solution, right?! That's why I ripped out the "sandbox" stuff an stomped on until I broke my foot? Eh, it's got its own design problems. In place of that wandering mechanic, there is more dialogue to help ease scene transitions, arguably more clicks in most cases. I am stuffing a square peg into a round hole, the story wasn't designed with linearity in mind. While I got it to mostly fit, it's not perfect and does have some issue with the order of a few events, as well as some abrupt transitions. But I would argue it has at least four big advantages:
First, there is no looking for the story, it's all there, you'll see everything.
Second, you don't have to waste hours trying to find the right button to click to take the next step.
Third, things can happen in a much more logical order (for the most part). You're not suddenly confronted by a girl who says she will never ever let you fuck her, right after the scene where you fucked her.
And fourth, it lets events be even more connected because the order they are seen is fixed. We don't need to worry (for the most part) if another event happened or not, and what influence it has on the current event.
Is it perfect, no. Is is better, I would say yes, but a lot of that comes down to personal opinion. If you enjoy the wander mechanic, by all means enjoy it! Don't let some random person on the internet tell you what to like. Am I ever going to put it back in this game? Fuck no.
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