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'Sandbox' games - yay or nay?

RossoX

RossoX

Active Member
Jun 3, 2021
747
968
Boogie said:
I prefer VN, but mostly because a lot of sandbox games have no reason to be a sandbox. Was playing a sandbox game last night where I had to click through 4-10 time periods every time to find a new event. And most events were completely linear. If your game has dead time, meaning the player doesn't have something to do constantly, it's just bad game design.
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The truth is that most of the games here who fashion themselves as "sandbox" are designed poorly exactly like that: piss-poor implementations that are just glorified click-galleries. There's barely any true sandbox simulations or interactions and even when there is it is poorly done with bad UI that doesn't give enough feedback to players so as to where to go or what to do, you stay lost and don't know how to interact with the game's systems and events.

I personally prefer sandbox because when they are good they're really good, but on the other hand it is very easy to make a bad sandbox game, and when they're bad they SUCK BALLS

Case in point: just look at 70% of games on this site lol
 
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JoGio

JoGio

Member
Jun 19, 2018
124
136
I like the idea of sandbox games but they tend to be poorly implemented. First of all, a lot of content is needed or else it fells like a VN with tedious navigation mechanics.

Second of all, I believe there should be more interaction between different game mechanics. For example, an event goes a certain way, but if you get item x, you get access to an alternate or extended version of the event. And it's up to the player to make those interactions happen. They're not just quests that are followed. That's what sandbox means to me.

Third, there should be a journal of some sort that keeps track of what the player can do and includes hints as to how to unlock more possibilities. That way the player doesn't have to remember every detail after coming back for an update.

A lot of sandboxes that get released are too sparse and the world feels like a ghost town. That's not good.

On the other hand, a lot of good sandbox games get so much content over time that the player feels lost coming back to them and has to relearn the game all over again. I think this is a communication problem. The player should have a feel for what their options are, what their progress is so far, and what they need to do to get more content.
 
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