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[Neonivek]

Got a quote from steam

The same old mediocre Minecraft mentality of 'Here's an open area. Build something' is as common as the air we breathe. Developers don't actually have to put any creative effort into it as its expected of the player to create their own source of entertainment from what's given to them

It actually sort of made me think and question whether or not sandbox is often used as a crutch and how much credit one can attribute to these games and how much can we just attribute to the player.

Many of these aspects are just a product of the fact that sandbox games are MOSTLY new and so the expectation of quality isn't there just yet.

I can certainly think of plenty of boring and bland open world games that just sort of go "Yeah do stuff here" and you might as well not bother.

I mean I always was someone who always stood up for focused gameplay. I thought people overblown the "amazingness of sandbox and procedural games" as they tended to create uneven levels that, because they are so random, all looked the same in the end. It has been years and Spelunky is still one of the only few games that incorporated the gameplay into their world generation engine (as in the engine was made to make stages somewhat intelligently with the idea of the player going through them and having fun). The rest sort of just haphazardly. There is just something that sandbox games have never been able to replicate is just the quality of a focused game. SURE a tightly focused game might not have as much replay value, ignoring that sandbox games often do it by stretching things out, but in the end you are only going to be mildly entertained by the sandbox for hundreds of hours, but extremely entertained by the focused games for about 4 or 8.

I guess what I mean is...

Sandbox games are sort of in the "early 3d" phase... where they are almost all dreadful but where the newness keeps people buying. Yet I suspect once quality sandboxes come out people will sort of wonder why anyone even played those earlier games... and honestly this second wave cannot come any sooner.

Or at least create a sense of quality in gamers that goes beyond "look at stuff". Like... do things...

[Orange Wizard]

It's pretty much the reason why I can't play Minecraft without a billion mods. I love me a sandbox, but a sandbox is at its most fun when there's already stuff built there. And stuff that's build haphazardly or repetitively gets old pretty soon.
And if there's not a wide variety of stuff you can do... well, I can't be bothered with it.

[ArKFallen]

I guess what I mean is...

Sandbox games are sort of in the "early 3d" phase... where they are almost all dreadful but where the newness keeps people buying. Yet I suspect once quality sandboxes come out people will sort of wonder why anyone even played those earlier games... and honestly this second wave cannot come any sooner.

Or at least create a sense of quality in gamers that goes beyond "look at stuff". Like... do things...

It's pretty much the reason why I can't play Minecraft without a billion mods. I love me a sandbox, but a sandbox is at its most fun when there's already stuff built there. And stuff that's build haphazardly or repetitively gets old pretty soon.
And if there's not a wide variety of stuff you can do... well, I can't be bothered with it.

One of my favorite part of sandboxes are a wide variety of mechanics and how they all tie in to each other. I too find vanilla Minecraft dull as dish water and do it modded or not at all because of my first sentence.

In minecraft my goals generally go in this order: survive, get better at surviving, build a structure, make a cool thing, and then do something ridiculous and fun. My favorite mods change this up because they add more mechanics or interactivity then food, armor, and building.

Spoiler: Looking at 2 older GTA games provide another example (click to show/hide)

Going back to play GTA3 after experiencing GTA San Andreas and a little of GTA4 really slammed this home for me. The draws are gun-play, vehicles, explosives, and going from underdog to city pound. More or less everything you do revolves and is based on money, surviving, or explosions. It made for an attractive game at the time but I like more variety.

I adored San Andreas, more than GTA4 even, as a sandbox because of the way eating, territory, and respect tied in. Ever tried getting some food in a hostile neighbourhood? I would either die, clear the whole street with wreckage everywhere, or escape over a fence burger barely eaten. It got horribly boring eventually because clearing a gang's whole territory was permanent and even with a scrap they would sometimes more or less stop trying.

The draw to sandboxes is doing what you want but lazy or bad game designers don't realize that you need to provide a way for them to do what they want and you need to set limits/boundaries(not necessarily obvious ones) so the players know what their options are!

[MonkeyHead]

Good sandboxes are ones that have some kind of initial set up that you can interact with in some way to cause later emergent complexity. Say, like the EU series of games, where forming the Scandinavian union and colonising the Americas from the North to give a way different later world than you would get if the Spaniards colonized it from the south. That is a whole different sandbox experience than "make it yourself".

[Helgoland]

The draw to sandboxes is doing what you want but lazy or bad game designers don't realize that you need to provide a way for them to do what they want and you need to set limits/boundaries(not necessarily obvious ones) so the players know what their options are!

In short: A sheet of paper and a pencil isn't a good sandbox game.

[Jopax]

Speak for yourself


Though I guess it varies from person to person. Some people just have trouble making their own goals and limitations. Plus there's the infinite possibillities thingy that scares certain folks into not doing much out of fear of missing out on something else.

Heck, I know I need some goals and limitations myself, mostly because I tend to think too big and eventually get bored of the game because my vision is either taking too long or cannot be done at all within the gameworld.


A blank piece of paper on the other hand, that's a whole different game.

[LordSlowpoke]

I'm currently eating cake and popcorn at the same time while chugging down milk and watching a movie while berating my cat for getting fat.
This is a preferable existence.

relevant

[miauw62]

Uh...
UHH....

[Arx]

Gravity's always worked upward, miauw.

[Frumple]

... wouldn't an ASCII tetris be best off using different letters for the different shapes?

[miauw62]

I can use colors :V
(later)

[XXXXYYYY]

Oh yeah, my WTF for today.
I caught myself laughing to music. As in, I was listening to it and feelin pretty damn good, when I stopped for a sec and realized I was laughing out loud. It wasn't even a funny song, or one with lyrics even. I'm pretty sure it was a fast-paced violin or piano song.

Was it one that's seen use in comedies, like te Liberty Bell March, the Hungarian Dance, or Yakkity Sax, or Spanish Flea?

Not even. I think it was either this or this.

Nothing funny related to them at all, which is why it's so strange I was laughing. Just random happy laughter, I guess.

[Furtuka]

You can now make Doom into a visual novel

[BlitzDungeoneer]

You can now make Doom into a visual novel

Technically, you can make anything into a visual novel.
But I know what you mean.

[penguinofhonor]

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