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This video pertains to Sandbox, the Team Fortress 2 mod-gamemode. Not Sandbox as in the practise of running multiple copies of Team Fortress 2 on a single computer.

Sandbox is a Team Fortress 2 mod-gamemode. It can be played on any map as a stand-alone mod or coupled with many other mods. It’s usually played on specifically designed maps. It requires a server-plugin to play.

Similar to the mod-gamemode dodgeball, more then one person has created a Sandbox mod within Team Fortress 2. The multiple mods share a general premise but vary greatly when it comes to more nuance mechanics and how things are executed. To be more specific there are 2 Sandbox plugins. This video will cover the privet one that’s run on a singular server. The other Sandbox plugin isn’t currently playable; however it is set to be released as a public plugin some time in the future.

So with all that out of the way what is Sandbox in Team Fortress 2?

Sandbox is an objectiveness, teamless gamemode that centers around building things and social interaction with small role-playing elements.

Sandbox is basically the videogame Garry’s mod within Team Fortress 2. The main difference is that it’s way less robust. Not as much is possible versus Garry’s mod. Garry’s mod is a game about user generated content and messing around with the physics, lighting, sound, scripting, etcetera found within Valve’s Source engine.

From this point onward a lot of explained details will only pertain to this version of Sandbox specifically.

A lot of interactions in Sandbox require the use of an on-screen menu. When the player presses the show-scoreboard key and let’s go the main menu will be displayed on screen. From this menu and submenus the player can do a variety of tasks. Tasks such as spawn in and manage entities, set conditions on themselves and equip themselves with any weapon. Some menus only appear under certain conditions such as by using a chat command or through interesting with a prop.

Certain props have special interactions or abilities. For example a door prop will prompt the player to press a key to open it when they stand close. Some interactions are more complex, like a computer terminal that lets players play a game with on-screen text. There are also props such as a lamp that will cast a light on the world. Some props with special abilities will add something new to the menus once spawned. For example a door will add the menu option of opening and closing it. This allows the player to interact with the prop from afar.

Chat commands also play a big role in Sandbox. One of their purposes is to use the 2 special tools. By saying slash G the player can equip themselves with a gun resembling the powered up gravity gun from Half Life 2. This gun functions as a tool to move and rotate props. By saying slash T the player can equip themselves with a gun resembling the revolver from Half Life 2. This gun functions as a tool to change various properties of props. The took can change a prop’s colour, opacity, collision, give it a name that can be seen by mousing over the prop and lastly duplicate props. Use of these guns is really straightforward. All buttons are shown on screen.

By moving the crosshairs over a prop, players can see the name of the player who spawed the prop. This is important as players can’t build too close to each other's props. (or too close to spawn points for that matter.) It may be necessary to ask other players to delete their props if a player wishes to place props in occupied space.

For some reason a music playing device following the player is a big part of Sandbox.

Bots play a weird role in Sandbox. They sit idle and take up player spot. When there are too many players they are no longer available to use. In the mean time players can claim one as their on via chat commands. Once claimed the player can equip them, toggle conditions on them and teleport them around.

And that’s basically Sandbox in a nutshell. A mode about building things and messing around in a social space.

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Notes:

• (At the time of writing this) the one server’s ip is 199.180.133.111:27015 (put 'connect' and then the ip in the console to connect)
  
• If the public Sandbox mod comes out I’ll make a part 2 of this video.
  
  
• The concept of Sandbox can be tracked back to games that allowed the player to play without constrictions or play in a sort of debug developer mode. There is no specific game that these concepts come from. Mincraft is a good example of a sandbox game as its more-or-less without objectives and has a building emphasis.
  
• When a player exits a server all their stuff vanishes.
  
• There exists a cooldown to duplicating/spawning to many props too fast.

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