The Problem with the "Open World/Sandbox" Game Format

[Holy Bacchus]

"The DeLuca Family" has a unique solution to the narrative problems of sandbox games. It's a sandbox, meaning you can go choose to go from place to place at different times and such, but, it has a button that lets you advance the plot once certain conditions have been met. It's a clever way to have both the freedom of a sandbox with individual character advancement and gives you the ability to tell a cohesive story.

The DeLuca game's advantage is that it doesn't have a point system and multiple branching routes (at least not yet). It's simply about completing certain events but the events change each time to show progress. It's a good example of a game that feels like a sandbox but is actually linear, a little like Man of the House.

 

[Ataios]

The problem is: they don't exist. Calling any present day porn game sandbox or open world is an insult to the developers of real sandbox games.

 

[jamdan]

I think the problem with sandbox games can be summed up in a sentence: They have to have a hint/quest system, but most dont or at least not a good one.

Its not the lack of content, its that you cant find that content to begin with. It basically turns into a blind clicking simulator because you dont know what to do.

 

[baka]

most 3d-sandbox/rpg could have been better if made pure-vn.
so i agree with OP on that.

for 2d-games, theres a bunch, to not forget japanese games that fits well to be open-world/sandbox. i have a few favorite that i had a great time playing.

sure, the same old rpg games start to get repetitive, so its about originality, while vn-styled dont have that problem since the importance is the story/plots, and we know about the issues those games can have, from devs that keeps doing the same plot also receive lower grades.

my team are doing 2d-games, and i decided to go with custom-game-engine since rpgmv is so used and limited.
the result is more originality and thats for me is a key factor. still we have not many supporters, so the next game will be more vn-like to please more people. open-world is not easy to do and please. i feel the 3d-vn is what attract more people. so the question is, why new devs decides to make a sandbox at all.

 

[Adabelitoo]

The problem is: they don't exist. Calling any present day porn game sandbox or open world is an insult to the developers of real sandbox games.

I have to agree with this, all the sandboxes from this site that I played (I am making a game and I recognize that I'm not an exception) with all their locations, characters, and possibilities, are just linear games that gives the player the illusion and feeling of freedom.

Every game I played and every "research" I did before I started my own game has basically three options:
1) You choose something and you follow the intended path
2) You choose something and you lost a girl/character forever
3) You choose something and it's game over
So you (1) basically have to do the linear path the devs want or (2) just loose a character and loose content, because most of the time missing that character won't change your path, you will have the same events with the same girls except for that girl but mc's life will keep going as if nothing happened, or (3) just game over and load your save, that is as deep as the game over options goes

The only exception that I found about what I just said, is that by missing a character or maybe triggering one particular event you will get a bad ending, and that is something important in this word of course, but that is something that any linear VN can offer you anyways, but the idea of "Oh, I have all this freedom and still I messed up" hits stronger

Now, this isn't what the thread goes about, but I think that RPGM games do everything that people have mentioned until now, and they do it even worse. Every single RPGM that I played would be WAAY better as a Ren'Py sandbox, RPGM games are usually the living proof of the emptyness that "freedom" gives you (in porn games)

 

[anne O'nymous]

I did, yes, but here's the thing, grinding for that money feels different than the grind in other games. In SS, doing daily chores for a reward of money feels like a more worthwhile and realistic grind because your earning something you can actually use in-game to advance the plot as opposed to how games where you're having the same conversation with someone over and over can feel agonisingly repetitive and dull.

What place Summertime Saga over the top is justly the fact that it's not exactly repetitive. Like others grinding games, repeat the action make you advance in the game, but here you effectively see and feel this advancement.
There's too many games where, whatever how far you are in the game, the grinding scenes are always the same. To take the average example of an incest grinding game, whatever if you've reach the time where MC's mother agree to become his cum bucket, when you'll ask for an hand job, she'll say that it's out of question, she'll never do this to her son, and MC have to blackmail her.
It's the problem I personally have with this kind of games. To many authors wrote the scene once, then never go back to it, to add variations according to the actual state of the play.

 

[redknight00]

The DeLuca game's advantage is that it doesn't have a point system and multiple branching routes (at least not yet). It's simply about completing certain events but the events change each time to show progress. It's a good example of a game that feels like a sandbox but is actually linear, a little like Man of the House.

DeLuca does have a point system, it has affection variables for each character, four personal ones plus the combat/money stats, the key difference here is that it doesn't rely on the grind to increase them: all personal and affection stats come from story and events, money and XP are easy and fast o obtain. By the time you actually need the stats, any player who has explored side content in a half decent way should have enough to progress already, so the game does give a sense of progression while not slowing down the pacing to grind each new event.

 

[hameleona]

I'd say - if your whole story is "MC corrupts and fucks his family" you don't really need muchof an open world. A few games pull it off decently, but a map is not an open world (Man of the House curates very carefully what is available and when and balances the lack of content at times with the needs system for example - you always have something that needs doing).
Another game that doesn't make you grind I've played recently was Privet Community. Its not a game, you can not fail, you have no real options, but the game pulls off the illusion of having options well. It has a map, but the locations are again heavily curated and few.
Like, I don't think ether of those games needs a map, but the map doesn't hinder the game. I would actually say it adds to the game letting you do things on your own pace and schedule.
A good example of a game that doesn't need a map is the Gift Reloaded. The map adds nothing to the game. It has a bunch of locations that are empty and at the same time uses the worst of "do or die" storytelling approaches. If a bad choice will always end the game - you don't need a map. I'd even argue you don't need to have choices at all.

Open world is for exploration and engaging with that world. Most adult games don't have the story for such thing. Nor the content. Nor to be honest - the world.

 

[Holy Bacchus]

Yea I hate most of the sandbox / free roam games due to the devs introducing horrible, boring, pointless and stupid grinds that don't give you any reward. And if they do give you a reward, WOW HOW COOL A 3 SECONDS BOOB GRABBING SCENE, THATS AMAZING. Not.

Also I agree that updates from free roam games are way shorter than from a visual novel.
Honestly, most of the times I just think that developers of annoying free roam games want quick cash with little to no effort. Hence the grinding and too little updates.

Take indecent desires as an example. It started as a VN, it was actually a very awesome game and story to follow.
Then they decided to change it from a VN to a sandbox, now it's a dead game with not any new content at all each update.
The free roam is tedious, it is horrible and there is no hint system WHATSOEVER on what you have to do.
Their walkthrough is completely bad written as well to the point where even if you use it, you have to still figure out what the hell to do.

If I see new games and they have sandbox from the beginning, I don't even bother downloading them anymore.
I really can spend my time better. After all I play those games to mostly have a naughty time with myself.
I don't need actual game elements or grinds in an adult game that I play to get off.
If they want to introduce such boring shit in their games, then they should do real games and not adult games like that with sexual content.

Indecent Desires is part of the reason I made this thread. I love the characters of that game and its graphical quality, but it's a disappointing sandbox-type game that would probably be so much better as a VN or a linear open-world game where the story progresses along a set path by completing certain events. Midnight Paradise is also starting to feel like Indecent Desires and it's again disappointing given how good the game looks.

 

[SeventhVixen]

Problem with freeroam games (freeroam, no sandbox as previously commented), is that are not exactly suited exactly for a Patreon monthly update schedule. (depends on how the game handles it exactly, it will better or worst). In the example mentioned of Deluca Family, it's compatible because the division of grind system(mafia works), freeroam events, and plot events, have more room to play in what to add in a update.

A good freeroam feels good when there is reason to the freeroaming (things to do, goals for the MC, reasons to go here and there) and that's much more programming and (if did well) branching situations if you have already done this or that.

All available locations had to have enough content in them so they don't end up being a chore of checking that location for nothing. So when a update introduces a new location, it has to have a lot of content in it, or the whole package decreases in gameplay value.

Summarising, a good freeroam-game update needs more time and careful thought, or it will just a low expectations update.

For me personally, a freeroam game has to be very wisely handled to be correct for the patrons default expectations. As a player, I quite don't like them, because I never know what's in the game and what's not without prior searching and reading what's in the game, and thats is per se quite a spoiler, and I don't do walktroughts. So I prefer any game that tell me clearly while I'm playing, that the content for X part is over and I should not waste my time trying to find more content. <--- And while in a linear game this is easy to do, in a freeroam game means that every update needs extra work.

Some devs make this well ( HopesGaming and Fasder came to my mind) , but others don't. And in the games that don't do that, I'll just not play them anymore once I felt like I'm playing a broken/incomplete empty map.

 

[DawnCry]

A sandbox to be a good sandbox needs to feel like it's alive and it kind of needs random events that contribute to it.

Almost all current sandbox h games are too static.

 

[megaplayboy10k]

Let's posit a game idea that involves seducing 5 people total--ABCDE. As a designer, you have 3 basic options:
1. Completely linear--seduce A, then B, then C, then D, then E. No options as to the order of seduction, and the seductions aren't interdependent.
2. Seduction can happen in any order, and the seductions still aren't interdependent.
3. Seduction progresses in an interdependent manner--you have to unlock X with A before progressing to point Y with B, etc.

What happens in many games is that you wind up with not 5 potential targets of seduction, but 15+, and then you get a kind of mixed approach--still have options as to whom to seduce and when, but some characters require specific events to unlock. And, yes, the programmers don't update the dialogues to reflect changing circumstances, or there's other incongruous stuff. The biggest annoyance is all these conquests being completely unaware of each other, never communicating, etc.
If devs dealt with these issues, there'd be fewer conquests per game, but the story and game would be better.

 

[polywog]

Problem with freeroam games (freeroam, no sandbox as previously commented), is that are not exactly suited exactly for a Patreon monthly update schedule.

How to deal with monthly updates is a different issue that affects game regardless. A linear story, you add days, weeks, months, to progress the linear story. Freeroam updates add nonlinear content to the base game in regular updates such as adding a city block, or opening a previously locked door to a building on the existing map. As your stats improve, you can afford a car for example, this introduces new areas you can travel to. Now being able to reach the farm, you can buy fresh ingredients, increasing the quality of your pizza, bringing you increased business. More pizza orders, and word of mouth advertising opens doors for more deliveries, means new characters added to the game over time. Ethos, Pathos, Logos, Kairos, Topos.
Easier with freeroam, I think. A Linear story follows the character's story, and requires some extra explanation wnd more work for the dev, when the player's wishes go against the character's will. If the linear MC likes blondes, i'm out. No harm, no foul, it's just not my preference. With freeroam, the player gets to choose which girl he takes to the park, to the movie, to the beach, to the hotel. Not stuck with the MC's bad taste. As locations, dates, and girls are added the combinations of game-play grow exponentially. more bang for the buck in free roam. With the linear story, you take the blonde to the beach, and aren't happy about it.

 

[SeventhVixen]

How to deal with monthly updates is a different issue that affects game regardless.

That's right, but a good freeroam is too about choices, and thats the big part that affects programming and rendering time. Freeroam games that just adds story in other places you click to go in is not very different from a linear VN.

Is not only not having only the choice of bringing the blonde to the beach, but bringing the blonde, Or the readhead, or the brunnette, or the slim or the chubby to the beach. You handle that well in the way you make updates, or the updates just could take forever.

Anyway, I'm all in for freeroams. When I say I don't quite like it, I mean how are usually approach using the patreon system of hurry need to update. That goes in line with the complain of the OP. It only shows after months of years of development (like summertime saga), when all locations have stuff to do (But I'm still piss when a dev lets you go to a location where there is nothing do... SS too.)

And thats other reason why I'm not going patreon route. I'm making a freeroam but all places and some people are interconnected, so only playing the full chapter with all locations and characters accessible gives the real experience. If not it's like playing monkey island but half of the items are missing, and "Sorry this game is under construction" signs.