discussion Do You Like Sandbox Elements in Visual Novels?

[elisa]

I absolutely hate it. I play these games usually for the story, in the same manner as reading a choose-your-own-adventure. So when games make me do these nonsensical grinds, it just gets in the way of the story with no meaningful payoff.

 

[Arachel]

Sandbox simply isn't worth the time and hassle more often than not. They're usually not good "games" as in they're just filling time to say they fill time and don't really have compelling gameplay to merit the existence of the sandbox and grind.

 

[korochan48]

I'm already grinding in a game called life why do I want to bother again in sandbox. Grinding are only good in MMO but only because you are grinding together with your friends.

 

[yuji]

I don't mind sandbox grinding if the reward is worth it,but I really hate when I have to do the same things multiple times haha

 

[asdasd123]

but sometimes when you finnish a quest and then have to search the whole map for a new one and thats super shit when you dont have any hint system

 

[Anonbernd]

IT can be fine, but it's worse when it's "sandbox" and the paths are mandatory. Illusion of choice

 

[User_35122]

I Pretty much share your opinion on them. Grind without little to no progress and without a purpose is dumb.

 

[Fugarama]

not a fan of grinding, but if the sandbox is well done, sometimes I prefer it to normal vn

 

[dafom847]

usually i don't like grind getting in the way of my porn. But sometimes the grind is so good that i forget what i actually came here for.

 

[Lewddriack]

Personally i like sandbox way more then simple Visual Novels cause it gives me at least some kind of gameplay.

 

[DrPark]

Personally i like sandbox way more then simple Visual Novels cause it gives me at least some kind of gameplay.

Same here. The classic VNs where you just read'n'click to advance with the occasional illusion of choice gets boring after a while unless the story is really good.
With sandbox you get actually some gameplay and the feeling of having earned it when you finally get to the next base with the girl, while with VNs you're just along for the ride.
So yes, a well made sandbox is something I love, but there are oh-so-many ways for devs to shoot themselves into the knee and make the whole thing unplayable,

• Horrendous navigation. When a simple house turns into a confusing labyrinth of arrows scattered around.
• No indication of where what who or when something is. Often paired with slow and horrendous navigation and moving between zones costs time, so everything becomes a tedious exercise in clicking and reloading.
• Non-obvious progression through repeat-events. Why would I waste time to repeat that event if I think it does nothing?
• Money/Stat grind that isn't also some kind of story progress. I get that money and stats are an important tool to pace progress and forcing players to prioritize... but if all that means that the player spends a few ingame-weeks with a work-gym-study-sleep cycle and then get everything right away anyways? That's just a dumb timesink without story purpose.
• A VN that's simply masked as "sandbox". You have a map. You have locations you can visit. But you still need to follow a set path of steps. In that case the sandbox just wastes time and adds clicks, but the story is indistinguishable from a VN. Just make it a VN!
• ...and probably many more potential traps that I forgot.

 

[friendofhteshow]

Most of the time they're used as a crutch to make people overlook lack of content or just straight up bad game design

 

[spacebars52]

Super grindy sandbox games are terrible

 

[Jimdoe12345]

I like the sandbox when there is content and the search part is rewarding.

 

[Rupopopo]

Sometimes i find sandboxgames very entertaining but when you have to start looking around for a clue in every possible part of the map to advance 0.001% and there is no clear directives the game goes in the trashcan faster then fuck.

That's always more of an end game problem isn't it? You're having fun when everywhere you go is somewhere new with something novel, but then you gotta start backtracking for all the stuff you missed. For me though I don't really mind that. If I'm in the mood for a really big sandbox game I'm probably in the mood to just sit and do nothing but that for a while. Headspace is important.

 

[staller]

I use sandbox tag to exclude games from my search. I may play a sandbox game if it has a good hint system and I don't have to use my brain.

 

[DrPark]

I think one of the issues why sandbox has such a bad rep is that devs tend to release their first version WAY to early. As a result you have a game with promise but it's so empty that you end up having nothing to do most time and just skip time to find this one event that will progress you a bit.
Makes the whole thing feel tedious and dumb even if it would happen naturally during gameplay if the game were further along its development and filled with content.

 

[kimerstar]

if game can provide two modes : novel mode and sand box mode as choices. it can be better.
not like sand box game with grinding actions

 

[cneku]

I enjoy sandboxes when it is only to choose what you wanna do next, like Apartment69, but if it has grinding first thing Im gonna do is open cheat console and move with my life

 

[fyl3toys]

I think the sandbox style of game is a horrible feature for a porn game. I avoid those games like the plague.