Warp wrote:
>   Not in the sense that "a sandbox game" is usually used. What is usually
> meant with it is that the whole outworld (which usually should be very big)
> is completely open to be explored, so you can go anywhere you want and do
> whatever you want. There are no levels which are played one after another,
> like in more traditional games.

Fair enough. Certainly Myst and Riven fit that mold.  The later ones had 
more of an interactive story, so you have to (for example) solve some 
puzzles, then someone else comes along and does something, and then you have 
to go solve other puzzles.

>   Thief consists of levels, and the gameplay is pretty linear from level
> to level.

OK. But within each level, you could pretty do anything and everything you 
wanted, even to the point of managing to get places you weren't supposed to 
go by using the environment. Sure, inter-level it's linear.

> In Myst/Riven you are not completely free to go wherever you like,
> but you are limited to predefined narrow paths (mainly due to technical
> limitations).

The paths really go most everywhere. Other than being unable to swim, I 
can't think of too many places you couldn't get to for reasons not obvious 
in the level design. Indeed, a good amount of the fun of Riven was figuring 
out how to get to places you could see and knew you needed to be there, but 
you couldn't figure out where the entrance was.

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
    Eiffel - The language that lets you specify exactly
    that the code does what you think it does, even if
    it doesn't do what you wanted.

Post a reply to this message

Darren New wrote:
> Myst and Riven had good
> graphics (altho obviously limited to stills).

Following those: Myst III and Myst IV use 360° stills (so you can rotate the 
view freely), with a lot of live video embedded (way more real video of 
actors with chroma key than in Riven).

Myst V is the first in the series to use real-time 3D graphics.

Post a reply to this message

Nicolas Alvarez wrote:
> Darren New wrote:
>> Myst and Riven had good
>> graphics (altho obviously limited to stills).
> 
> Following those: Myst III and Myst IV use 360° stills (so you can 
rotate the 
> view freely), with a lot of live video embedded (way more real video of
 
> actors with chroma key than in Riven).
> 
> Myst V is the first in the series to use real-time 3D graphics.

There's also "RealMyst", which is Myst #1 redone with a 3D FPS engine. Lo
oks 
like crap, relatively speaking, because the care put into the original 
textures wasn't there in the engine.

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
    Eiffel - The language that lets you specify exactly
    that the code does what you think it does, even if
    it doesn't do what you wanted.

Post a reply to this message

And lo On Thu, 03 Jun 2010 19:19:15 +0100, Warp <war### [at] tagpovrayorg> did  
spake thusly:

> Phil Cook v2 <phi### [at] nospamrocainfreeservecouk> wrote:
>> From reviews some are disappointed they dropped the sandbox aspect for a
>> linear fixed storyline approach.
>
>   The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion was my first modern "sandbox-style" game
> I played, and it was a magnificent experience.
>
>   Unfortunately after playing with it for a month or so, I got actually
> immunized against the marvels of an open and realistic world, and  
> afterwards
> any sandbox-style game has been outright boring. Thus it would be such a
> problem for me.
>
>   (I go to more detail here:  
> http://warp.povusers.org/grrr/sandbox_games.html )

To my mind it's not that the sandbox gives you everything it's that your  
actions seem to be inconsequential to the story or the world. They are, in  
theory, open Final Fantasy games. "Oh no a giant meteor is about to hit  
our planet and only you can save us by defeating the dark wizard who pulls  
it closer, but first I'm having difficulty finding my sheep can you help?"  
there's a level of disconnect there if you just plough through the story  
you're either woefully underpowered or have a sense of unease that you've  
missed out on everything the world can offer. Try to take advantage of the  
'world' and as you say ennui sets in.

Okay I harp on about InFamous but it works. It's a small open world you  
can just run around, but the side-quests matter; fix the satellite uplinks  
and more people can contact you with jobs, sort out this problem and the  
enemies won't venture into that area in such high numbers meaning you  
don't have to run through then or stop to slug it out each time. It has an  
effect so much so that one of the side-missions I tend to leave to last is  
getting the El-Trains running; with them defunct you can use the railway  
as a quick transit system, with them running you have to watch out you  
don't get splattered by a train, on the plus side the trains move faster  
if you can hitch a ride and they can also splat enemies on the tracks too.  
All the side-missions connect to the main story and both affect the world  
around you.

-- 
Phil Cook

--
I once tried to be apathetic, but I just couldn't be bothered
http://flipc.blogspot.com

Post a reply to this message

Phil Cook v2 wrote:
> To my mind it's not that the sandbox gives you everything it's that your 
> actions seem to be inconsequential to the story or the world. 


In Black&White, you play a local God trying to keep your followers happy. 
It's also not particularly interesting. The hype sounded great, but it was 
like "Nice engine. Where's the game?"

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
    Eiffel - The language that lets you specify exactly
    that the code does what you think it does, even if
    it doesn't do what you wanted.

Post a reply to this message

Darren New wrote:

> In Black&White, you play a local God trying to keep your followers 
> happy. It's also not particularly interesting. The hype sounded great, 
> but it was like "Nice engine. Where's the game?"

Maybe it's just me, but given a game where you can do absolutely 
anything you want, my reaction is typically "so what are you supposed to 
do?"

(I had this problem with Frontier Elite II, which is supposedly the best 
computer game ever written...)

Post a reply to this message

Yotzse reviewed it.

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/zero-punctuation/1756-Alan-Wake

I haven't watched it yet, but there's almost undoubtably spoilers. :-)

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
    Eiffel - The language that lets you specify exactly
    that the code does what you think it does, even if
    it doesn't do what you wanted.

Post a reply to this message

>  Unfortunately after playing with it for a month or so, I got actually
> immunized against the marvels of an open and realistic world, and 
> afterwards
> any sandbox-style game has been outright boring. Thus it would be such a
> problem for me.
>
>  (I go to more detail here: 
> http://warp.povusers.org/grrr/sandbox_games.html )

I liked the way GTA does it, whereby you only get access to a limited area 
of the complete world initially, and are forced to get to some point in the 
story before other parts of the world become accessible (of course you can 
see the other areas on the map, which makes you want to get to them).  GTA 
is also very good how it has several separate storylines throughout the 
missions, and then some come together towards the end of the game whilst 
others remain separate.  Of course to make this work you cannot truly do any 
mission in any order, sometimes you get a "Complete X and come back here" 
message, but IME it wasn't very often.  Certainly GTA San Andreas was one of 
the best games I've ever played.

Post a reply to this message

Darren New wrote:
> Yotzse reviewed it.
> 
> I haven't watched it yet, but there's almost undoubtably spoilers. :-)

Gotta love ZP! Sometimes I delude myself into thinking that I could do 
stuff like this. After all, it's just a guy talking really fast, right? 
Well, um... no. No I cannot do this. Sadly.

 From this review, I gather that it isn't very good.

Post a reply to this message

And lo On Fri, 04 Jun 2010 16:35:16 +0100, Invisible <voi### [at] devnull> did  
spake thusly:

> Darren New wrote:
>
>> In Black&White, you play a local God trying to keep your followers  
>> happy. It's also not particularly interesting. The hype sounded great,  
>> but it was like "Nice engine. Where's the game?"
>
> Maybe it's just me, but given a game where you can do absolutely  
> anything you want, my reaction is typically "so what are you supposed to  
> do?"
>
> (I had this problem with Frontier Elite II, which is supposedly the best  
> computer game ever written...)

But it can work, look at the MMORPG like World of Warcraft. I recall  
reading something somewhere about development of some such game and they  
left it completely open and it bombed with the testers. Just as you said  
the attitude was "so what are you supposed to do?". The questions are - Is  
that because games have evolved such that the player is expected to be  
told what to do all the time and thus anything outside that is deemed  
'confusing? Or is the case that we simply don't like such open-ended  
structures within the games that we are supposed to be playing for fun?

I think the difference is that in one type of game you're presented with  
tasks and in the other you're expected to go out and find them yourself.  
In the former you know what you can do and can chose to ignore it, in the  
latter you get the 'now what?'

-- 
Phil Cook

--
I once tried to be apathetic, but I just couldn't be bothered
http://flipc.blogspot.com

Post a reply to this message