discussion Who plays Sandbox Games?

[Deleted member 175356]

Why do you love to play with sand?

 

[Beegee]

Boy, I sure do.
Some of my favorite games have sandbox elements. Because it's a sandbox. You play in them. I enjoy interacting with the systems in the Game and being an active participant, not just a spectator watching a story play out.

The 'N' in VN stands for Novel, not Game.
And that's okay.

 

[Beegee]

Great but, what systems in particular. You can choose with whom you want to interact first, but thats it.
I dont really see much (more than VN) choice with that.

Depends on the game.
That's another difference.
Sandbox games are actual games, and therefore there are different systems and rulesets in different games. Some have more complexity, some have less. The sandbox is just a part of a larger game.

Visual novels are all identical: Hold down 'ctrl' until naked or choice, half the choices don't actually matter, 20 goto 10.
Not that I dislike VNs, they're good for what they do.

You said yourself; you're not interested in putting any effort into games and just want a quick fap or whatever, and that's valid.
You could also just watch porn instead if you wanted to streamline the process further.

 

[Beegee]

Valid

To be a little fairer to VNs:
VN's are very good at delivering narrative, and if you're more interested in story than gameplay, then that's certainly the way to go. And if the VN has a really good narrative, then the porn might just be an added bonus.

I like the games I like because of the gameplay elements. I like the stats, the resource management, the sense of progression, whatever. The porn is just an added bonus.

One reason I could never be a game dev is that I would either:
A) want complete control of the narrative and just end up writing a short story instead of a VN.
B) create a convoluted mess of unnecessary stats and systems too obtuse to ever finish and be accused of milking my patrons when I'm really just bad at the job.

 

[AlBetGam]

If you like resource management play I can recommend Paradox Games

I love Paradox's games, particularly EU4 and Stellaris.

I also enjoy a good sandbox game- emphasis on the good. When you say:

who invented this shit. I have only two hands, half a brain and not enough willpower to click through 3 screens to get where I want to be.
What sick and twisted person may enjoy such game I will never understand.

...I suspect you've hade one too many experiences with the bad kind.

The tricky part about sandbox games is that they're much harder to do well and to quality test than a VN. You have all the same concerns about renders and writing and coding, but you also have to make sure the gameplay flow is actually fun. A lot of devs don't do this; they basically just take a VN and make you click around a map to see the next scene. And that's just tedious (especially when they do that badly and you don't know where you're supposed to go and there's large gaps of time in between when you can go there). That's not gameplay, it's just padding.

Good sandbox games offer actual gameplay and freedom of choice; you feel a lot more invested in the character and setting, you're actually having fun with just the gameplay, and when you get to the sex scenes you feel like you've earned and accomplished something instead of just clicking until it happened.

Personally my metric is whether I'd enjoy the game without the sex. If you took every sex scene out of Masters of Raana or Devotion and Despondence, you'd still have a pretty good game. If you took them out of Gates: The Opening, you'd have a very dull RPGM walking simulator.

 

[Reyman7775]

Sure as long as the sandbox is like desert stalker or something then hell yeah.

 

[misterchef]

dont like sandbox and pointoclick

 

[RogueOwl]

well most lewd sandbox games are limited in scope. but i have came across a couple that i really got into. unfortunately this was a few years ago and i dont remember their names. I like the ones that give you several options of things to during the day, like besides just hustling the ladies the entire time. work a shift at the local diner, or a lifeguard at the beach. To earn money to spend on not just the girls, but for yourself as well.
i do remember a little about the one sandbox game i really got into, just not the name. The MC what just a normal teen that somehow got invited to be a guinea pig for some big scientific corp. And it had a bad side effect on the MC, he could get anybody to want him. Like literally anyone. Even when he is trying to run away, the women chase him.. dang i wish i could remember what game that was.

 

[greey12]

try summertime saga

 

[GourmetChef]

I like them. Sometimes I want to play a game I can actually engage with, rather than just clicking through lines of dialogue.

 

[s45636526]

It depends. If there is more grinding than game then I will skip

 

[User_174965]

Most Sandbox games suck. It takes wayyy too much effort from the players point of view make progress. It takes wayy too much effort from the Developers point of view unless they are throwing in grind related activities.
Sandbox games in theory can be good, and there are a few exceptional games but such games are outliers.

Even then, most Sandbox games are designed to slow you down either because its coded poorly (not telling you where to go etc) or because the Developer wants the game to SEEM to be a longer game.

 

[Johnsnow421]

Degrees of Lewdity is the only sandbox game that truly aligns with my vision, you can do whatever you want, it's easy to gain stats, and there's always something new to see. I really wish more sandbox games offered the same kind of freedom and depth.

 

[femboyreptile]

really depends on how exactly the sandbox is done i think. most games tagged with "sandbox" here are just 3dcgi Renpy slop with more grind than usual. but there's really good stuff like DOL which already got mentioned, Lilith's Throne, TITS/COC2, where the stats only add to the fantasy of your PC becoming corrupted

 

[BNWOAmbassador]

I've seen a post about the tags there is a "no-go" in VN's... and that's definitely sandbox for me. Noooo

 

[User_88762]

Superpowered, Glassix, Porn Empire, Peasant Quest are all excellent games with sandboxy gameplay.

Personally I dislike straight forward VNs. The ones that just make you click through dialogue to show you different scenes without any gameplay. If I wanted to click through text to get oorn, I would just go and read/watch some hentai.

Very few VNs qualify as games in my eyes, and even fewer qualify for me playing them. If I like the art, I just rip the CG and move on. I don't need a glorified image gallery simulator to waste space on my PC.

 

[Jaysus]

To be a little fairer to VNs:
VN's are very good at delivering narrative, and if you're more interested in story than gameplay, then that's certainly the way to go. And if the VN has a really good narrative, then the porn might just be an added bonus.

I like the games I like because of the gameplay elements. I like the stats, the resource management, the sense of progression, whatever. The porn is just an added bonus.

One reason I could never be a game dev is that I would either:
A) want complete control of the narrative and just end up writing a short story instead of a VN.
B) create a convoluted mess of unnecessary stats and systems too obtuse to ever finish and be accused of milking my patrons when I'm really just bad at the job.

if you had to recommend one game with resource management what would it be?
or is there any game with these mechanics that you keep coming back to?

 

[rocketsheep]

Talking about Ren'Py games, because normally everything else is seriously inferior: At most 5% of sandbox games are worth playing. That's a far lower percentage than for visual novels. Far less than 1% of all sandbox games would not be better in visual novel format.

Some of my favorite adult games are in sandbox format with an acceptable (though flawed) implementation, such as The Headmaster or Harem Hotel, but would clearly be far better in visual novel format. There is a large number of games that are very appealing to me, but that I am not playing only because they are implemented as shitty sandboxes. I typically don't mind free roam parts inside a visual novel. These are usually well done, such as the ghost hunting in Stormside, or at least not a big problem.

There is a vanishingly small number of sandbox games among the myriad I have tried, that are actually better the way they are. Practically without exception these are relatively low on sexual content but are competent games of a recognizable genre such as RPG (Town of Magic) or management game (Sexbot Restoration 2124). Everything else is just visual novels implemented using the wrong method (in the best case), or even all round incompetent. Only Polyturnon is a bit of a special case. It has some of the typical problems of sandbox games, but its unbelievably large harem really needs some kind of random access mechanism, so it would not work well as a visual novel.

My opinion probably has a lot to do with the fact that I love normal novels and hate point-and-click games.

 

[User_174965]

Talking about Ren'Py games, because normally everything else is seriously inferior: At most 5% of sandbox games are worth playing. That's a far lower percentage than for visual novels. Far less than 1% of all sandbox games would not be better in visual novel format.

Some of my favorite adult games are in sandbox format with an acceptable (though flawed) implementation, such as The Headmaster or Harem Hotel, but would clearly be far better in visual novel format. There is a large number of games that are very appealing to me, but that I am not playing only because they are implemented as shitty sandboxes. I typically don't mind free roam parts inside a visual novel. These are usually well done, such as the ghost hunting in Stormside, or at least not a big problem.

There is a vanishingly small number of sandbox games among the myriad I have tried, that are actually better the way they are. Practically without exception these are relatively low on sexual content but are competent games of a recognizable genre such as RPG (Town of Magic) or management game (Sexbot Restoration 2124). Everything else is just visual novels implemented using the wrong method (in the best case), or even all round incompetent. Only Polyturnon is a bit of a special case. It has some of the typical problems of sandbox games, but its unbelievably large harem really needs some kind of random access mechanism, so it would not work well as a visual novel.

My opinion probably has a lot to do with the fact that I love normal novels and hate point-and-click games.

Yeah even though the best / great sandbox games that have a good concept, it is absolutely fair to say they would imo be absolutely better as visual novels. Problem for the Developer is that by converting the game to a VN, it would expose how little there is in each update / in general. Unless they upped their developing game, which was the reason most of them went with a Sandbox game, to hide their lack of progress. Sandbox games are great ways to add in grind / hide lack of progress. In VNs, its so much easier for players to go, 'wait that's all there is?'

Simple Days is a good example of a decent Sandbox game that unnecessary grind. Its a good game but is dragged down a bit with that grind factor. I would have played through the 'content' of the game alot quicker if not for that. Tangled up is a great example of a really SHITTY sandbox game, that would have been potentially great as a VN with good renders at the time. There is, i shit you not, a 33 page walkthrough that has to be done 100% to the t, otherwise you get fucked. That's the essential difference between a VN and a sandbox game though. One is designed to fuck with your progress, the other is designed to keep things uncomplicated. Simple choice mechanisms in VNs are the way to go. At worst, you have to play the game multiple times to get all the endings. I'm not really that much of a fan of having to replay games for very small differences but for major differences that's fine. I REALLY don't want to play sandbox games with small differences in decisions since its with the added bonus of dealing with the same grind factor, again and again.

I used to deal with point-and-click sandbox games when i could find a 'decent' game. However, over the years, I've dealt with so many that dick you around with pointless grind, shitty navigation and lack of actual progress that for the most part i simply ignore sandbox games. It just isn't worth the BS. its the same as RPGM games to me. It just isn't worth it.

 

[User_88762]

Talking about Ren'Py games, because normally everything else is seriously inferior: At most 5% of sandbox games are worth playing. That's a far lower percentage than for visual novels. Far less than 1% of all sandbox games would not be better in visual novel format.

Some of my favorite adult games are in sandbox format with an acceptable (though flawed) implementation, such as The Headmaster or Harem Hotel, but would clearly be far better in visual novel format. There is a large number of games that are very appealing to me, but that I am not playing only because they are implemented as shitty sandboxes. I typically don't mind free roam parts inside a visual novel. These are usually well done, such as the ghost hunting in Stormside, or at least not a big problem.

There is a vanishingly small number of sandbox games among the myriad I have tried, that are actually better the way they are. Practically without exception these are relatively low on sexual content but are competent games of a recognizable genre such as RPG (Town of Magic) or management game (Sexbot Restoration 2124). Everything else is just visual novels implemented using the wrong method (in the best case), or even all round incompetent. Only Polyturnon is a bit of a special case. It has some of the typical problems of sandbox games, but its unbelievably large harem really needs some kind of random access mechanism, so it would not work well as a visual novel.

My opinion probably has a lot to do with the fact that I love normal novels and hate point-and-click games.

You underestimate how many shitty VNs there are. There are far more garbage VNs than bad sandbox games. RenPy simplified making VNs so much that it allowed a very large amount of slop to get made. Most VNs are not even games. They are just glorified gallery viewers. Clicking skip text to get to the next scene is not gameplay.