Kenshi - Review @ Rock Paper Shotgun

OMG! So you're saying it was actually over two half-decades!


Really, it's just that term I so strenuously object to.

Some people actually deliver good games despite the time it takes. Perhaps not a game for my taste, but I do like the idea that a struggle of that caliber actually pays off. Good for him beliving in his dream and not giving up! Imagine what this guy could do with more resources.

I completely agree. Kudos to them for not simply giving up, it sounds like they really got bogged down for a while yet, in the end, they did finish and deliver the game. I hope it sells well.

This game is crazy cool. I'm playing it over ATOM RPG right now. It's very addictive. I suggest any RPG fan of open-worlds to give this a try. It's really, really cool. It starts very slow but you pick up quick and start hiring squad members, mining ores together, picking up loot from enemies killed by tougher dudes than you. I can't believe I was sleeping on this one a bit, I'll be playing this for the foreseeable future.

Originally Posted by Darth Tagnan
Agreed, it's probably a great game if you're willing to imagine your own interesting content - which is true for many great sandbox games. M&B is an excellent example of a similar game, I'd agree.

You're not imagining it, rather it's emergent gameplay that is creating your story. Rather than getting a quest to kill Fogmen and retrieve an artifact, you may run into Fogmen while exploring and be forced to flee, or have a squad and beat them up and take something they had for your own. You may be exploring and see a gorilla and barely escape with your life. These sorts of random emergent elements make your story, one that is personal to each player. I find it a refreshing break from games that tell you a strict story in the traditional manner. I already have a really cool story going with my current playthrough, I can share it if you'd like to hear it.

Fluent, you do realize your post doesn't actually contradict what Dart wrote, it confirms it.

I did? Weird. I didn't realize I was imagining content in the game, but I guess you could say that. Still, it's fun and I like it.

This is another game I'm really looking forward to playing in the upcoming year. I've two friends that have been playing it, and they have nothing but praise for the game. I'll just let a bit more time pass for patches and adjustments to land.

Originally Posted by Carnifex
This is another game I'm really looking forward to playing in the upcoming year. I've two friends that have been playing it, and they have nothing but praise for the game. I'll just let a bit more time pass for patches and adjustments to land.

Yeah, I certainly plan to pick it up as well, even if I'm not sure it's a game I'll enjoy I want to support devs that actually finish what they start even if it's ambitious, and it *could* be a game that I play for years to come like I did with M&B.

Originally Posted by TheRealFluent
I did? Weird. I didn't realize I was imagining content in the game, but I guess you could say that. Still, it's fun and I like it.

No you didn't, emergent gameplay isn't sandbox, when there will be good sandbox novels then I'll probably enjoy sandbox games.

For now survival and building game is enough to make me flee and not bother, I don't even need consider the sandbox aspect. Still I admit that comments on the game are hard to decipher, so eventually some genius just created a new game genre, or it's just the last culthype.

Originally Posted by TomRon
Fluent, you do realize your post doesn't actually contradict what Dart wrote, it confirms it.

No. The post fundamentally contradicts.

There are various ways of telling a story and on this site, the preferences were stated: they go to pre written, pre scripted stories a la TW3. Work, resources and time go to ensure a quality level like hiring authors, voice actors, pacing the delivery of the story etc

The story delivered with each copy of a product is the same, players navigate through it with an impersonal fashion. Same storytelling tree with same story telling branches.

Then there is a supremacist line of thought at work: it is their way or no other way. Not only other ways of telling a story are dismissed, their destruction is sought. All products must come with the pre written story telling type of stuff.

In a product like Skyrim, Rimworld or M&B, there is very little work of imagination. By claiming that the story that is told is a figment of players'imagination, it allows to imply that actually this kind of storytelling do not require work from devs, it all comes from players.
And those products have no qualities, it depends on players'imagination.

Which is fundamentally incorrect. The storytelling as they perform demand work, time and resources. Players' imagination is actually very little involved. It is all about feeding players with various situations with narrative potential so that players by stringing them together end by writing a story.

On the basis of players imagining the story thing, there is no work to put toward bringing up various situational events. So it releases resources, time and work so they can be allocated to pre written stories a la TW 3 products.


There are many reasons why players prefer being spoonfed a storyline over other types like it is fully impersonal.

In a pre scripted story, players can play good guys as long as writers have planned it. They can do it because it is scripted that way, they get the good guy part because it is one of the pre written parts. It is impersonal, it does not come from them, it comes from an author who decided that the good guy part is in.
Impersonal.

Now, Kenshi, Rimworld, M&W involve players on a personal level. It tells of their personality more than anything else.

Watching streamers allowed to understand why players would prefer Kenshi over Rimworld for example and why story telling in Rimworld got so degraded in the process of developpment.

Rimworld had an all inclusive approach to the matter: all pawns can make up for a good story delivery. This feature was battered down because players could not stand it.

When watching streamers, it appears clearly that a lot of them have eugenics leaning and they are not protected from their tendencies by pre written scripts written by servants who care to preserve their self esteem.

Simple narrative situation in Rimworld: a pod crashed, revealing a pawn that is going to bleed to death. Rescueing it comes at the expense of medecine and food. When rescued, the pawn might choose to join.

Players: check pawn profiles, bad back, lazy, weeding off the weak, they let it bleed.
Good profile, pawn does not join, a waste of resources.

No writer to save them from themselves: they are the ones writing a story of eugenics.

Originally Posted by Dasale
No you didn't, emergent gameplay isn't sandbox, when there will be good sandbox novels then I'll probably enjoy sandbox games.

For now survival and building game is enough to make me flee and not bother, I don't even need consider the sandbox aspect. Still I admit that comments on the game are hard to decipher, so eventually some genius just created a new game genre, or it's just the last culthype.

It's a sandbox with emergent gameplay. There's content and things to do, but the story is also your personal story of how you survive, scrape by and eventually build yourself up. But for example, I started building an outpost for research and some training, and the Dust Bandit faction came by and demanded I pay 2000 cats every other day or else they'd loot me dry. I couldn't agree, I don't have that kind of money, so I ended up getting a thrashing and two characters almost dying. Now I have to either find a new place to live or hire a mercenary to guard my outpost, all while having barely enough money to buy food with. It tells an interesting story but it's my own story, how my team of 5 is surviving (our faction name is the Survivors) in these harsh lands. It's really a lot of fun and like Chien said, the game provides you with tons of objects and things to play around with and investigate. It certainly is not only your imagination, it just lacks a scripted story.

Sandbox used to refer to a mode players are given access to all options so they are not restricted.

City builder: sandbox mode, players were given access to all building types so they could build what they wanted with no restrictions.

Very hard to see how this term ends qualifying a game like Rimworld and others that it is about restrictions. The closest thing to a sandbox mode is the cheat/debug mode.

Sandbox - like other broader genres - was never strictly defined in any way.

Which is why people have a difficult time agreeing what it really means.

Some people like to take authority over a genre, as if they had the ability to define what it is for other people.

I'm sure we're all aware of countless of examples of people preaching to others about what a "real CRPG" is supposed to be. Not unlike religious fanatics with no room for alternate interpretations.

Personally, I try not to curtail myself too much with genres - which is why I refuse to come up with strict definitions.

Instead, I use the words themselves - because they tend to be the broadest of all.

So, to me, a pure "Sandbox" is a game in which you have a large degree of freedom in terms of building or imagining things - and in which you're free to come up with your own content.

Exactly like a real sandbox - which I'm sure we all remember from our childhood.

So, when I say you have to imagine your own content in a sandbox game like Kenshi - I mean you imagine it WITHIN the context of the tools (sand) and playspace (box) that are provided for you.

A pure sandbox is therefore a game with little to no pre-designed content in the form of story or bespoke experiences.

Of course, very few sandbox games have absolutely ZERO bespoke content - but I find it easy enough to distinguish between a sandbox game and a content-driven game. At least, most of the time.

Kenshi is very much a sandbox game. Absolutely nothing wrong with that. It's a matter of personal preference.

For whatever reason, I lost the ability - or at least the interest - in coming up with my own content at some point in my youth. I think it was Frontier (Elite 2) that made me realise that I really didn't care for games that didn't provide some kind of narrative or reason to "go on".

Since that time, I've been largely unable to enjoy games of a similar nature.

There's plenty of reason to go on, though. You want to build up your characters, your wealth, get cooler items, do more interesting jobs, build your base and even take over the world if you truly wish. The only thing lacking is traditional quests, which I find that not every RPG needs to have in order to be an interesting game. Broaden your horizons Darth, try new things. You might enjoy it. And there's enough emergent gameplay and random elements in the game to keep it very interesting.

Originally Posted by Darth Tagnan
Personally, I try not to curtail myself too much with genres - which is why I refuse to come up with strict definitions.

It's not refusal but incapability to define something completely meaningless. No, I'm not talking about sandbox. I mean the immersive sim bullshit.

Maybe if we get some technology to resurrect Einstein, maybe he makes some formula for it. Just maybe.