A review of TLD: Thoughts about the Sandbox

[InsaneWithAnger]

Introduction

This is my first gameplay feedback post (third topic post on the hinterland forums). First of all, let me say that the development team has designed an amazing game that offers a unique experience. Game design and art quality are both top-notch. For me, this game is a one-of-a-kind, “must play” for anyone who plays video games. It is a “must play” for many reasons; partly, because of its psychological impact on the player. The game creates a constant suspense with the desperation of survival, while the world offers a serenity and beauty that is calming. This is the only game that makes me run to the cabinet to get a midnight snack (when I’m not actually hungry). It gives me an appreciation for having food and clean water.

(Among “must play” games, I would include it with Amnesia: The Dark Descent, Faster Than Light, Half Life 2, and Portal (& Portal 2). These are all unique games, in my opinion.)

I want to offer my analysis of the strengths of The Long Dark, and toward the end, possibly offer some suggestions for the development of the game.

For me, the fun of playing The Long Dark comes from:

Constant Suspense
Beauty and atmosphere
Complex decision making and planning.

All three of these factors work together to make this a superb game. The constant suspense of being “on the edge” of survival immerses the player within the world. It forces the player to make on-the-spot judgment calls about what to do at any given time. Risk-and-reward strategy is strong in this game. The beauty and atmosphere create the perfect mood, either being calming in the conflict-free times, or intensifying the dark tone when starvation and struggle dominate the player’s focus.

If The Long Dark continues to retain its “charm” through the complete development process, I believe it will need to maximize all three of these attributes.

 

Analysis of Gameplay

A) The importance of changing variables in creating new gameplay experiences

In TLD, suspense comes from scarcity of resources and not knowing the likelihood of survival on a daily (in-game) basis. The variables concerning survival are many. They range from location and amount of food in storage, location of predators, outdoor temperature, weather precipitation, weight of backpack during travel, when to light campfires, what to do while campfires burn, how to find key items for specific tasks, etc. With all of these variables in mind, the player’s goal is to maximize efficiency (and safety) when planning tasks for each day.

However, the attainment of perfect efficiency under constant (static) variables leads to stale decision-making and boredom. That is why a few random variables are essential to making the gameplay experience organic. These variables are:

Weather precipitation
Temperature fluctuation
Animal locations
Locations of rare but essential tools

An organic experience is one in which planning is never static because of randomly changing variables (listed above). For example, changing weather conditions can easily compromise a hunting run. Predators can block the way to the nearest cabin. In the case of tools, item locations are randomized for each game. Other (static) variables, such as town locations, never change. While these variables have an influence on the player’s decision making process, they do not initiate conflict in the player’s planning.

I believe the organic nature of decision making is what makes TLD successful. If there were no random variables, the gameplay experience would probably become dry after the player learns the most efficient means of staying alive. It would be a rinse-and-repeat experience for every day.

To stay engaging, The Long Dark must constantly present new, complex decisions to the player. Decisions become complex when they are influenced by many variables (consider some of the variables listed above).  Variables can interact and combine in countless interesting ways, similar to how chess involves only two dozen game pieces, but offers nearly unlimited possibilities for decision making.

When the player starts learning how the variables interact, he begins to plan for efficiency to increase his likelihood of survival. But the four random variables listed above present conflict for planning, and keep the player thinking on his toes. This makes the daily decision-making process fresh and new for the player.

In short, the more often variables interact in new ways -leading to new conflicts of planning- the less stale the game becomes over time.

 

B) The current gameplay situation

TLD gameplay is interesting for the new player because of the many unknown variables, such as item locations, town locations, predator behavior, how to craft clothes, hunting and fishing functionality, etc. The biggest unknown variable is the terrain geography. It influences everything else about survival. Once the player masters terrain geography, however, the game simplifies quite a bit: it devolves into finding the best shelter location, organizing looting runs to supply the shelter, and developing a sustainable hunting/fishing routine. This learning process for a new player may make the gameplay experience interesting for many hours, but when a current game save reaches near 60-100 days, most gameplay features are learned and daily planning starts to become repetitive. While the randomized variables can create conflict for efficient planning, the goal of the sandbox- to survive as long as possible- eventually degrades into numeric spreadsheet analysis of how to best use the limited resources. “The Drifter Man” has a great blog about his experiences surviving for as long as possible near the Mystery Lake dam. I think his approach to survival is engrossing, but I generally like to stay away from spreadsheet and numbers-based planning. I think TLD needs a goal that keeps gameplay fresh and one that doesn’t involve worrying about the smallest minutiae in numbers for the best long-term survival planning.

To set a new goal that offers long-term interesting gameplay and replay-ability, I consider terrain geography randomization.

 

C) The future of sandbox: procedural generation?

I put this section title with a question mark because terrain randomization is a huge programming task: one that the developers may not want to pursue for the amount of time commitment it would require. I know the developers are putting significant effort into story mode, and that sandbox mode was originally a kind of placeholder until the story mission arrived. But I think sandbox offers the greatest possibility of replay value and fun. I would pay extra money to experience a randomized sandbox environment. However, the randomization would have to be done artfully, so that design would seem to be realistic. Roads going through towns, mountains with lookouts at the top, etc.

Randomized terrain would offer the possibility of more interesting goals and planning. For instance, the goal of the game could be to explore to find the best possible place to construct a house for sustainable living. Multiple mid-game goals could center around this ultimate goal: chopping trees, building a sled to move lumber to the construction site, transporting a portable wood stove to the hut, building a smokehouse, acquiring a large stash of food, etc. The player may have to search and loot the surrounding landscape for a long time to just find key items required to build the house (in addition to finding the best location to build one). Knowledge of the terrain would become a significant asset: writing in journals and making maps would aid survival. Exploration would never be stale, because each game would offer a new region to investigate.

Overall, the current sandbox is lacking progression in setting goals and accomplishing them. The most interesting goal occurring around the ~50 day mark is making a full set of fur clothes. But beyond the 100 day mark, I cannot see anything offering progression and reward value to keep playing. The game loses some of its dynamic quality when the landscape is fully mapped and all non-renewable resources are gathered. From then on, it’s just a matter of doing the same daily tasks, while giving room for error if the weather or predators give trouble.

It is up to the developers, but I hope they continue to develop the sandbox into an engaging long-term experience. Terrain randomization -along with higher goals to achieve- would certainly do the trick.

 

D) Final comments

Even if procedural generation is not implemented, I hope the developers find some of this analysis useful. If I were to write a summary of my thoughts, it would read:

-Never let the player decision process become repetitive. Even experienced players should encounter situations in which they have to think about their next action. Randomized and unknown variables create interesting circumstances for decision-making.
-Add more progression and higher goals (beyond spreadsheet-based survival).
-No matter how long the player plays sandbox, there should always be a risk of death and a feeling of suspense associated with scarcity of resources and events that may go wrong (predator encounter, being trapped in a cave at night during a blizzard…).
-The developer team has said that seasons are on the roadmap. I worry that seasons outside winter would be too easy to play, and the game would lose its charm from the suspenseful, risk-reward gameplay based on the scarcity of resources and the need to juggle afflictions (such as the cold weather, having to make a fire, harsh weather interrupting plans for travel or hunting, etc). Development time spent on making new conflicts for different seasons may be better spent on procedural generation.

 

Anyway, thank you for reading this very long post!
-Insane

 

[InsaneWithAnger]

-reserved for future comments

[MueckE]

First of all, thank you for your post.

The devs plan to add seasons. I guess that's what you suggest regarding changing the terrain.

What you express is currently discussed in a few other posts. To break it down, there are two "problems" that lead to the feeling that TLD gets repetetive after a while.

First: It is hard at the beginning, and becomes easy later.

Second (and that's the true reason for most of the sugeestions in the forum): The game is based on the "unknown". This means, like in reality, you are thrown into a situation where you dont know what to do to survive. As soon you know and have proper tools, surviving is not an issue anymore. If you would put an experienced and skilled hunter/trapper/survival expert into such a situation and enviroment with the proper tools, he wouldn't struggle at all. But if you have no clue about these things, you will have to find out or die. As soon you found out, surviving is easy for you too. That's the reason why suggestions to make the game "harder" by reducing loot or something dont make sense. It does't matter because as soon you found out how to deal with it, it is as easy as before - but way harder for new players.

 

The question is, is it worth it to change this unique aspect of realistic survival? And don't forget that only a handfull of players have mastered the game, but 99% struggle to survive. Just think of all the hours you played the game and what you've payed for - i bet if you compare that to other games or a visit to the movie-theatre it is absolutly worth it.

 

Anyway, i like the approach of randomization alot. That's why i always try to put it into my suggestions too. Randomization is a possible way to keep the game "hard/interesting" without killing it.

[Resethel]

Thank you for your post @InsaneWithAnger, it's really well detailed and constructed, you put words on thoughts of manies!

 

Some points you expose are really relevant to me, like the fading difficulty, due to the increase of repetitive situations, and the items that makes you more and more prepared to the different situation one will faces.

 

A solution I found to tackle the first issue you and @MueckE highlighted is not to build a shelter (or only for a few days) and setting a long term goal (currently reaching TWM summit from ML), it somehow nullifies the repetitive aspect, or the fading-difficulty one, since you have to wander everywhere, to achieve some short term goals, besides the fact one can't really stockpile, as well as planing what one will carry, where one will stock things for a limited time are actions/reflexions that becomes essential again. One can't afford to run a lot, can't afford to hunt a lot or to struggle with wolves/bear, one must travel to CH from TWM with minimal burden just to be able to climb TWM more safely, and so on. But that's a solution which doesn't fit everyone.

 

Even If I agree with the second issue, the need of the unknown, I'm not quite found of the idea of randomization. Or at least, not at scale that huge, like building whole map with a procedural-method (or any other kind of methods). 

Why you'd ask? In my opinion, it breaks the universe a bit, there isn't the story about a place anymore. In the current map organisation, you can imagine how the life was organized in this region, and it makes sense, there was like a story about it, and you still can find a lot about it, and it's still coherent. While a randomly generated, imo, can't reproduce, with such fidelity this feeling, if modified on a huge scale (From my own experience, that's what i found out). However randomly generate some things, like maybe, nature, wildlife, position of ressources, caves, some house, corpse, cars, or even some place ( like derailment perhaps ) add enough changes without degrading the cohesion of the story about a place.

So what a solution would be? I don't really know in fact. There are plenty. Probably adding more mechanics to the game is the best one I can imagine right now, more interactions or encounter, with actual players? or NPC? more game changing situation like seasons? or Hazard? or hords of wolves hunting you? or even humans hunting you? More maps maybe? more dangers? more object?

It's definitively up to the devs to surprise us.

 

All in all, what you highlight really makes sense in my opinion, although I quite dislike the idea of randomization, and I hope I'm not the only one ahah. As for the fading difficulty, it can definitely be managed with the adding of some new mechanics

[SteveP]

there is also randomization in animal behaviour (attack, flee, stalk) as well as the afflictions. I find the variability of tool spawns is a great challenge (and frustration at times) This randomization can be frustrating since it's luck of the draw if certain tools (hatchet/knife) can be found on a given map. I'd like to see a greater variety of tools for various purposes that all work to provide wood (fuel), food, water and shelter. Shelter degradation hasn't even been mentioned but if the weather is sufficient to wear out a parka, it can certainly play havoc on these old cottages. How about needing to do repairs?

[Ruruwawa]

Good post.  That said, I think the game is already more variable than you get it credit for.

I start a new Stalker sandbox a couple times a week just to see how far I can get (I'm usually a Voyaguer player).   I've done this about 30 times now.  What I've noticed is a great deal of variability is the starting "attributes" of each sandbox.  For example, a huge variability in the amount of loot of all types -- sparse or plentiful -- and this seems to apply to all maps within a given sandbox.  Sometimes I get near-Pilgrim levels of loot, even in stalker, sometimes it's a far less.  Another example: the risk of getting sprains or parasites.  One game I can eat a couple pieces of bear/wolf meat almost daily without ever contracting parasites, the next game I get parasites almost every time I eat any predator meat -- even at 1% risk.  And I actually delete "sprain-tastic" sandboxes when I see them now and reroll, because it solves that problem even when the other sandbox attributes, starting zone and difficulty are the same.

Bottom line, I think it's not just variability in location for certain items, but variability in sandbox-wide systems as well.  I don't doubt that your observations accurately reflect your experiences, but I wonder whether your sample size is large enough.

Re procedurally-generated maps, I don't favor it for TLD.  it's fine for 2d and topdown, zero-point perspective games, but a huge part of the charm of TLD is it's amazing sense of place.  Not just in one map but Great Bear Island as a whole.  If the goal of having a procedurally-generated map is more replayability then perhaps this could be accomplished by adding a challenge with a procedurally-generated map.

[Zambudjo]

Very interesting topic.

I think we all agree with the fact that once you climbed TMW three times and discovered all the map the game becomes very repetitive. I agree with Resethel about the randomization, that would break the exploration part of the game.

I just finished climbing TM in Stalker sandbox, crafted all the items, and explored all the main locations. I don't really want to survive 1000 days in the dam or in another location using spreadshits and carefully plan the next 500 days... So what's next for me? Not much right now indeed but I hope with the next release some goals will be added to the sandbox mode. Maybe not "goals" but more "challenges". For instance I know that hinterland studios plan to develop wolf pack behaviour. I really look forward to it. I would love the fact that past 50 days, if you stay too long in the same location, a pack of wolf comes to your doorstep and wait for you to come out, preventing you from gathering your usual snared rabbits and go fishing. The aim would be to prevent people from staying in the same place over and over and forced them to keep using 100% of the map. I also thought of weather becoming worst as you progress in the game: If you just started the game, weather will be nice with you but past 100 days you get some really bad weather condition preventing you from going in some locations for some time. For instance you can imagine a huge storm over ML which prevents the player to go there for 5-6 days (I know 6 days-storm is not realistic but it's just to give an exemple). An avalanche in TM or in Ravine could also close the map a little forcing the player to adapt to the situation. Plus, you can imagine your caracter becomming "Bear Grills" enough to detect this kind of event 2 or 3 days before they happen. I feel like that's why hinterland studio tried to achieve when they developped cabin fever and I really want them to continue in this direction.

It is common knowledge that the more you play the game the easier it is. So in my opinion the next updates should aim at making the game harder in the long-term. And not just because ressource are becoming scarce but because there are some events that challenge you everyday.

[Patrick Carlson]

On 5/29/2016 at 10:44 AM, InsaneWithAnger said:

 

 

D) Final comments

Even if procedural generation is not implemented, I hope the developers find some of this analysis useful. If I were to write a summary of my thoughts, it would read:

-Never let the player decision process become repetitive. Even experienced players should encounter situations in which they have to think about their next action. Randomized and unknown variables create interesting circumstances for decision-making.
-Add more progression and higher goals (beyond spreadsheet-based survival).
-No matter how long the player plays sandbox, there should always be a risk of death and a feeling of suspense associated with scarcity of resources and events that may go wrong (predator encounter, being trapped in a cave at night during a blizzard…).
-The developer team has said that seasons are on the roadmap. I worry that seasons outside winter would be too easy to play, and the game would lose its charm from the suspenseful, risk-reward gameplay based on the scarcity of resources and the need to juggle afflictions (such as the cold weather, having to make a fire, harsh weather interrupting plans for travel or hunting, etc). Development time spent on making new conflicts for different seasons may be better spent on procedural generation.

 

Anyway, thank you for reading this very long post!
-Insane

 

Thanks for the deep dive into the game. A lot to think about there. In terms of objective-based gameplay, have you had the chance to spend some time with the Challenge Modes? 

[InsaneWithAnger]

On June 1, 2016 at 1:13 PM, Patrick Carlson said:

Thanks for the deep dive into the game. A lot to think about there. In terms of objective-based gameplay, have you had the chance to spend some time with the Challenge Modes? 

I haven't yet explored the challenge modes. I think challenge missions are a good addition to the game, but I view the sandbox as giving the core experience. My personal style is to become as experienced as I can with the core gameplay, and then approach the challenge missions  with a strong intention of winning. If I approach a challenge modes and lose, I feel more punished than I would if I died playing sandbox. So, right now I am just enjoying sandbox before I take a stab at the extra game modes. 

As far as addressing the topic of setting goals within TLD, challenge missions can be very fun and offer different gameplay experiences from sandbox. But player-made goals in sandbox offer a long-term sense of progression that is very satisfying. The goals of challenge missions simply lead to the completion of that game mode; hence, there is no progression because the game is done. 

However, that said- I look forward to trying out the challenge modes in the near future. 

[TLD Survivalist]

I agree in the sense that when you play and beat a challenge its done, theres no more satisfaction unless you have friends who also enjoy this game and compete for better scores. ie speed runs and what not but outside that the real experience is the sandbox Ive beaten both current challenges. Although Id say Hopeless Rescue was more of a challenge than The Hunted imho. That being said I havent come back to either one. They were fun and exciting but not like making it super late game in sandbox. I just lost my 215 day random run... My first random run on Stalker no less... And it hurt, bad! The salt in the wound was bad things were going SO well... I know a little over 200 days is nothin to most but as a relative newbie to the game the pride was real. But I'll come back to it unlike the challenges.