Post by Janamus Zura in Funkelregen comments

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I, of course, know the common complaints about sandboxes/free-roam AVNs. Therefore, I tried to minimize the annoying asspects: As stated before, there are no farmable stats and basically no event is meant to be seen twice. Additionally, there are only day-cycles, so you at worst have to "wait" 3/4 of day for a specifc event.

Also, in the free-roam sections, you have a minimap, which shows you where in with whom an event is available in an almost fool-proof manor. And yes, it's only one button press from minimap to said event.

"fruitless clicks" is of course somewhat objective, but I have tried to minimize them as much as possible...

5thRing31 days ago

Ok, I'll check it out. Doesn't sound terrible. The good may outweigh the bad.

I appreciate the replies.

For what it's worth, I'll offer this perspective:

I prefer purely kinetic AVNs, but I understand the need to accommodate certain audiences, so some choice inclusion is fine. I somewhat enjoy editing the files to remove the menus and automate the preferred paths, turning them into kinetic novels. This is not so easily done with a sandbox.

I do play a few sandbox games where the good outweighs the bad (The Headmaster, Power Vacuum), but they are ones I started before the novelty wore off.

Other ones that I consider otherwise excellent are on the edge of completely losing me because the direction is not sufficiently clear, and I waste a lot of time just trying to hunt down the correct trigger.

I recently started Origin Story, which has some sandbox elements that are minimal, with a guiding checklist, so it's tolerable, but if I need to do everything to progress, and it doesn't matter what order I do it in (for the most part), then it leaves me questioning why make it have extra steps to begin with?

I don't understand why sandbox is preferable to some creators and players. It just seems like a lot of extra work on both sides to accomplish the exact same end.

I saw one AVN that offered an option to play it as kinetic or with choices, though it was not a sandbox one. I wish more would do that. I don't have content hang-ups that I feel any need to opt out of. I just want the full story and to see everything.

Anyway, that's just my personal point of view. It doesn't have to mean anything to you.

Janamus Zura29 days ago(+2)

Generally, there are two extremes of (A)VN players: Those who see the game literally as a novel and usually dislike everything, that detracts from the experience of a standard novel (probably someone like you). Then at the other end of the spectrum, the players see a (A)VN still as a game and want at least some kind of interaction from the medium.

Obviously, I’m in the second team. That’s also why Funkelregen is a sandbox AVN, because free roam/sandbox elements give you (at least the illusion of) more choices/freedom. But of course I know the usual complains about sandboxes, so I went out of my way to make the sandbox as lenient as possible – no farmable stats, day-cycles, almost no events, that are meant to be seen more than once… And also I like the (programming) challenge of creating a working free roam infrastructure... (I'm probably weired...)

Among the games, you've mentioned, I have only played Headmaster and in a comparrison, my game has a far "easier" sandbox.

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