Sandbox Game Lessons - Part 1: Introduction and Examples
Introduction Open world gaming (or "Sandbox" gaming, as I'll refer to it in this series) in video games has become a big trend over the last several years. People love adventuring, questing, puzzle solving and crafting within the game, but they also love to make the game experience their own. A great example of this open world approach is Bethesda's Fallout 4 , which has an astounding number of quests, sub-quests, mini-quests and achievements, including the main quest to find your missing son. As people got more experience with the game, one of the things some players liked to do was show off these amazing buildings, settlements and crafting accomplishments they'd created. A joking response to some of the more extreme cases was "How's Shaun?" as a teasing reminder that the player has totally ignored the main quest to do their own thing. In TTRPGs, sandbox gaming has become more of a trend as well. It's always been true that no planning or adven