[greggsy]

I like poking around with these sorts of sandboxes, but in order to gamify it, you might need some objectives, limitations and planning goals, eg:

- you have a limited amount of some mineral or rock that erodes quicker or slower than others, and you need to move water from one location to another.

- there is a magma chamber growing under a mountain. Move the villagers out of harms way / destroy enemies.

- introduce sinkholes: make as many sinkholes as possible within some period.

[awelxtr]

Why do they need to gamefy it? Toys as townscaper exist and have received positive feedback.

[gus_massa]

I like the sandbox idea, but the game scenarios can be also like a tutorial to help the new user to know the basic tools and tricks.

[looping8]

Personally would like to see this developed deeper instead of branching into gaming goals. Then maybe it can one day be optimized to fit into an existing game's framework? Imagine Civilization 7 or 8, years down the line, having tech like this? Reshaping continents to spread your influence would be so amazing.

[bee_rider]

Alpha Centauri had some terrain modification in a 4x game (real big bombs, construction units that could raise and lower terrain, and “melt the ice caps”), as well as a super simple weather model that could kind of interact with it (iirc the prevailing wind always came from one direction, but you could raise or lower a ridge to make it wet or dry in an area).

Influencing continental drift for strategic purposes would be hard to justify in a realistic/up-to-near-future game, but sci-fi is always there. Or maybe someone needs to try something new, like a 4x game that takes place on an evolutionary scale. Synapsids & Sauropsids. “I‘ve got you down to your last Lystrosaur, bwahaha”

[ModernMech]

My favorite aspect of this game is that it’s not actually a game, and more like a zen garden. Adding more game elements would ruin that aspect.

[lukan]

There is no reason, why you cannot have both.

[freilanzer]

There is: developer time and focus. Not everything needs to be gamified and have "player retention", etc.

[lukan]

The context was that the parent poster was afraid of "Adding more game elements would ruin that aspect."

My point was that it is quite trivial (and useful) to seperate the sandbox from the gamification.

[throwaway290]

Plenty of us prefer open ended sandboxes/simulators like Minecraft, C:S, flight sims. Following game designer gets boring fast, setting own goals is always fun

Speaking of CS, I wish this simulator had heightmap export.

[mehwoot]

this

I might gamify it a little bit more, but personally I love the fun that comes from exploring a set of mechanics by yourself without anyone telling you what you're trying to achieve.

My aim is to build a set of simulation mechanics that are accurate enough to teach you a little bit about how the processes work in real life but also responsive enough to let you play around with them and create what you'd like.

[throwaway290]

Imagine C:S but terrain changes gradually as it would in real life...

[krageon]

Minecraft has a story and an ending, with the opportunity to get there as you'd like. Why not have this for this game?

[throwaway290]

MC's story is its downside for me, I wish it didn't have it.

[hutzlibu]

Not the original Minecraft.

[krageon]

What is the "original" Minecraft? Infiniminer? That's so far removed from what folks understand when the name is used I think I can be excused for not understanding it as that.

[hutzlibu]

The Minecraft version that got succesful, had no story (and the one I played back then).

The story and everything else that later came, was an afterthought. The point is, that it was fun for me and quite a lot of other people, without all that and just the sandbox. But yes, you are excused ...

[dmbche]

Just wondering, what is c:s? I can't find anything about it!

[Svip]

Cities: Skylines. Though exporting for Transport Fever 2 would also be nice.

[ThomW]

From Dust played with the idea of terrain manipulation.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gk4hRWD6BT8

I played it on the Xbox 360, but it's on Steam as well. https://store.steampowered.com/app/33460/From_Dust/

[bni]

This game is genius and desperately needs a remaster and re-release

[taskforcegemini]

thanks for suggesting this! I bought "populous: the beginning" just a few weeks ago, didn't know there was a modern variant!

[worldsayshi]

- Maximize precipitation, biomass or biodiversity

[Cthulhu_]

Populous was a game (series of games) where you could raise and lower mountains for various reasons, this mechanism could be used in a game like that. Actually I do remember a game in a series like that - may have been a sequel to Black & White? That had things like (water) erosion and the like as well.

[debesyla]

- Try to copy [some real life relief/landmark]