When is a sandbox game a game?

Fengol

I've been working on a city builder game in the vein of the City Building Series and I'm continually adding new buildings, wanderers and overlays.

But I subscribe to @BlackShipsFillTheSky's definition that your prototype is a game when it has a win and lose condition. But how does this apply to sandbox games?

When will my prototype be ready for public feedback?

skinklizzard

sandbox games don't have a clear win condition, but I'd say it becomes a game when players can feasibly achieve or fail their own goals within your sandbox game world. In many cases this probably lands up being the point where the player has gotten the game to now play itself or be mostly self sufficient. as for public feedback if it has something for people to actually do and setbacks to make doing those things more interesting/difficult I'd say its probably ready for early feedback.
this is opinion as a player of sandbox games rather than a designer of them though.

dislekcia

Not losing is a bit like winning. Managing to keep not losing in interesting ways is fun. Start with a way to lose your game, then see what people do when playing it.

Tuism

But a sandbox game is a game. And winning and losing aren't really defined that tightly anyway. In minecraft you can never lose. You can die and lose all your stuff, but you come back. If the player defines "losing" as losing their stuff, then dying is like losing. If the player defines "losing" as getting their lovely house blown up, then creepers appearing inside their house would be like losing.

It's a tug-of-war between game design, designer intention and players' own prerogative, I think :)

Fengol

I think with the city builder series you're losing when you have no funds and no income, so you can't expand or make changes to prevent/recover from disasters. I'm missing that so I'll add them before sharing.

Thanks @dislekcia

Squidcor

I quite like this definition from Schell:

"A game is a problem-solving activity approached with a playful attitude."

I think as long as there a problems to solve it's a game. Even if you can't win or lose, your problems might be "can I design this more efficiently?" or "what is the best way to get more wood?". If players' are thinking about those problems, they're playing.

Coincidentally, I'm working on management game in the same vein myself :)

EvanGreenwood

I agree with the others here. Problems to overcome are what are important here.

I think "win condition" and "lose condition" don't have to be winning or losing in a game like Chess. I was almost certainly talking about the kinds of prototypes where there is no adversity or no way to progress. In that scenario giving the player goals (even implied goals) and/or adversity is usually a priority.

So yeah, if you've got a game where you could just put down buildings of a city (for example), then adding simulation elements that allow players to run out of money, or not run out of money (or even just have less money than they need to build expensive buildings or make their citizens happy), would be a good move. (Which I think is pretty much what @Dislekcia suggested)

In hindsight, my statement that "your prototype is a game when it has a win and lose condition" could be semantically correct, at a stretch, but still kind of confusing/crappy advice in a lot of situations.