I think you have to distinguish between the terms sandbox, non-linear, free roamingand emergent games. Mario 64 was free-roaming but not really a sand box game. The comcept of a sand box is that it gives you a variety of tools to use within the confines of the sandbox itself. As someone else said this is much more along the lines of the Sim city and Sims games. Mario 64 has a very linear path set out by the designer that the player has to navigate using the tools given to him. Sandbox is more along the lines of simply giving people tools but with no set objective or specific objective of what they are to be used for.
e.g. Mario gives you a trampoline. The player must use it to cross a gap or reach a higher area.
The sims gives you a tool for making walls.There is no specifictask that they were designed for so people can use them how they want.
In short free-roaming simply means players are given alot of free movement in and around their enviroment. Sandbox is moer about creating things with tools you have been given. i.e. making a sandcastle in the sandbox by using the bucket and the trowel, or perhaps making amoat and filling it with water. In essense you are not creating anything in Mario 64, you just have alot of space and freedom to move about in.
Free roamingis essentially a game that gives you free movement within the set game world. Bet it a city, an overworldor a level like in Mario. Sandbox is as I explained above. Non-linear can be as simple as givingthe player a choice of 2 options or two ways of doing things instead of forcing them to do one to obviously much more expansive versions of non-linearity. And finally Emergent gameplay (Or is it Immergent? I've never seen it written down.) is essentially that gives players an immergent enviroment with which they can interact with in many different ways.Players are encouraged to find their own stratergies or solutiong by harnesing the immersive enviroment that surrounds them. This most often means physics but there are other forms. Again I'm not sure if it's "Emergent" in that the solutions emerge as the player explores and experiments or is "Immergent" in the sense that players are placed in an immersive enviroment with numerous layers of interactivity and immersion that players then use for their own ends.
Tamashii-sosaku
I have to disagree with some things. Like I said before, I feel that simcity and civilization are part of a genre called "god games". Remember that regardless of logic, GTA is considered a sandbox game even though simcity might work better with that analogy. I can see how the sims are a sandbox game, but to me it is more of a dollhouse. Maybe that means it is a sandbox game, I'm not sure.God games are like chess. You control the pieces and you try to develop strategies with them. I suppose that means that sports games are very related to god games. Think about it. You're not the coach, you're every player on your team
Sandbox games are like a toy chest. You can have a goal but ultimately you can do anything you want to. There are multiple avenues for you and you dont have to necessarily be constructive. In fact, I would say that an important aspect of a sandbox game is that you can do things destructive to you're goal, which is much less prevalent in a god game. In sim city or civilization you can choose to do the unstrategic thing, but your satisfaction in doing so is not a featured element of the gameplay. In god games, any thrill you get from being destructive is all up to your imagination. And, there is something wrong with calling sims a sandbox game, imo. Maybe it's the "game" part of the term.
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