Sandbox
In short A sandbox is a game that gives you tools and a responsive world and leaves the purpose largely up to you.
Definition
A sandbox is a game that hands the player a set of tools and a responsive world and leaves the purpose largely up to them. There may be goals on offer, but the game does not insist on them, and much of the play consists of building, testing and arranging things for their own sake. The term borrows from the children's sandbox: a bounded space with material in it and no fixed outcome. Because sandbox describes a stance toward goals rather than a single kind of activity, it combines with many genres. It is distinct from an open world, which is a large space that may still hold a firmly directed story.
Not to be confused with
- Simulation game
A simulation game models how some system works, and may or may not leave its goals open, while a sandbox is defined by leaving them open.
- Immersive sim
An immersive sim gives the player freedom of method toward set goals, while a sandbox gives freedom over the goals themselves.
- Playful design
Playful design is an approach to designing for open-ended play in any product, while a sandbox is a kind of game that makes such play its center.
Where the game lives
- rules: used
- goals: dropped
- feedback: used
- uncertainty: not essential
- choice: used
- play: used
A sandbox keeps consistent rules and responsive feedback so that free play has something to push against. What it gives up is the fixed goal, which the player is left to supply.
used dropped · What the six structures are
Examples
SimCityMaxis, 1989
A city-building game with no victory condition, in which players decide for themselves what a good city is.
Garry's ModFacepunch Studios, 2006
A physics playground built on Valve's Source engine, with almost no goals beyond what players invent.
MinecraftMojang, 2011
A world of blocks to dig and place, whose survival goals are optional next to building for its own sake.
In the essays
No essay takes this term on directly yet. Its neighbors in the guide are linked above; the newsletter announces new essays.
Sources
- BookMan, Play and Games. Free Press (English translation by Meyer Barash), 1961. Sets out the contrast between paidia, free and improvised play, and ludus, play bound by rules and goals. Reading list
- PaperSimulation versus Narrative: Introduction to Ludology. Routledge, in The Video Game Theory Reader (ed. Mark J. P. Wolf and Bernard Perron), 2003. Applies the paidia and ludus distinction to video games, separating games without set goals from games with them.
- BookRules of Play: Game Design Fundamentals. MIT Press, 2003. Reading list