by theygamesBetween Minecraft, Roblox, Dreams, and Gmod there are plenty of creative ways to make your own games. You can learn the basics and be off to the races, sharing animations, game modes, and unique experiences with absolutely anyone. For those games, though, the act of creation is almost entirely locked into their own ecosystem, so Sandbox wants to change that. A spiritual successor to Gmod from Facepunch Studios, the team just made Sandbox open to all for the first time. It was so popular that it broke.
Last week, Sandbox (stylized as S&box) creator Garry Newman made his Gmod successor public. Now anyone can gain access, create their own game modes, and share them with the world. Dedicated creatives have been using Sandbox for years, but as soon as everyone was given the tool, it broke.
“What happened is that ‘Gmod 2 is ready’ got posted everywhere, 50,000 people used the link, tried to play Gmod 2 and got angry as f***,” Newman says of the sandbox game. Developed by Newman’s Facepunch Studios, Sandbox is both a videogame and a creative toolbox, where aspiring or longtime developers can make a game mode and share it with the world.
“The game side of things was not ready for this kind of scrutiny,” Newman continues. “Our lobby system had a bug where a lobby could get in a toxic state, where the game wouldn’t load, leading to a black screen. This happened when the lobby host got swapped to a joining client, without any game info. Unfortunately, I had written it so people auto-joined the most populated lobby for a game – which ended up always being this toxic one with a bunch of people sitting at a black screen getting p***** off.”
The bright side is that this meant Facepunch could fix the problem. Newman says that the team’s engine “has been praised a lot for how easy and straightforward it is to use.” So even with an unstable launch, it’s not all bad news.
If you’re yet to try Sandbox, it both is and isn’t Gmod 2. Facepunch’s game creation tool is similar to Gmod, but it’s built with longevity in mind. Instead of making the new Trouble in Terrorist Town or Prop Hunt in Gmod, and then remaking it in Unity or Unreal to properly share it with everyone you can, Sandbox wants to help you have complete control straight away.
The idea is to build something in Sandbox and share it on platforms like Steam, instead of being locked into one, much smaller community. Another key difference from Gmod is monetization, as Newman and Facepunch want creatives to use Sandbox to make money from their work, but getting this right is going to take a lot of time.
You can try Sandbox for yourself right here, just click the image and sign into your Steam account to have the tool added to your library.
If you want more, there are plenty of excellent free Steam games to check out alongside Sandbox, and loads of old games like Garry’s Mod that still hold up too.
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