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Diagnosed with Sandbox syndrom

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Mon, 09/12/2016 - 23:10
X3M
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When you get comments that your game is a sandbox game. One might wonder if this is a good sign or bad.

For one, I think it is awesome that a game is considered to be a sandbox. It means that there is a lot of freedom for players to play with. A hidden goal of mine, 'yaaay!'.

On the other hand. These kind of games might never end. Especially when players are free to move in contrary to Monopoly. A game duration can become insanely long for such sandbox behavior.

Or is the whole sandbox principle just a misunderstanding, regarding the fact that it is an "open" wargame?

Is the direction good or bad?
What does it mean to the player base?

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Mon, 09/12/2016 - 23:29
#1
Gabe
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I think it's a great thing

I think it's a great thing because it means there's lots of options and lots of paths to victory.

Xia is a rather popular space game that is very much a sandbox.

You just have to make sure your scoring system is balanced and you need specific end game conditions. The first to 20 points, for example.

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Tue, 09/13/2016 - 00:06
#2
radioactivemouse
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Too many options

Too many options opens up too many opportunities for game-breaking issues. Anything new that's added only increases the amount of play testing you need exponentially.

It's difficult enough to create a balanced and fun game with only one objective.

So yes, it's cool to give the player a bunch of options, but you're only creating way more work for yourself. So consider feature creep when designing your game.

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Tue, 09/13/2016 - 02:57
#3
X3M
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Gabe wrote:I think it's a

Gabe wrote:
I think it's a great thing because it means there's lots of options and lots of paths to victory.
There are indeed. Perhaps a bit too much though. But then again, this offers a great "chess" feeling to the game too.

Gabe wrote:

Xia is a rather popular space game that is very much a sandbox.
I'll look into this one out of curiousity.

Gabe wrote:

You just have to make sure your scoring system is balanced and you need specific end game conditions. The first to 20 points, for example.
Completely destroy one of your opponents. Is the goal that I have set for this game. It is great for teamplay games. Eventually, it comes to a hunt for the last remaining targets of one player.

***

radioactivemouse wrote:
Too many options opens up too many opportunities for game-breaking issues. Anything new that's added only increases the amount of play testing you need exponentially.

It's difficult enough to create a balanced and fun game with only one objective.

True. Having a lot, means balancing a lot.

I never had the intention to create a sandbox styled game. It simply started with designing a game. And by time, it grew to a bigger game by choices on before hand. The game itself kept the same size. Every part got tested (and scrapped if not right). Right now, I am finishing up a "new" last part. But more to that in another, yet to make, topic. Since it is finally time to finish things mechanical speaking.

radioactivemouse wrote:

So yes, it's cool to give the player a bunch of options, but you're only creating way more work for yourself. So consider feature creep when designing your game.
What do you mean with "featuring creep"? I am unfamiliar with those words.

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Tue, 09/13/2016 - 06:12
#4
Tedthebug
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Feature creep

Is when you design something within specified bounds & then start adding small features bit by bit because it is only small, or only quick, or will add just that little something. Eventually someone will notice just how big the game is & how far away from the original design & requirements you have moved without your noticing. It can lead to time &/or $ blowouts or a product that no longer meets the requirements.

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Tue, 09/13/2016 - 07:00
#5
X3M
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I see. How is it called when

I see.

How is it called when little bits are added. But the game duration isn't altered by this.

After all, the extra supplements are simply new mechanics that replace other elements of the game by players choice. Aka, different MtG decks. Although, it isn't a card game.

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Tue, 09/13/2016 - 18:13
#6
Willem Verheij
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Well one of my favorite games

Well one of my favorite games is a bit of a sandbox.

Fortune and Glory.

You have to obtain 15 fortune and its mainly done by surpassing dangers to grab treasures around the world. But you can also steal gold from the nazi zeppelin, or from a vile organisation if they are in play. There are also some cards that allow you to get some fortune another way.

There are also temple treasures that are worth more, but also are more risky.

Cool thing is also that you can press on.. after every passed danger at a treasure, you can either rest and take the earned glory (which can be spend on various things) or press on and risk losing the earned glory and maybe getting knocked out if you fail.
And if you fail, you first switch to a cliffhanger. If you fail that too, then you get KOed and taken back to your home city.

In practice, that means if someone else has a lot of fortune they can take it easy and dont need to take big risks while other players are pushed to take more risks to catch up. And it actually is quite possible. Games have been won that way.

It's no wargame but might be worth checking out still.

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Wed, 09/14/2016 - 02:14
#7
Tedthebug
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It all depends on scope

I came from a finance IT background. If we had to design & build a solution to an issue & then decided to fix something that was in the same module because it would all be tested in the same transactions & it added basically no time to do or test then we could make an argument to do it. If we needed to fix something else that was peripherally linked to it but would require extra transactions or processes to test then that was outside of the scope. Technically the first one was also outside the scope of the project but the impact was negligible & providing good service was a bonus.

If you start designing a game with a very broad scope then nothing is theoretically out of scope e.g. I want to make a game about space wars = maybe if I start with cavemen I can use tech trees & evolution to let players build up their own races & tech to then take to the battle. Technically that is in scope but probably isn't what you would've intended when defining the scope.

Adding a mechanic to fix another mechanic could lead to a cascade effect that possibly could be solved by throwing them all out & rethinking the original mechanic. This is what we had to do when asked to fix a small manual process, we had to look at the end to end process to determine if they even needed to do it that way in the first place. Adding a mechanic to provide a different experience broadens the game. The play time may be the same but the design & testing time is increase, & it usually isn't a linear increase as each new thing introduced needs to be tested against all possible combinations to ensure it is balanced or that it doesn't introduce a dominant strategy combination.

From my IT world that is the same as when finance rules or legislation changed we had to add new transactions or functionality, but that always meant testing every single aspect of every single transaction & report that provided information to or used information from that new transaction. At 1 point we had about 7 test scripts for one function, when I left 6yrs later we had over 50 because of all the changes to the law & business process.

Anyway that is off topic.

TL;DR
If you have the game basically ready & you decide to add another mechanic so you can have another faction etc then the game is no longer ready as it needs testing & balancing again. Your scope has now crept beyond what you originally intended even though the play time is still the same.

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Wed, 09/14/2016 - 09:46
#8
Soulfinger
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So long as there is a path to

So long as there is a path to victory for a dedicated player, or as one friend put it, "What do I need to do to make this game end?" I think I've maybe played one game of Talisman that had a clear winner, and yet it is my favorite game. It doesn't need to last nearly so long, but most people get caught up in the journey and forget about actually winning the game. To me, that is a successful design. You get lost in secondary objectives and trivialities. When someone does decide to win, there is a clear demarcation that alerts the other players that the nature of the game has changed so that they can remain competitive. Nobody ever has to sit the game out.

Monopoly, on the other hand, is one of those games that can go on forever because it is just that awful of a game. There is the point where nobody is enjoying themselves (for me, this is when the game is removed from the box), and yet, nobody can make the game end. There is no path to victory. It is just monotonous attrition. Not that I'd call Monopoly a sandbox game, but I hate it, so it seemed like a good example.

Of course, there's always the 10 year long Civ 2 game, the best example of the disastrous consequences of a sandbox world . . .
https://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/comments/uxpil/ive_been_playing_the_same...

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Wed, 09/14/2016 - 11:11
#9
X3M
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Willem Verheij wrote:Well one

Willem Verheij wrote:
Well one of my favorite games is a bit of a sandbox.

Fortune and Glory.

It's no wargame but might be worth checking out still.

I'll check this one out then, as well. Is it still available somewhere in the Netherlands? Or do I have to reach further?

Tedthebug wrote:
If you start designing a game with a very broad scope then nothing is theoretically out of scope.
Then notching is out of scope :)
I added game mechanics to get the biggest plan going. The thing is that this last part of the plan could only be tested somewhere at the end. Before that, I had to balance other parts.
By balancing, I did not counter mechanics with other mechanics. Each variable had it's own mechanic. Or at least working together with another variable. Or being classed as the same.
Each mechanic or variable supplies an advantage, but also a weakness.

Tedthebug wrote:

Adding a mechanic to provide a different experience broadens the game.
Somehow it did. Henceforth the Sandbox comments that I am receiving now. If you consider the start to be like a deck of MtG, you have a lot of choices in cards. You choose them after seeing the map, but before the game starts.
It is that there are soooo many choices, that players consider it a sandbox game. Or is this description incorrect?

Soulfinger wrote:
So long as there is a path to victory for a dedicated player, or as one friend put it, "What do I need to do to make this game end?"

Funny link. Reminds me of my Age of Empires game with monuments removed. But after 3 days, the only resources left where gold from churches. Which I had the most. And I simply won by sniping down all other churches.

Resources can be applied in many ways. Monopoly is simply infinite resources.
Correct me if I am wrong. But one of the rules states that when the bank is out of money. The game ends? And the one with the most money+properties wins?
Of course, all players need to agree on this additional rule before hand.
2 weeks, and I told the other guy. I am going back to the living.

Any way, I got a certain DOOM installed. Resources are to be build up by assigning the right workers on them. There is a maximum per pool.
After a while, the pool is depleted.
You can shoot the workers, so it is better to have a big army protecting them. Pools are often depleted one by one. Others are to be conquered or claimed, depending on the map.
When all the resources are dried out. Several endings are possible:
The player with the most properties wins.
or
The players fight to the death. Event cards will provide a push during the whole game.

Players that leave the table? (cowards!) their pieces remain as neutrals that are a good XP source.

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Wed, 09/14/2016 - 11:33
#10
larienna
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For reasons mentionned in

For reasons mentionned in this thread, Sandbox Games seems more suitable for solitaire game where the player decide his own objectives.

Also if some path are more or less balanced, it does not break the game, it just make some path too easy or too hard to follow.

For multiplayer games, it could be Ok if you have less direct interaction between players.

Else for a war game, yes it can be cool to handle tons of details that could lead you to victory. It reminds me of Battletech which does this. The impact is that player experience matter a lot in those kind of games. But yes it could require more balancing to work.

Still you could have the Experienced player versus noob player which both use different strategic path with various degree of complexity and it could still work.

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Wed, 09/14/2016 - 17:44
#11
X3M
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larienna wrote:For reasons

larienna wrote:
For reasons mentionned in this thread, Sandbox Games seems more suitable for solitaire game where the player decide his own objectives.

With this criteria. They and I are mistaken by thinking "it is a sandbox game now". But what is the word that I am looking for then? I would love to put my game in the correct class by name.

***

Before a war starts. Players put together their units and structures as a whole faction. Often, they know the map and their start before the game starts. This faction suits their play style more than it is THE counter against other players. By looking at the map, they often choose units that are suitable to a part of the map. It is more of a "if you come here, you die, leave me alone!" for a small portion of the map, than a "the goal of the game is to win, let's fight!" with all the units.
There is a build up. Players are free to build how and where they like. (the pre-set bases are on the shelve for the moment, for those who remember that topic)

http://mtgsalvation.gamepedia.com/Magic:_The_Gathering_statistics_and_tr...
I like those numbers. That is something I would like to aim for as well. Well, if my player base is going to grow in the future. For now, very specific designs are seeing their first lights.

Players can build their base any where. These days, they can even pick up and move to a new/better location when needed. Of course with some proper preparations. Keeping a decent infrastructure is also a gaming aspect. After all, we want to be able to move around.

Players are free to attack or camp. Attacking can cost you, but the rewards could be, getting some extra resources by expanding territory, XP by killing and setting that one player a step backwards.

The list of possible actions for combat has grown to 8 pages.
Each choice has several counter choices. These are often more depending on the mood of the player than having a clear, most optimal, tactical goal in mind. Well, sometimes 2 or 3 options are equally optimal.

Heck, now that I think about it. It is more of a SIM city base building game in the first hour than something else. While keeping an eye on the enemies.

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