Life is a Sandbox

With a couple of my friends I've had an ongoing conversation about style of games. It seems that in any long standing, multi-session game, predominately RPGs, they fall into one of three types. These are part the style of the game, part the method of the storyteller and a little set by the demands of the players.

The first style, and in some ways the most common style, is a rail game. You complete an objective and you move onto the next objective. You can't turn a look anywhere else, you are following a tight story or path. The advantage is you can share the experience with people who are not playing in the same game you are. The drama is precise and calculated, meaning by the time you get to the boss you know why it is important to kill him. The downside it, it can leave the players feeling like their choices don't matter. The player can't add anything to the world, they just come to experience it.

The second style has been coined as theme park. The idea behind these style games is there are lots of things to do, but it is not infinite. For those who play World of Warcraft, it is somewhat like the way they do quests. You can choose half a dozen hubs, none of them are required, but each opens up its own stuff. The who choices you make do have some impact, but it is not universal. You can't effectively create a new encounter, you have to choose from the available encounters.

The third, and final, kind of game is a sandbox. These games let you go anywhere and do anything. The world bends around the player. Every choice they make has some impact on not only what they can do, but how events in the world unfold. They give the player the maximum reward for all their choices. The drawback to these game, though, is if players don't have a drive to explore, test and do things, they can become boring. Imagine a huge fantasy world where you decide to just stay in your hut. Yes, you can probably do that, but it is not going to be a very good experience.

Whether you care about, or believe in, these labels doesn't really matter for the thought which has come to me as I have been writing about this. The thought goes like this, games simulate life in various ways, so in someways we look at life not completely unlike a game. It is important to understand the kind of game life is. If you look at life like a rail game, you want life to open up to you and don't really believe you will have any impact. This is wrong. Completely wrong. If you look at life like a theme park, you expect you have a variety of options, but those options are limited, in someways this is true, but in others is is also wrong. A theme park mindset leads you to limit you life options to just the things which are normal or obvious. Really, if you think about it, you can attempt to do anything, whether you should is another thing, but you can. Additionally, as you make choices, the world bends around those choices, you gain skills, friends, enemies, based on the things you do. This is largely true. The problem with this, though, is the same problem which can happen in the games, you have to have drive and desires, or it is going to seem aimless.