The Sandbox Notebook
Open-ended games, written down
Plain terms for a site that publishes hour counts and opinions and sells nothing.
The Sandbox Notebook
Open-ended games, written down
Plain terms for a site that publishes hour counts and opinions and sells nothing.
This site publishes session logs and the opinions drawn from them. Reading it is unconditional; the paragraphs below describe what the material is, how far it can be relied upon, and what may be done with it.
Hours logged, times to a first self-set goal, event counts and percentages are all taken from a handwritten session log kept during play. They describe what happened at one desk. They are not benchmarks, not statistical samples, and not reproducible in the sense a measurement would be.
The method page sets out how each figure is produced, including where the definitions bias the numbers. Anybody quoting a figure from this site should read that page first, because several of the counts mean something narrower than their names suggest.
The judgements in every entry — that a system is excellent, that an omission is close to negligent, that a late game is soft — are the writer's views based on the log. They are stated firmly because hedged criticism is useless, not because they are beyond argument.
Where an entry advances a general claim, it says how confident it is and what would overturn it. Both ledgers name the specific evidence that would reverse them, and one has already been reversed once.
Nothing here tells you whether to buy anything, and no entry ends with a verdict for that reason. Sandbox games perform differently in different hands, so a long log from this notebook is not a prediction about your experience and a short one is not a warning.
Purchasing decisions, refund requests, hardware choices and anything else you do after reading these pages are entirely your own. This site has no relationship with any storefront, publisher or studio.
Game titles, studio names and trade marks referred to in these entries belong to their respective owners and appear for identification and criticism only. Their appearance implies no endorsement, affiliation, sponsorship or approval in either direction.
All screenshots-in-words, described scenes and figures are the writer's own record of play. The illustrations on this site are original artwork made for it and do not depict any real product.
Short quotations for review, criticism, commentary or discussion are welcome without asking, provided the source is named and any figure quoted keeps the qualification attached to it in the original. A number lifted out of its method is misleading, and that is the only misuse this site actively minds.
Republishing an entry in full, translating one, or reproducing the artwork elsewhere is not permitted. Linking to any page is always fine and no permission is needed for it.
The figures are transcribed by hand from a paper notebook and some of them will be wrong. Where an error is found, the figure is struck through with its replacement and the date of the change beside it, so that anybody who quoted the earlier version can see what happened.
Findings are treated differently. When a conclusion turns out to be unsupported, the previous position stays on the page with the reasoning that overturned it written underneath, because the reversal is usually more informative than the conclusion.
These are static files and they may be moved, reorganised, rewritten or taken offline at any time without notice. No page is guaranteed to remain at its current address, and nothing here should be treated as a permanent record.
The material on this site is provided as it is, without warranty of any kind. To the extent permitted by law, nobody connected with this site is liable for any loss arising from the use of it, including reliance on any figure, claim or judgement published here.