Back when Lucas developed Undertale, its meta-game concept opened a whole new door for many designers.
After that, indie games had a big wave of meta-game trends.
The second big shake-up came with Overcooked and Fall Guys. Their mix of co-op and game-show style inspired a lot of designers.
Then came Dark Souls and It Takes Two. They also gave plenty of inspiration—
What's missing are good two-player co-op games, and it turns out players are more willing to accept hardcore games than expected.
But when it comes to gameplay and settings, this game basically can't be used as a model for most designers.
That's because the success came from overall quality, while many small studios and indie teams simply can't afford that kind of cost and risk.
Now with the arrival of Don't Starve, and its so-called sandbox style, many designers feel like they've discovered something new.
Even so, up until now, no designer has really figured out Don't Starve's core idea, or even what "sandbox" truly means.
For example, the real reason behind Don't Starve's success—was it the survival mechanics, the collecting and building, or some other hidden factor?
But one thing's for sure: this type of game is definitely worth trying.
The key is that Don't Starve wasn't a big-budget project.
Looking at its art assets and the size of the final product, it's clearly a typical indie team game.
And a small-scale project means lower trial-and-error costs.
Plus, from the overall framework, many designers feel it's much easier to copy Don't Starve's success than Dark Souls'.
Don't Starve has a clear theme: creating a rich sandbox world and letting players survive in it.
The only challenge is figuring out how to make this work in other sandbox games.
On an industry forum, many well-known indie designers, along with some second- and third-tier studio designers, were discussing Don't Starve's strengths, weaknesses, and direction.
"Feels like sandbox games could be a really promising path!"
"The Nebula Games platform seems to be taking off. Based on the announced numbers, first-month sales will hit around four million, and that's just on Nebula Games alone!"
"Forget about Nebula Games, that has nothing to do with us. Let's talk about Don't Starve's sandbox gameplay."
"I think Don't Starve gives us a pretty clear direction: a clear goal combined with lots of elements. Think about it—its main theme is survival, and every design is built around that. So I feel a sandbox game should be a big map with one core theme, but without restricting the player."
"Right, and you can swap out survival for something else. For example, if the theme is treasure hunting, the world could have tombs scattered everywhere, and we don't limit how players explore them. Add in some randomness, and that's another form of sandbox."
"Exactly. In Don't Starve there's a tech tree, but that could easily be replaced with a skill tree. In a treasure-hunting sandbox, every time the player finds something new, they could link the treasure to the skill tree and unlock new abilities."
Designers from all over the forum kept debating what the real core of a sandbox game should be.
Every designer had their own take.
...............
In the Nebula Games break room, Rachel was also playing Don't Starve, with Anna and a few others watching from behind.
In this save, Rachel had survived more than sixty days, and it was currently summer.
"Rachel, this base of yours has to be the biggest in the whole company!"
"Yeah, yeah! Rachel, how much time have you spent grinding on this?"
The crowd behind Rachel chimed in.
All kinds of traps, fenced pig pens, and boxes full of supplies.
Berry bushes and other crops planted in rows were too many to count.
At the entrance of the base, there were also lots of tooth traps.
The whole homestead was tightly surrounded by grass walls.
"Still no good!" Rachel's face was full of smiles.
While chatting with Anna and the others, Rachel also checked her own tooth traps.
Because the hounds were about to attack her.
But so what? She had so many tooth traps.
Yet when the pack of hounds showed up, and she saw a few red ones among them, Rachel's face changed: "Crap, I forgot to put fuel in the fire extinguisher!"
"What's wrong? Weren't all the hounds killed?" Anna, who was in charge of story mode, didn't know much about monster traits. Plus, she hadn't even survived 20 days in the game yet, so she found Rachel's reaction strange.
But a moment later, she understood.
After one of the red hounds died, flames burst out on the spot.
Then, as Rachel's face turned pale, the fire started spreading.
Pig pens, berry bushes, saplings… until two-thirds of the base were swallowed by the flames.
Buildings on fire, blazing flames everywhere—despair was written all over it.
Anna and the others standing behind could only shake their heads.
But really, this was something most players of *Don't Starve* had gone through.
Dying from an accident was one thing, at least it was over quickly. The real pain was when an accident burned your entire base to ashes.
In that situation, it truly felt worse than death.
"I'm done. I'm exhausted…" Rachel looked at the burning screen, then quietly hit ALT+F4 to quit the game.
"This game is always full of surprises, just like life." Lucas, who had just gone to the rest area, saw Rachel's breakdown from start to finish and couldn't help but laugh.
It was quite a deep line, but everyone else just rolled their eyes.
"By the way, Lucas, a lot of game designers in the industry have been talking about our Don't Starve and the whole sandbox genre. Feels like there's going to be a wave of sandbox games coming soon!" Hector said to Lucas.
"I've been following that, but their focus is a bit off." Lucas nodded, then shook his head.
"Off?" Everyone looked curious after hearing him say that.
"What do you all think is the core of a sandbox game?" Lucas asked.
"Survival and freedom?"
"No, I think it's both collecting and surviving."
Everyone discussed with each other.
But Lucas didn't wait for them to finish. He went on: "Creation! That's the real core of a sandbox game."
"From creation comes exploration. That's the heart of sandbox gameplay. Simply put, it's letting players use the resources and materials the game gives them to create what they want, and then use what they created to explore a bigger world." Lucas said as he looked at everyone.
From the view of Lucas's past life, the game industry's discussions all made sense in their own ways, but none of them were completely right.
They leaned more toward parts of miniature-world games or open-world games. As for sandbox games, while Don't Starve gave players a strong goal of survival, its core idea was creation born out of survival.
Survival was just there to keep players from feeling lost.
Hearing Lucas's words, everyone looked like they got part of it, but not fully.
"When the next game goes into development, you'll understand what I mean," Lucas said with a smile.
Next game?
Everyone's interest was sparked.
"Lucas, already?" Rachel and Anna were both shocked.
After all, Don't Starve had only been online for less than two weeks!
"Compared to Don't Starve, the new project will take longer. For the next few months before the new year, our focus will be on the new game. For now, I'm just giving you all a heads-up. If you have questions, we'll talk about them in meetings. Right now, your main job is still to keep Don't Starve's mods running smoothly and work on the upcoming DLC," Lucas said.
(End of The Chapter)
---
Read +100 advanced chapters on my patre*n
patr eon.com/GustinaKamiya
Free Tier can read 3 advanced chapters
---