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There's nothing like booting up certain types of games for the sheer freedom to say "don't tell me what to do!" and let your imagination flow. For many, it comes in the form of crafting and building whatever comes to mind, while for others it is laughing at Skyrim's vague attempts to get you to beat it, opting instead to pick all of the flowers ever and go on an alchemy spree, or engage in your favorite hoarding pastimes.

For me, I have still never played Minecraft but would bet many here have at some point. I used to play Terraria a lot, with my main objective being to try to cleanse the entire world of corruption and using the largest world possible for extreme difficulty. I never quite did it since hardmode makes it very tough, but got pretty close!

Now I'm currently playing Starbound, which is similar to Terraria but with more exploration and build choices, and less of a large emphasis on combat (but still necessary!). I've decided instead of following the plot, to start building a massive colony on the first planet I started on, and using the other planets to get the architectures and themes I want. For example, I've been raiding an Avian dungeon and village in a nearby star system to basically steal every piece of furniture in sight, and bring it to my home planet to create a massive temple city structure, and of course colonizing it with Avians to get that sweet, sweet money and quests.

What is your sandbox game of choice? Are you a big time builder? Or in the case of (MMO-) RPGs, do you live for the first opportunity to do a full reversal away from the plot of any game and hunker down for your grindfest of choice?

I enjoy being emotionally manipulated into continuing the game.

Never have cared for the sandbox style of gaming. Color me old-fashioned.

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X is blue.

It's hard to choose just one for me, since I enjoy several equally in different ways.

Fallout 2 was amazing, IMO and while the graphics and interface were never top of the line and primitive by today's standards, it captured the open world perfectly in a way that FO3 and FNV couldn't quite hit on the head. And although I like New Vegas better, Fallout 3 felt more 'open', since FNV has a very linear path in the first 10 or 15 or so hours of the game.

I would think Spore counts, to an extent, since the late stages of the game are you exploring an entire galaxy and terra-forming planets and I had a ton of fun with that one some years ago.

Currently looking forward to No Man's Sky, which is sure to impress.

Overall, I'd say the Fallout games are my choice since I'm not into that Game of Thrones crap in Elder Scrolls.

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Dynamic Threads (Youtube)

Minecraft I'd call open world rather than sandbox. It's not a real objective-heavy game.

Hmm...not honestly that big a fan of the sandbox game. Of the one's I've played, I think I'd say Brutal Legend, just purely on its aesthetics. That or Black Flag, for no less shallow reasons and more its open world elements than the sandbox stuff.

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Arts

Farts

Twarts

Quote (Narratorway @ 10th August 2016 18:01)

Minecraft I'd call open world rather than sandbox.  It's not a real objective-heavy game.

Hmm...not honestly that big a fan of the sandbox game.  Of the one's I've played, I think I'd say Brutal Legend, just purely on its aesthetics.  That or Black Flag, for no less shallow reasons and more its open world elements than the sandbox stuff.

I think you have sandbox and open world backwards, to be honest. From what I can gather from doing a little reading up on the precise differences. If there is any.

From what I concluded, sandbox means exactly that, you are free to roam and create as in a child in a sandbox. There are only the limitations of the actual sandbox. So I think Minecraft would fall into that category.

That's if you want to get technical but I think they're pretty much one in the same, really. It's like splitting hairs.

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Dynamic Threads (Youtube)

Sandbox is a derivative of open world are defined by the activities you can do within them. The missions/activities/mini-games/map icons in GTA, the collectibles in any Ubisoft game since the first AssCreed. Sandboxes are open worlds with specific forms of content littered around in them.

Minecraft has no such forms of content. It's a pure open world. The randomly spawning ships in the aforementioned Black Flag are not portals to different missions. Fighting/ignoring/raiding them is part of the open world. Sailing over a section of the ocean to start a harpooning mini-game is part of the sandbox.

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Arts

Farts

Twarts

Quote (Narratorway @ 11th August 2016 19:06)

Sandbox is a derivative of open world are defined by the activities you can do within them.  The missions/activities/mini-games/map icons in GTA, the collectibles in any Ubisoft game since the first AssCreed.  Sandboxes are open worlds with specific forms of content littered around in them.

Minecraft has no such forms of content.  It's a pure open world.  The randomly spawning ships in the aforementioned Black Flag are not portals to different missions.  Fighting/ignoring/raiding them is part of the open world.  Sailing over a section of the ocean to start a harpooning mini-game is part of the sandbox.

Gonna be honest, it's a little confusing but I get what you mean.

In the end they're essentially the same type of game with minor (though significant?) differences.

lol @ AssCreed

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Dynamic Threads (Youtube)

Quote (Dynamic Threads @ 12th August 2016 21:53)

lol @ AssCreed

I wondered about that myself. Not exactly a flattering nickname.

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X is blue.

I wouldn't call Bethesda games sandbox either. You can't climb on every roof? how restrictive...

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www.youtube.com/blinje
The victor sacrificed the vanquished to the heavens

I've never been hugely into sandbox-type games myself either.

I've played Terraria and spent a couple hundred hours in it. I never really decorated my own world much. I built an efficiently-functional housing complex and a few outposts and a hellevator and that was basically the extent of my customization of the world. I spent far more time exploring the world and figuring out where everything is than I did customizing it.

Which I guess is one way of approaching a sandbox game -- exploration. As opposed to being too interested in lots of crafting and customization stuff...those things tends to be less interesting to me.

I'm not typically into sandbox-type games, though, because they often get boring pretty quickly. "Customize your character!" Okay, I've now customized my character. What now?

Instead I usually care more about a sense of purpose in the game, and story-driven games tend to do that far better.

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current games (2024-02-19):
Fairy Fencer F ADF
Pokémon Perfect Crystal

finished so far this year:
Gato Roboto
drowning, drowning
New Super Mario Bros.
TMNT 3: Radical Rescue

tabled: Lost Ruins

Quote (Glenn Magus Harvey @ 15th August 2016 00:22)

Instead I usually care more about a sense of purpose in the game, and story-driven games tend to do that far better.

The Last of Us is your friend.

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Dynamic Threads (Youtube)