There are lot's of game design concepts unique to sandbox games, which do you think is most important? For me it's building/customization options that are versatile enough to be customizable. For example: I don't want to place down a single building. Instead i want to customize the floor and walls and place them where I want, even better if you just have components that are versatile enough they could be either a floor or a wall depending on their placement. The more versatile a component is, the better.
honestly, my favorite part of a sandbox game can often be the limitations that come with it. unnecessary limits like only being able to do some basic task such as the ones mentioned in the video are rather unfair, but when i say "limitations" i just mean the capabilities of the features or mechanic the game was made with, watching people go beyond what they were intended to create really interesting stuff. a good example of that is something like minecrafts redstone system, or baba is you's gimmick for its puzzles that, if enough room is given, allows you to practically be able to program. i guess youd say its like a "easy to understand, hard to master" type mindset.
i want sandboxes to give me the option to USE the stuff i make. i can enjoy making a silly creation and just being like "hey i made this" but what's really fun is making a sandbox creation and proceeding to use said creation to commit warcri- why yes i do hate totk for not properly implementing this why do you ask
I like the idea of producing my own things and using everything in the virtual world around me in game. At the same time I think there should be a limit at how complicated that object is to create to bring into the world and the first place. Like was mentioned previously I think balance between realism and playability is a big key factor. As an example spending 30 minutes cutting down wood or digging in dirt and then waiting around another 30 minutes to simply create one small meter square of wood floor would be Overkill. But I guess doing that would put people over the steam return game policy limit so there's that.
More ways how to fail: 1. If the sandbox game has building and structure placement, always ensure that the placement would be as spastic as possible, snapping or not snapping when you least want it. Basically, make sure the building placement resembles Z-fighting. 2. Crafting! Always add crafting even if it makes things much slower and doesn't add any challenge. 3. Ensure that inventory is only there to artificially slow down everything to a crawl. 4. Add optional objective quest markers everywhere but make every one of them play out the same. Whoa. It's actually pretty difficult to give good advice on how to fail as sandbox includes narrative-based games like Jazzpunk, the early access survival crafting games like DayZ or Terraria, automation games like Factorio, or simulation games like Dwarf Fortress.
"Do anything you want in our sandbox!" *Players do something fun and interesting.* "No, not like that. Or like that... or that... or that... hmm, infact, screw it. You're gonna be forced to loot linear dungeons and grind out fetch quests for eternity. But, something something base building, therefore it's still a sandbox." 7DTD in a nutshell.
People who try to make "a better Minecraft" don't seem to realize that the best part of it are mods. Java version, ofc. Technology, magic, QoL mods, dungeons, bosses, different dimensions, pets, etc. I've played with magic that lets me slow down time and ghost through walls. I've been to other planets, in different gravities and atmospheres. I've seen a reactor meltdown. Stored a whole base on a single item. I've made building in Survival mode easier than it is in the base game Creative. Made a perfect pentagon-shaped island floating over the void with a giant translucent tree growing in a twisted shape on it. I've ran in the air, faster than the speed of sound. Rode a giant dragon and wondered at how pretty some effects are in such a simple-looking game. And I'm still figuring out how to do some things with vanilla-only redstone.
AC new horizons shows some very "wonderful" features you forgot to mention: 1. a durability system, that makes all of your tools more fragile than glass, and never lets you know when they are about to break! make sure the only way to repair them is with a slow-as-sh!t crafting mechanic that was totally not tacked on last minute! 2- on the topic of crafting, make sure most of your crafting recipes are only found at complete random. This way, the players will have to constantly pray for RNJesus to finnaly let them craft a wooden table; While their basement overflows with thousands of repeat recipes that keep showing up all the time. 3: let your player freely customize their game world. but don't let them move stuff like the airport or the island center. Committing is for nerds, anyway.
Overly complex reactions with no tutorial can sometimes work. Examples include: The powder toy(the tutorial is school) and noita(you learn by dying, but it is worth it).
@@ЛукаТрусенёв-й9я I don't think it's incomprehensible without the wiki. It's experimentation. Alchemy. The point is to be obtuse but learnable such that the obtuse nature becomes reasonably understandable.
1:17 you don't need all of that fancy stuff anyways because if the player truly cares about the experience they can just search for the wiki online! now that's an immersive way of building your sandbox and not at all annoying for the fandom
Reposting my previous comment from the community post here because I'm super proud of it: "welcome, to the sandbox game, have a look around..." Detail how all of the player's choices feel equally worthless and difficult to grind for merely for the sake of "that sense of achievement" This is the dev's first project. After all, they've played three popular Minecraft mod packs that were clearly made in an afternoon with absolutely no history to them whatsoever, it should be simple enough for them to make an exact copy of what they just played, only better, right? There certainly would not have been a lot of time and effort involved in balancing the mods and making them all play nicely together! To make a good Minecraft clone-uh-sandbox, one should either use Java, because that's what Minecraft used and if it's good enough for them then it's good enough for you, or Unity/Unreal, because you want to pick an engine at the top of its game (that has no support for the exact type of game you want to build). Sandbox OBVIOUSLY means survival building sim! It's not like any other sandbox games exist on the same level. Like, what would we do if there were one about stealing cars? Where's my cutting down trees and building there? And remember: sandbox games cannot have a story. There was never any successful sandbox, vehicle building, physics based games with a story! Certainly none by a famous AAA company with a massive, home mantel name IP attached to it! You should release your game's pre-alpha for play testing so you can generate revenue and interest, as well as get meaningful critique that you will certainly listen to! You certainly won't get overwhelmed and realize that game development is hard and that releasing your game early does not make development faster or easier as a single person! Your core gameplay loop isn't important, but you want to know what is? More poorly designed monsters that are far too easy to cheese because they need a serious AI rework but won't be getting one because you don't test your game more than you need to! Idk something like that I think Thank you for making these videos Artindi! I have no clue if I will actually end up making any games but the entertainment factor makes them more than worthwhile!
Sandbox games often struggle with telling stories, though -- the worlds lack "glue". Cause the player can just f-off in a random direction. in order to create an odyssey, you really gotta get creative with design. (pacing, progression, geographical obstacles, etc)
Another important one is to make sure that when you add items, the more often they appear the less utilizable they are, and the most useful and needed items are the hardest to get! You wouldn't want a new ore to be actually liked by players or do anything but fill inventory space, right? And when you do add new ores and items, make sure they have as little functionality with other items and gameplay mechanics as possible! You wouldn't want your elaborately gotten shell items to be used in more than a single niche way, right? Just keep adding items that only have a single purpose every update!
making an "open world" "sandbox" game - the map is just path and you hit invisible walls if you ever try to explore - there are some bits of the map that LOOK like you can go to them, but you just end up hitting another invisible wall - completely linear - some extra quests and stuff on the side - they don't give you anything except for some extremely ugly cosmetics or (very rarely) a really crappy item that sells for -0.2 coins
Start by overcharging for an incomplete and or buggy game. Continue by ignoring all suggestions, criticisms, opinions of the community, don't make regular progress reports, when you do make progress reports make sure they are inaccurate and promise grandiose things coming in the game that will never be there, and finally after doing this and really making everyone mad you sell the rights to the game and the name off to someone else to deal with. Pure profit
It's easy, just assume that no criticism you receive is intelligent or well-meaning, and certainly never both. Rather than using it to refine your game or simply ignoring it, be sure to use your social media accounts to mock and belittle any of the awful, ignorant people posting it. Oh, and don't forget to block them. That way, you'll get a nice little echo chamber, emphasis on the little.
@@malumphasma better, just add tiny useless features as updates and do nothing and stream other games and watch anime and bonus points if you spend the money people donated to you on buying useless crap that don't help the game at all ;)
2:34 Minecraft REFUSING ON THEIR MOTHER to never add chairs to the game (or literally any kind of feature that they didn't come up with because they wanna feel special)
It's really funny because pistons and horses were mods first before Notch added them to the game Edit: Turns out Jeb was the one to actually implement the mods into the base game but it was still before the Microsoft acquisition
Patching out the gameplay people like immediately made me think of 7 Days To Die. They reworked literally every system that people loved besides the combat system (not combat progression, which was made worse multiple times, but just the range, speed, etc of the guns and melee weapons.)
> Dynamic lore-based story But for the sake of argument, if I wanted to go against the excellent advice provided in this video, what are some examples of games that implement this approach to their story?
Vintage Story, Stardew Valley, Minecraft, Dwarf Fortress, Conan Exiles, Rimworld. The list goes on. The thing about sandbox games is because of how much control you give the player any pre-made story can be hard to convey. Not impossible, Skyrim being a good example. But most often it's easier to have lore built in as part of the game design and environment, including optional interactable like books, or audio playbacks. Let the player form and make their own story aided with thoughtful game design.
@@Artindi Thank you! I'll be honest, it never occurred to me that Minecraft has anything that can be described as a "story," unless you count players' tendency to do colonialism. But other examples make sense.
@@mrgraydiamond In Minecraft the building's and and ruins convey a bit of story, as well as the names and designs of mobs, "endermen" for example, or the achievement "free the end" Suggest a small amount of lore among other things, but otherwise you are right, there isn't too much to go off of in Minecraft.
To add to the list of examples, Starbound. Although the main quest is pretty much just a linear story, it is a sandbox game where players do whatever they like, possibly making their own story in a universe with a substantial amount of lore.
Chuckling my goolies off over here! Also a round of applause for the Terminator T101 at 1:07 👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏 Sandbox is mostly what I play too and your points are bang on. Bravo.
I love the comment section of these videos. Normally you find a bunch of people suggesting topics for future videos. So to keep it that way here is an example of possible topics which could have been suggested by other people: - DLCs - Endings/Post game - Sequels - Strategy games - Modding - Physics - Skill trees - Hiring people (like voice actors, artists etc.) - Menus/HUDs - Quick time events - Cozy Games - Single player games - Party Games - Achievements - Voice acting (for games) - Enemies - Getting Hired - Communication with the Fans - Design Documents - Early Access - Kickstarter campains/funding - Dialoge - Difficulty Puh can you imagine the nerv someone would have to have to do that? Also if someone would do that, then I could see them getting their hopes waaaay up, to see their suggestion coming up eventually Oo. So it’s better to avoid this from happening to you! So in order to lead with a good example I will only say „Eh, keep what you‘re doing instead👍. The series has been a joy to watch and will be a joy to watch in the future as well :)“
i HATE how many sandbox games in general just...take forever to grind stuff out. MC is fine because creative mode does exist, but god forbid you want to build something in survival without months of prep and resource gathering. but the worst one off the top of my head is totk. because they took literally everything in botw, added 1 cool concept that couldnt even be used properly, made it FAR harder to get resources, and made weapon hoarding worse by both giving the final boss the best reason to be arrow spammed AND making it so you have to kill a godlike creature just to get some kind of reward from it. yea im mad at whoever shipped out the game in its current state it coulda been so cool-
More hours players spend in game must mean that they are having fun right? Yeah I hate excessive grind as well, it's a game not real life I come to a game to escape real life not recreate it completely LOL
This is such a massive issue with minecraft for me. Like, i can play the game, but as soon as i have the audacity to even think of building something bigger than idk 10 blocks in total area im confronted by the excessive grind of stacks upon stacks of blocks. For a game that, honestly, is kinda ditching all the other aspect, not having some endgame "more efficient" recipes for basic materials or better harvesting methods is insane. Never in my life have i had this problem in terraria. Granted it takes like 4 times less blocks to build anything there, but that's also the point. It's just way way less grind for building something you like.
This is such a massive issue with minecraft for me. Like, i can play the game, but as soon as i have the audacity to even think of building something bigger than idk 10 blocks in total area im confronted by the excessive grind of stacks upon stacks of blocks. For a game that, honestly, is kinda ditching all the other aspect, not having some endgame "more efficient" recipes for basic materials or better harvesting methods is insane. Never in my life have i had this problem in terraria. Granted it takes like 4 times less blocks to build anything there, but that's also the point. It's just way way less grind for building something you like.
This is such a massive issue with minecraft for me. Like, i can play the game, but as soon as i have the audacity to even think of building something bigger than idk 10 blocks in total area im confronted by the excessive grind of stacks upon stacks of blocks. For a game that, honestly, is kinda ditching all the other aspect, not having some endgame "more efficient" recipes for basic materials or better harvesting methods is insane. Never in my life have i had this problem in terraria. Granted it takes like 4 times less blocks to build anything there, but that's also the point. It's just way way less grind for building something you like.
@@Artindi mod support is the one thing ill let people clown on minecraft for 'til the cows come home, everything else i think makes me feel like they'd rather it was an entirely different game. I like the datapack stuff theyre working on, but it has me fearing it'll be the 30s before they get even close to mods.
lol, that moment that you failed so hard, that you failed at failing to make a sandbox game xD glad to know that you got some great ideas on how to fail at making a sandbox game from your community, they're absolutely great!!!
Oh, my favorite one! It's have been 8 years since I started searching and testing tech for my dream sandbox game with soft tetrahedral meshes for building anything (cars, machinery, environment)! And yes, I want to make it multiplayer (I know that funny physics system gonna make it really difficult) So to fail in making sandbox game, you can just use some advanced physics (like soft bodies) on large scale with mutiplayer.There is a reason why we got free spot there. ~~I'm stuck in my own misery with potato gpu from 2014 that keep me switching between different physics solutions. Though that just means I must get gud and actually make something my own, rather than using some system that doesn't fit game needs.~~
Just try to make it a dwarf fortress like game, spend 3 years on it and give up halfway through because of scope creep, and then blame the game engine. Then spend the rest of you life making mobile games with hundreds of micro transactions.
I'm working on my first game, a multiplayer Stardew Valley with Minecraft graphics, building, and exploration. I can't program but I'm more of an ideas guy. Aiming for a Q3 2025 release 🙃
From the Depths, a vehicle combat game in which you can not only just customize the weapons but design them. Same with movement components and even ammo. Mostly a building game, but you can use premade parts and vehicles, too. Optionally coop with friends. Can be PvP if people want to check who made a better thing. I've seen people build tanks, submarines, battleships, satellites, blips, jet fighters, etc. Some madman even made a giant humanoid-looking thing, capable of running, stomping, moving on all fours and firing beams from its palms and mouth.
2:38 implies mod developers aren't crybabies who will yell at you for "stealing their mod". like that's exactly what happened when Notch added popular mod mechanics to Minecraft. people tried to shame him for "stealing" the ideas.
I think it would be cool to make some crazy sandbox game that has all sorts of stuff you can do, and then insist that the way it was "supposed" to be played is one minor minigame within it. Like maybe it's a Frogger clone, but you can leave the arcade cabinet and do other stuff, but you're "not supposed to".
It’s bewildering to me that Minecraft became as popular as it did when the whole “craft” part required several tabs open or an expert in call to actually partake in.
@ fair point, though Minecraft didn’t come with a manual. I’m just picturing how people would have figured certain shit out in Minecraft without any official information, short of diving into the code.
Video ides i had You ever consider making how to fail at failing. Basicly focusing on failure is a natural facet of making something and you'll have to learn from it rather then letting it bum you out
I have. I did make a video explaining what I mean in episode 1-25 without sarcasm and titled it that. But it might be good to make a video about learning from failure and how not to learn from failure. :)
Obviously the best way to deal with mods for the game that make people happy would be to try to take them down because they might lead to people not following your intended way to play.
Hi, artindi. Since I am not trying to fail at Indie Dev, what would you recommend be the first genres? A beginner should take a stab at as their first game. Really enjoyed the video by the way.
For your first game, I would follow a tutorial in the game engine you are using. Then after that make some really simple arcade games, if you can't think of one and keep it in scope, just try and clone one that already exists, like space invaders or brick braker, The point is to learn what you need to make games before you bite off more than you can chew. Once you have a few simple games under your belt, you could also try a game jam, this will force you to take a game to a more complete state and force you to consider scope. After you've done these things then maybe consider making a unique game. But even then, aim for something small. The genre at that point doesn't matter, but I would avoid open worlds, FPS and RPG, these typically have too large of a scope for your first real game. And at that point you could probably go on to make what you want. :)
@Artindi Thanks for the advice 🙏🏾 I'll definitely be looking into those game jams once I've polished my skill unless you start your own for the channel, then my problem is solved.
@@Nubian_King_RNM Ludum Dare would probably still be the biggest one. Notch made an LD game once. Pretty cool, but slightly cultish. Genre doesn't really matter as much as scope. Some genres do require a big scope by default, but other than that, just do it in a way you enjoy and don't expect your first few games to become commercial releases! I'm a bit of an extreme case, but I started devving in 2012, using Unity in 2013, and I'm finally gonna release my first proper Steam game this year. I did release something smaller about 5 years ago that technically was a commercial game because it had ads, but it cannot be considered anything close to my magnum opus.
@Artindi Oh, man, I am glad know this now but am still a ways off from participating but hopefully if I keep on this grindset I'll have a stupid arcade/bird game for you to chew me out on what to fix and improve. Then I'll gladly game jam will y'all. Thanks again
I feel called out by the "take the top spot on the best selling games of all time" thing. Literally my "plan" like four years ago was make an amazing sandbox game, sell a million copies, and never have to go back to my walmart job again.
Theres a few spaceship sandbox games that sadden me deeply, as cool as it is to build space ships with dirt you collected from the ground with your own hands... you then have nothing to actually use the spaceship for. no empire to topple, not village to save, just you your space ship and dirt .. im looking at you space engineers
Also make sure the crafting progression system isn't explained anywhere in game and instead you have to rely on fan made outside wikis that break all immersion and enjoyment (Cough cough terraria)
You should also try how to fail at demos, or heck even early access, because no one knows the difference between "early access," and "an actual completed game"
You're sexy for the game design concept, l want to try but didn't decide nor scheduled it in my non-existant schedule. One thing for sure, never try to copy sandbox from AAA,very specific cases, you can take some concepts but better to make your own ideas. Otherwise it will be a wide ocean but with almost no depth. Or a sandbox, with one 1 sand. I am sure it is possible for people to make actual sandbox games that have mechanics that combine each other so the original player with creativity can solve problems their own way. Dwarf fortress, while very complex, it sure has lot of details in it. Even Spacestation 13/14 . But modern players want the open world aspect of, "preferably", the ubisoft type of games. Oh noooooo.
Hey that's a nice game about creativity but what if you added a non optional hunger meter and thirst meter and wetness system and item durability and hypothermia and tracked the character's individual carbohydrates and protein grams and made night so dark nobody can play during it and made mandatory progression systems locked behind RNG hell random drops. Just a thought
Honestly terraria and neurotrauma (a mod from barotrauma) has problem with progression and that you need wiki to do a lot, because its not too complex for beginners
Ahh yes, the good old "Let's nerf/change/remove fun things from our game, that players actually enjoy, because it's not working the way WE wanted it to"...looking at you Helldivers 2(of course, they flipped that back after enough backlash, so good on them at least, for listening). Definitely never a good idea to do that in a game that's strictly PvE, and one that's supposed to be overall focused on experimentation and freedom of playing your own way; that's like the entire charm of Sandbox games.
make an absolutely perfectly turing complete wiring system that allows players to recursively recreate the entirety of minecraft within doom within minecraft within doom within minecraft
I got to the point in the video where you told me to watch the video again, so I did and I got to the point in the video where you told me to watch the video again, so I did and ....
i do take slight issue with the idea that the definition of Sandbox games is just "games without mandatory progression", because that defines BOTW as a sandbox.. but also disqualifies, of all things, Terraria
Most RPG's are secondarily sandbox games, including breath of the wild. Though I'm not sure how it disqualifies Terraria. The base definition of a game is "A voluntary attempt to achieve an artificial, objectively measurable goal, established by the medium." A sandbox game is not "without mandatory progression" (I don't think I even said that, btw) Instead a sandbox game is where the goal is essentially optional. It's like a gameboard where the goal is to travel from one side to the other, but there are optional paths. Some of those paths loop back close to the beginning. The player could choose to keep taking these looping paths essentially never reaching the goal, making the goal, in a sense, optional. Yet they are still playing the game. Terraria is won by beating the Moon Lord, "the final boss of Terraria," But because of the amount of options there are, (like the game board example, but with near infinite loops in near infinite places along the path,) the player could choose to play forever without "winning" the game. Terraria is a sandbox game.
@@Artindi well in order to use a vast majority of the blocks in the game you have to kill your world's respective Evil boss, Skeletron, the WOF (of which ~75% of the game's content is locked behind), and then (in order) the Mechs, Plantera, Golem, Cultist, and then you finally get to the Moon Lord theres a large amount of mandatory progression you need to do in order to engage with basically any of the game's content, like just try and build a big fancy structure without killing any bosses
Remember to have only 3 different blocks to really limit creativity. You don't want the players to believe that your game could be considered an art medium, do you?
![Felix "Unfair" | [Stray Kids : SKZ-PLAYER]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/Oswujxm2Ag0/mqdefault.jpg)
There are lot's of game design concepts unique to sandbox games, which do you think is most important? For me it's building/customization options that are versatile enough to be customizable. For example: I don't want to place down a single building. Instead i want to customize the floor and walls and place them where I want, even better if you just have components that are versatile enough they could be either a floor or a wall depending on their placement. The more versatile a component is, the better.
That's true but it's still hard to balance too much power with too little.
honestly, my favorite part of a sandbox game can often be the limitations that come with it. unnecessary limits like only being able to do some basic task such as the ones mentioned in the video are rather unfair, but when i say "limitations" i just mean the capabilities of the features or mechanic the game was made with, watching people go beyond what they were intended to create really interesting stuff. a good example of that is something like minecrafts redstone system, or baba is you's gimmick for its puzzles that, if enough room is given, allows you to practically be able to program. i guess youd say its like a "easy to understand, hard to master" type mindset.
i want sandboxes to give me the option to USE the stuff i make. i can enjoy making a silly creation and just being like "hey i made this" but what's really fun is making a sandbox creation and proceeding to use said creation to commit warcri-
why yes i do hate totk for not properly implementing this why do you ask
@@crai_fr This is a great part of sandbox games, component that are simple enough to understand, but complex enough to create some amazing things.
I like the idea of producing my own things and using everything in the virtual world around me in game. At the same time I think there should be a limit at how complicated that object is to create to bring into the world and the first place. Like was mentioned previously I think balance between realism and playability is a big key factor.
As an example spending 30 minutes cutting down wood or digging in dirt and then waiting around another 30 minutes to simply create one small meter square of wood floor would be Overkill. But I guess doing that would put people over the steam return game policy limit so there's that.
i'm strategically watching none of these videos so i'll never be ever to fail
gasp! I mean... it's only logical. ;)
Lol
flawless logic
It's like I haven't watched a tutorial video of how to breath so...
I'm not an English major or anything, but I feel that was a failure in proper grammar at the end there.
1:59 YandereDev removing every single instance of emergent gameplay his players discover.
I should just interview YandereDev for an episode one day.
@@Artindi ah yes interview the groomer dev, are you trying to fail at interviews too?
@@Artindi Bahahaha....please don't, for your and our sake alike
@miguelpadeiro762 Maybe instead I'll just have a 3 minute long video where I say nothing and just show his face. "How to fail" will be the title. :)
@@Artindilol
Ah, so this is what happened to Starbound. I'm glad you went back in time a decade and showed them this video.
I do what I must.
More ways how to fail:
1. If the sandbox game has building and structure placement, always ensure that the placement would be as spastic as possible, snapping or not snapping when you least want it. Basically, make sure the building placement resembles Z-fighting.
2. Crafting! Always add crafting even if it makes things much slower and doesn't add any challenge.
3. Ensure that inventory is only there to artificially slow down everything to a crawl.
4. Add optional objective quest markers everywhere but make every one of them play out the same.
Whoa. It's actually pretty difficult to give good advice on how to fail as sandbox includes narrative-based games like Jazzpunk, the early access survival crafting games like DayZ or Terraria, automation games like Factorio, or simulation games like Dwarf Fortress.
yeah, there are just general principles of good sandbox game design, other than those, sandbox games are pretty open ended.... by definition.
Also make crafting take time. Like, a lot of time. It's very fun when you have to stare at the crafting menu for 5 minutes to get an item you want.
@@noelka8134 Runescape.
Putting a long ass timer on crafting is my fav way devs make crafting fun 💘
Mention of jazzpunk in 2025?
I am so enjoyed.
"Do anything you want in our sandbox!"
*Players do something fun and interesting.*
"No, not like that. Or like that... or that... or that... hmm, infact, screw it. You're gonna be forced to loot linear dungeons and grind out fetch quests for eternity. But, something something base building, therefore it's still a sandbox."
7DTD in a nutshell.
exactly.
"Can I..." "No!" Is the story of my life T-T
Good, that's a pretty good story. ;)
But if you never try you will never fail
@@Artindithat's... rude AF dude wtf
@ I just staying in character. ma bad. lol
@@Artindi oh np
3:16 "Okay bro, please just take my lunch money and don't hurt me or my tamagotchi!"
That's right....
People who try to make "a better Minecraft" don't seem to realize that the best part of it are mods. Java version, ofc. Technology, magic, QoL mods, dungeons, bosses, different dimensions, pets, etc.
I've played with magic that lets me slow down time and ghost through walls. I've been to other planets, in different gravities and atmospheres. I've seen a reactor meltdown. Stored a whole base on a single item. I've made building in Survival mode easier than it is in the base game Creative. Made a perfect pentagon-shaped island floating over the void with a giant translucent tree growing in a twisted shape on it. I've ran in the air, faster than the speed of sound. Rode a giant dragon and wondered at how pretty some effects are in such a simple-looking game.
And I'm still figuring out how to do some things with vanilla-only redstone.
AC new horizons shows some very "wonderful" features you forgot to mention:
1. a durability system, that makes all of your tools more fragile than glass, and never lets you know when they are about to break! make sure the only way to repair them is with a slow-as-sh!t crafting mechanic that was totally not tacked on last minute!
2- on the topic of crafting, make sure most of your crafting recipes are only found at complete random. This way, the players will have to constantly pray for RNJesus to finnaly let them craft a wooden table; While their basement overflows with thousands of repeat recipes that keep showing up all the time.
3: let your player freely customize their game world. but don't let them move stuff like the airport or the island center. Committing is for nerds, anyway.
Overly complex reactions with no tutorial can sometimes work. Examples include: The powder toy(the tutorial is school) and noita(you learn by dying, but it is worth it).
Noita is exactly the game Artindi meant, it is incomprehensible without wiki
@ЛукаТрусенёв-й9я the wiki is unoficiall meaning, all the info came from experimentation and playing.
Mandatory permadeath is honestly highly overrated
@@xbirdshorts5075 it works for noita. Maybe not for other games.
@@ЛукаТрусенёв-й9я I don't think it's incomprehensible without the wiki. It's experimentation. Alchemy. The point is to be obtuse but learnable such that the obtuse nature becomes reasonably understandable.
1:17 you don't need all of that fancy stuff anyways because if the player truly cares about the experience they can just search for the wiki online! now that's an immersive way of building your sandbox and not at all annoying for the fandom
True, I would have made that joke, but I've already made it like 3 times in past episodes. ha ha. :)
Reposting my previous comment from the community post here because I'm super proud of it:
"welcome, to the sandbox game, have a look around..."
Detail how all of the player's choices feel equally worthless and difficult to grind for merely for the sake of "that sense of achievement"
This is the dev's first project. After all, they've played three popular Minecraft mod packs that were clearly made in an afternoon with absolutely no history to them whatsoever, it should be simple enough for them to make an exact copy of what they just played, only better, right? There certainly would not have been a lot of time and effort involved in balancing the mods and making them all play nicely together!
To make a good Minecraft clone-uh-sandbox, one should either use Java, because that's what Minecraft used and if it's good enough for them then it's good enough for you, or Unity/Unreal, because you want to pick an engine at the top of its game (that has no support for the exact type of game you want to build).
Sandbox OBVIOUSLY means survival building sim! It's not like any other sandbox games exist on the same level. Like, what would we do if there were one about stealing cars? Where's my cutting down trees and building there?
And remember: sandbox games cannot have a story. There was never any successful sandbox, vehicle building, physics based games with a story! Certainly none by a famous AAA company with a massive, home mantel name IP attached to it!
You should release your game's pre-alpha for play testing so you can generate revenue and interest, as well as get meaningful critique that you will certainly listen to! You certainly won't get overwhelmed and realize that game development is hard and that releasing your game early does not make development faster or easier as a single person!
Your core gameplay loop isn't important, but you want to know what is? More poorly designed monsters that are far too easy to cheese because they need a serious AI rework but won't be getting one because you don't test your game more than you need to!
Idk something like that I think
Thank you for making these videos Artindi! I have no clue if I will actually end up making any games but the entertainment factor makes them more than worthwhile!
I do remember reading this! Thanks for your help! :D
Go play Starbound
Sandbox games often struggle with telling stories, though -- the worlds lack "glue". Cause the player can just f-off in a random direction.
in order to create an odyssey, you really gotta get creative with design. (pacing, progression, geographical obstacles, etc)
ayyy the long awaited video
cheers Artindi
Thank you! Thank you! :)
Another important one is to make sure that when you add items, the more often they appear the less utilizable they are, and the most useful and needed items are the hardest to get! You wouldn't want a new ore to be actually liked by players or do anything but fill inventory space, right? And when you do add new ores and items, make sure they have as little functionality with other items and gameplay mechanics as possible! You wouldn't want your elaborately gotten shell items to be used in more than a single niche way, right? Just keep adding items that only have a single purpose every update!
Minecraft copper? :)
@@georgegribkov8343 Or gold in early Minecraft.
But to give credit to Minecraft, stone and wood are used everywhere.
if you count the versions released on different platforms, tetris is one of the top-selling games too
true. in fact it might be close to number 1 if not in the first spot.
Actually you should remove support for the mod and ignore all community feedback but I guess that goes for any game right
This is the way.
making an "open world" "sandbox" game
- the map is just path and you hit invisible walls if you ever try to explore
- there are some bits of the map that LOOK like you can go to them, but you just end up hitting another invisible wall
- completely linear
- some extra quests and stuff on the side
- they don't give you anything except for some extremely ugly cosmetics or (very rarely) a really crappy item that sells for -0.2 coins
Witcher 3 vibes
But don't forget to add things that are harder to reach than invisible walls.
How do I fail at building a game community though?
By not caring about them. might be worth making a video on. :)
Start by overcharging for an incomplete and or buggy game. Continue by ignoring all suggestions, criticisms, opinions of the community, don't make regular progress reports, when you do make progress reports make sure they are inaccurate and promise grandiose things coming in the game that will never be there, and finally after doing this and really making everyone mad you sell the rights to the game and the name off to someone else to deal with. Pure profit
It's easy, just assume that no criticism you receive is intelligent or well-meaning, and certainly never both. Rather than using it to refine your game or simply ignoring it, be sure to use your social media accounts to mock and belittle any of the awful, ignorant people posting it. Oh, and don't forget to block them. That way, you'll get a nice little echo chamber, emphasis on the little.
@@malumphasma better, just add tiny useless features as updates and do nothing and stream other games and watch anime
and bonus points if you spend the money people donated to you on buying useless crap that don't help the game at all ;)
@HL2Modder2001 dead by daylight?
2:34
Minecraft REFUSING ON THEIR MOTHER to never add chairs to the game (or literally any kind of feature that they didn't come up with because they wanna feel special)
There are even mods that optimize the game for better frame rates and load times, but... nope. Can't add that.
It's really funny because pistons and horses were mods first before Notch added them to the game
Edit: Turns out Jeb was the one to actually implement the mods into the base game but it was still before the Microsoft acquisition
Just use a stair
allegedly limitations make creativity, so they should remove all the variation blocks because limitations!!!!!
Or vertical slabs
Patching out the gameplay people like immediately made me think of 7 Days To Die. They reworked literally every system that people loved besides the combat system (not combat progression, which was made worse multiple times, but just the range, speed, etc of the guns and melee weapons.)
exactly what I was referencing. :)
> Dynamic lore-based story
But for the sake of argument, if I wanted to go against the excellent advice provided in this video, what are some examples of games that implement this approach to their story?
Vintage Story, Stardew Valley, Minecraft, Dwarf Fortress, Conan Exiles, Rimworld. The list goes on. The thing about sandbox games is because of how much control you give the player any pre-made story can be hard to convey. Not impossible, Skyrim being a good example. But most often it's easier to have lore built in as part of the game design and environment, including optional interactable like books, or audio playbacks. Let the player form and make their own story aided with thoughtful game design.
@@Artindi Thank you! I'll be honest, it never occurred to me that Minecraft has anything that can be described as a "story," unless you count players' tendency to do colonialism. But other examples make sense.
@@mrgraydiamond In Minecraft the building's and and ruins convey a bit of story, as well as the names and designs of mobs, "endermen" for example, or the achievement "free the end" Suggest a small amount of lore among other things, but otherwise you are right, there isn't too much to go off of in Minecraft.
To add to the list of examples, Starbound. Although the main quest is pretty much just a linear story, it is a sandbox game where players do whatever they like, possibly making their own story in a universe with a substantial amount of lore.
Chuckling my goolies off over here! Also a round of applause for the Terminator T101 at 1:07 👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏 Sandbox is mostly what I play too and your points are bang on. Bravo.
Thanks! Sandbox games are the best. :)
I love the comment section of these videos. Normally you find a bunch of people suggesting topics for future videos.
So to keep it that way here is an example of possible topics which could have been suggested by other people:
- DLCs
- Endings/Post game
- Sequels
- Strategy games
- Modding
- Physics
- Skill trees
- Hiring people (like voice actors, artists etc.)
- Menus/HUDs
- Quick time events
- Cozy Games
- Single player games
- Party Games
- Achievements
- Voice acting (for games)
- Enemies
- Getting Hired
- Communication with the Fans
- Design Documents
- Early Access
- Kickstarter campains/funding
- Dialoge
- Difficulty
Puh can you imagine the nerv someone would have to have to do that? Also if someone would do that, then I could see them getting their hopes waaaay up, to see their suggestion coming up eventually Oo. So it’s better to avoid this from happening to you!
So in order to lead with a good example I will only say „Eh, keep what you‘re doing instead👍. The series has been a joy to watch and will be a joy to watch in the future as well :)“
Excellent, I'm definitely... NOT... going to add all of these to my list. ;)
Puh, another comment section saved :)
Babe, wake up, the -daily- -weekly- -monthly- bimonthly dose of Artindi video just dropped
Man this one was hard to make. lol. And now I'm probably going to slow down to about that pace so I can try and finish my own game. :)
@@Artindi yooo didnt know YOU were makin a game :0
good luck with it!
@ Thanks! :D
How to fail at bugfixing or updates
might be good to cover that one day.
he's right, i didn't follow the instructions exactly and i ended up making the most successful game ever made
i'm so ashamed of myself rn
You should be.
bro this is my humor. Always great laughs, great videos!
0:55 literally how i felt trying to get reds coin on mario maker 3DS
It's been some time since I last saw your content and you've improved a lot mate, good video
Hey thanks! Nice to see a familiar face. :)
i HATE how many sandbox games in general just...take forever to grind stuff out. MC is fine because creative mode does exist, but god forbid you want to build something in survival without months of prep and resource gathering.
but the worst one off the top of my head is totk. because they took literally everything in botw, added 1 cool concept that couldnt even be used properly, made it FAR harder to get resources, and made weapon hoarding worse by both giving the final boss the best reason to be arrow spammed AND making it so you have to kill a godlike creature just to get some kind of reward from it.
yea im mad at whoever shipped out the game in its current state it coulda been so cool-
When a game adds options to customize how hard the grind is, then you know it's a good sandbox game. :)
More hours players spend in game must mean that they are having fun right?
Yeah I hate excessive grind as well, it's a game not real life I come to a game to escape real life not recreate it completely LOL
This is such a massive issue with minecraft for me. Like, i can play the game, but as soon as i have the audacity to even think of building something bigger than idk 10 blocks in total area im confronted by the excessive grind of stacks upon stacks of blocks. For a game that, honestly, is kinda ditching all the other aspect, not having some endgame "more efficient" recipes for basic materials or better harvesting methods is insane.
Never in my life have i had this problem in terraria. Granted it takes like 4 times less blocks to build anything there, but that's also the point. It's just way way less grind for building something you like.
This is such a massive issue with minecraft for me. Like, i can play the game, but as soon as i have the audacity to even think of building something bigger than idk 10 blocks in total area im confronted by the excessive grind of stacks upon stacks of blocks. For a game that, honestly, is kinda ditching all the other aspect, not having some endgame "more efficient" recipes for basic materials or better harvesting methods is insane.
Never in my life have i had this problem in terraria. Granted it takes like 4 times less blocks to build anything there, but that's also the point. It's just way way less grind for building something you like.
This is such a massive issue with minecraft for me. Like, i can play the game, but as soon as i have the audacity to even think of building something bigger than idk 10 blocks in total area im confronted by the excessive grind of stacks upon stacks of blocks. For a game that, honestly, is kinda ditching all the other aspect, not having some endgame "more efficient" recipes for basic materials or better harvesting methods is insane.
Never in my life have i had this problem in terraria. Granted it takes like 4 times less blocks to build anything there, but that's also the point. It's just way way less grind for building something you like.
The king is back!
Where? I want to see him! 0.0
This video is a sandbox where i can guess whether a point is criticuing minecraft or not
Bit of both really, Minecraft does some things really well, but they are also just awful at other things.
@@Artindi mod support is the one thing ill let people clown on minecraft for 'til the cows come home, everything else i think makes me feel like they'd rather it was an entirely different game. I like the datapack stuff theyre working on, but it has me fearing it'll be the 30s before they get even close to mods.
lol, that moment that you failed so hard, that you failed at failing to make a sandbox game xD
glad to know that you got some great ideas on how to fail at making a sandbox game from your community, they're absolutely great!!!
Oh, my favorite one! It's have been 8 years since I started searching and testing tech for my dream sandbox game with soft tetrahedral meshes for building anything (cars, machinery, environment)! And yes, I want to make it multiplayer (I know that funny physics system gonna make it really difficult)
So to fail in making sandbox game, you can just use some advanced physics (like soft bodies) on large scale with mutiplayer.There is a reason why we got free spot there.
~~I'm stuck in my own misery with potato gpu from 2014 that keep me switching between different physics solutions. Though that just means I must get gud and actually make something my own, rather than using some system that doesn't fit game needs.~~
im watching these videos in reverse so I get good advice
2:40 scene actually struck me as really cool and smart person like. Couldn't be me. Could definitely be artindi.
Yeah.... I'm confused. lol. ;)
1:59 glad to see a Blizzard cameo in this video
Damn, some serious yandev vibes
Pure gold(en sand) video.
Just try to make it a dwarf fortress like game, spend 3 years on it and give up halfway through because of scope creep, and then blame the game engine. Then spend the rest of you life making mobile games with hundreds of micro transactions.
Gotta get rich! :D
I've seen this before... 🤔
I think that is the most time consuming, way to fail
Likely true. lol
I'm working on my first game, a multiplayer Stardew Valley with Minecraft graphics, building, and exploration. I can't program but I'm more of an ideas guy. Aiming for a Q3 2025 release 🙃
noice.
From the Depths, a vehicle combat game in which you can not only just customize the weapons but design them. Same with movement components and even ammo. Mostly a building game, but you can use premade parts and vehicles, too. Optionally coop with friends. Can be PvP if people want to check who made a better thing.
I've seen people build tanks, submarines, battleships, satellites, blips, jet fighters, etc. Some madman even made a giant humanoid-looking thing, capable of running, stomping, moving on all fours and firing beams from its palms and mouth.
That sounds fun.
The arbitrary limitations reminds me alot of cube world
2:38 implies mod developers aren't crybabies who will yell at you for "stealing their mod". like that's exactly what happened when Notch added popular mod mechanics to Minecraft. people tried to shame him for "stealing" the ideas.
Factorio did it well by not only crediting the original dev. But highering them as well. Same with Project Zomboid.
Don't forget the part where you add so many items and resources that any player wanting to make something is overwhelmed and has no clue what to use.
I think it would be cool to make some crazy sandbox game that has all sorts of stuff you can do, and then insist that the way it was "supposed" to be played is one minor minigame within it. Like maybe it's a Frogger clone, but you can leave the arcade cabinet and do other stuff, but you're "not supposed to".
another awesome video new year and Happy new year
Thanks! You too! :D
Great video !
love the new cards!
Can you make one for hero shooters?
ha ha, boy if I could make on right now that would be good timing. I bet by the time I get around to it they won't be popular anymore. :/
2:50 STARBOUND RAAAAAAAH
It’s bewildering to me that Minecraft became as popular as it did when the whole “craft” part required several tabs open or an expert in call to actually partake in.
a lot of old games required the player to reference a manual, online strategy guides, etc. It is also a social activity
@ fair point, though Minecraft didn’t come with a manual. I’m just picturing how people would have figured certain shit out in Minecraft without any official information, short of diving into the code.
1:02 My man just explained Modded Terraria
1:55 god giving humans free will
(The christian one anyway, maybe other religions have cooler gods)
Video ides i had
You ever consider making how to fail at failing. Basicly focusing on failure is a natural facet of making something and you'll have to learn from it rather then letting it bum you out
I have. I did make a video explaining what I mean in episode 1-25 without sarcasm and titled it that. But it might be good to make a video about learning from failure and how not to learn from failure. :)
Obviously the best way to deal with mods for the game that make people happy would be to try to take them down because they might lead to people not following your intended way to play.
"And this is how to fail at sandbox games"
**Proceeds do describe No Man's Sky**
0.0
I think I’ll wait for Brickadia to take that spot
100th comment: This is another great one! Keep it up!
Hi, artindi. Since I am not trying to fail at Indie Dev, what would you recommend be the first genres? A beginner should take a stab at as their first game.
Really enjoyed the video by the way.
For your first game, I would follow a tutorial in the game engine you are using. Then after that make some really simple arcade games, if you can't think of one and keep it in scope, just try and clone one that already exists, like space invaders or brick braker, The point is to learn what you need to make games before you bite off more than you can chew. Once you have a few simple games under your belt, you could also try a game jam, this will force you to take a game to a more complete state and force you to consider scope. After you've done these things then maybe consider making a unique game. But even then, aim for something small. The genre at that point doesn't matter, but I would avoid open worlds, FPS and RPG, these typically have too large of a scope for your first real game. And at that point you could probably go on to make what you want. :)
@Artindi
Thanks for the advice 🙏🏾 I'll definitely be looking into those game jams once I've polished my skill unless you start your own for the channel, then my problem is solved.
@@Nubian_King_RNM I'll be hosting one later this year. probably several months away though.
@@Nubian_King_RNM Ludum Dare would probably still be the biggest one. Notch made an LD game once. Pretty cool, but slightly cultish. Genre doesn't really matter as much as scope. Some genres do require a big scope by default, but other than that, just do it in a way you enjoy and don't expect your first few games to become commercial releases! I'm a bit of an extreme case, but I started devving in 2012, using Unity in 2013, and I'm finally gonna release my first proper Steam game this year. I did release something smaller about 5 years ago that technically was a commercial game because it had ads, but it cannot be considered anything close to my magnum opus.
@Artindi
Oh, man, I am glad know this now but am still a ways off from participating but hopefully if I keep on this grindset I'll have a stupid arcade/bird game for you to chew me out on what to fix and improve. Then I'll gladly game jam will y'all. Thanks again
1:39 The Family Guy death pose 💀💀
It works so well. :)
I feel called out by the "take the top spot on the best selling games of all time" thing. Literally my "plan" like four years ago was make an amazing sandbox game, sell a million copies, and never have to go back to my walmart job again.
The dream of all indie devs.... not a bad dream though. Just highly unlikely.
Theres a few spaceship sandbox games that sadden me deeply, as cool as it is to build space ships with dirt you collected from the ground with your own hands... you then have nothing to actually use the spaceship for. no empire to topple, not village to save, just you your space ship and dirt .. im looking at you space engineers
Also make sure the crafting progression system isn't explained anywhere in game and instead you have to rely on fan made outside wikis that break all immersion and enjoyment
(Cough cough terraria)
I just realised, that maybe my game concept is not sandbox.
Nice video tho, entertaining and understandable.
Holy moly, scathing
wow I'm building a sandbox game right now what a coincidence
Wheres the how to fail at stealth games? Theres so many things you can mess up with them
On the list. One day it will be a thing. :)
Taking notes on this one, trying not to fail at this.
Uh... the point of this one is TO fail.... get it right.
@Artindi I follow it with "reversed psychology" (cognitive dissonance) so i just added a guide / crafting tree after watching
I’m making a sandbox game I already got the awful ui haven’t got to interactables yet
You should also try how to fail at demos, or heck even early access, because no one knows the difference between "early access," and "an actual completed game"
You're sexy for the game design concept, l want to try but didn't decide nor scheduled it in my non-existant schedule.
One thing for sure, never try to copy sandbox from AAA,very specific cases, you can take some concepts but better to make your own ideas. Otherwise it will be a wide ocean but with almost no depth. Or a sandbox, with one 1 sand.
I am sure it is possible for people to make actual sandbox games that have mechanics that combine each other so the original player with creativity can solve problems their own way.
Dwarf fortress, while very complex, it sure has lot of details in it. Even Spacestation 13/14 .
But modern players want the open world aspect of, "preferably", the ubisoft type of games. Oh noooooo.
okay but the best gameplay in sandbox is shoveling out the cat poop
Hey that's a nice game about creativity but what if you added a non optional hunger meter and thirst meter and wetness system and item durability and hypothermia and tracked the character's individual carbohydrates and protein grams and made night so dark nobody can play during it and made mandatory progression systems locked behind RNG hell random drops. Just a thought
Kinda sounds like fun if done right. ;)
yeah, Type 2 fun
that's all of project zomboid in a nutshell
@ Almost, minus the "progression locked behind RNG" bit.
The greatest indie dev's enemy is himself. His ego. His dream.
Why Im upset with Wizard with a Gun
Literally 100% of all sandbox games.
Almost, there are some that are pretty well rounded. :)
Honestly terraria and neurotrauma (a mod from barotrauma) has problem with progression and that you need wiki to do a lot, because its not too complex for beginners
Too complex*
I'm going to my sandbox now.
Hope you're not a cat! ;)
The part about not adding popular mods really feels like a jab at Minecraft
( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
They used to do that, horses and pistons are examples I can think of at the top of my head.
@ Yeah, that was back before Microsoft bought it. Back when they really cared about their community.
@ These large companies must be watching your videos because they seem to make the worst decisions sometimes.
Ahh yes, the good old "Let's nerf/change/remove fun things from our game, that players actually enjoy, because it's not working the way WE wanted it to"...looking at you Helldivers 2(of course, they flipped that back after enough backlash, so good on them at least, for listening). Definitely never a good idea to do that in a game that's strictly PvE, and one that's supposed to be overall focused on experimentation and freedom of playing your own way; that's like the entire charm of Sandbox games.
im watching these videos so that if i fail hard enough, i will succeed. since two negatives make a positive
@3:17 lol that shot
2:15 it's onion. onions
make an absolutely perfectly turing complete wiring system that allows players to recursively recreate the entirety of minecraft within doom within minecraft within doom within minecraft
Hehehe my idea of how to fail at sandbox games made it in.
Nice. :)
This vid, says it all!
Too many people are following your tutorials by heart
Just contributing to society. ;)
I got to the point in the video where you told me to watch the video again, so I did and I got to the point in the video where you told me to watch the video again, so I did and ....
Hee hee.
I swear part of the middle of the video just translated to "Yandere Simulator" in my ears
Looks like we gotta update how to fail at failing
Episode 50 we will do that. :)
You should have just made your stardew valley knock off. But you were WEAK and now your a failure at sandbox games.
Now i wonder what else are you planning on show us how to fail
EVERYTHING! 0.0
i do take slight issue with the idea that the definition of Sandbox games is just "games without mandatory progression", because that defines BOTW as a sandbox.. but also disqualifies, of all things, Terraria
Most RPG's are secondarily sandbox games, including breath of the wild. Though I'm not sure how it disqualifies Terraria.
The base definition of a game is "A voluntary attempt to achieve an artificial, objectively measurable goal, established by the medium."
A sandbox game is not "without mandatory progression" (I don't think I even said that, btw)
Instead a sandbox game is where the goal is essentially optional. It's like a gameboard where the goal is to travel from one side to the other, but there are optional paths. Some of those paths loop back close to the beginning. The player could choose to keep taking these looping paths essentially never reaching the goal, making the goal, in a sense, optional. Yet they are still playing the game.
Terraria is won by beating the Moon Lord, "the final boss of Terraria," But because of the amount of options there are, (like the game board example, but with near infinite loops in near infinite places along the path,) the player could choose to play forever without "winning" the game.
Terraria is a sandbox game.
@@Artindi well in order to use a vast majority of the blocks in the game you have to kill your world's respective Evil boss, Skeletron, the WOF (of which ~75% of the game's content is locked behind), and then (in order) the Mechs, Plantera, Golem, Cultist, and then you finally get to the Moon Lord
theres a large amount of mandatory progression you need to do in order to engage with basically any of the game's content, like just try and build a big fancy structure without killing any bosses
me about to leave every instument for my game in it by "accident" then never removing it
Remember to have only 3 different blocks to really limit creativity. You don't want the players to believe that your game could be considered an art medium, do you?
why stop at 3? 0.0
makes game, game fails, i succseeded
makes game, game succseeds, i fail
The twist we all always coming.