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Sandustry

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Sandustry

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Sandustry is a mining and automation game with sand physics. Explore a destructible world, digging and demolishing. Build a sand-processing factory and expand your logistics network. Delve deeper into the mines, unlock new technologies, and discover an ancient civilization's secrets.

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Most popular community and official content for the past week. (?)

THANK YOU! ❤️

Apr 18

I never expected the demo to blow up like this.

My plan was to release it without much fanfare and just keep working on the game while slowly building an audience. Instead, the demo brought:

Hundreds of YouTube videos
An amazing community with world-class QA
6k new faces in the Discord server: https://discord.gg/HJNk5eMnmt
A mind-blowing modding scene with over 50 mods and custom maps
60k wishlists (go wishlist if you haven’t yet!)
Some unreal demo stats: nearly 100k players averaging over 6 hours of playtime (median: 3 hours)
1,784 concurrent Steam players at peak
The #1 spot on Trending Free
33k plays on https://lanttogames.itch.io/sandustry
A 97% "Overwhelmingly Positive" score from over 800 reviews
A #3 ranking for highest-rated demo of 2025[steamdb.info] (and 12th of all time[steamdb.info]!) as per the SteamDB rating
Lots of publishers reaching out
A couple of cool press mentions:
- “Palworld dev endorses this sand-powered sim that looks like Terraria with automation”[www.gamesradar.com] - GamesRadar+
- “Noita meets Factorio in an oddly intriguing pixel-physics factory game”[http//ttps] - PC Gamer

Absolutely crazy. Thank you all so much! ❤️

Development

After deploying 8 patches for the demo I felt it was time to start focusing on the target: Early Access release. Having validated the game concept I knew I had to do it: a full rewrite of the simulation. The timing wasn’t ideal since it meant all engine work and nothing to show for it, but I can finally say that the rewrite has been successful! For a quick comparison see: https://youtu.be/oE1ZwCcqUx0

I've also addressed the most common complaint in the demo: movement. You’re now much faster and can traverse pixels automatically. The movement system itself has also been remade making it feel much better and more fluid. I would love to backport this to the demo but it’s not easy. I will however make an updated demo further down the line.

On top of that, I've started working on lots of other stuff. Check out out #dev-updates on Discord or socials for sneak peeks.

Roadmap

Being a solo developer with lots of strange ideas means a fixed roadmap can be risky. Many features I’m considering will require prototyping and testing before I can say they belong in the game. So instead of locking myself into something I might not be able to deliver, the best I can do is give you a high-level teaser of what I hope to include in the EA release:

🌍 World Engine
– Procedural generation and new biomes.
⚙️ Advanced Materials
– More elements and processing tiers.
⛏️ Core Descent
– New mining mechanic involving drills and lasers.
⚛️ Quantum Collider
– A new type of unique physics-based mechanic that ties into the regular simulation.
🌑 Deepmire
– A hostile and expansive material you need to destroy in order to access deeper parts of the caves.
🎨 Creative Mode
– Debug Mode but more polished and feature-rich.

Release date?

The response on the demo has really raised the bar for what I consider acceptable quality for Early Access, so there’s no ETA yet. Sorry. 🥺

Playtest

The feedback on the demo has been insane. I’m so happy people are engaged and want to help make this game the best it can be. The current build is definitely not ready to be tested yet but I’m planning at least one big playtest before EA. The easiest way to get in is to sign up for the mailing list at https://sandustry.com/ 👈

Modding

🚨 Some technobabble incoming!

Modding in Sandustry is pretty accessible, partly because:

the game is written in JavaScript using web technologies
the executable is shipped as Electron with built-in Chrome DevTools
it’s easy to view and overwrite source code and assets
maps are stored as simple image files you can just open and edit

Unfortunately there are still a couple of issues with modding:

❌ No API

The way mods are done right now is by overwriting source code using replace functions and hooking into the game state directly. This method offers total freedom but it's also very fragile. I don’t want to discourage this but I do want to add ways to make backwards compatibility easier.

I am currently working on an API, which I’ve already used myself to implement a new weapon and also a graphics enhancement as internal mods. It will need many iterations before it’s stable but you should probably use it anyway, and I can’t stop you. 😈 There’s also some incredible work being done on unofficial APIs, not to mention the mod[git.rendezvous.dev]loaders[github.com]! 🤯

❌ Minified code

Sure, you can see the code that is running in its entirety and some parts are easy to understand from context and debugging, but it's still minified. This means that everything is changed to be as short as possible, to reduce file size. Functions get rewritten, names get changed to single letters, etc. For modders, this adds unnecessary friction and also makes the No API problem worse since symbols change with even small code updates.

The latest version of the game has no minification step. It’s not the original TypeScript source but it is the output JavaScript code from the TS compiler (as a bundle) along with a fixed file structure for the different workers. The idea is to make a nightly build available on a beta branch for modders and map makers to access.

---

Even though all of this has been completely unexpected I couldn’t be happier. Really grateful and I am super excited to start sharing some of the things I've been planning and cooking up. If you liked the demo I hope you will love the full game!

❤️

—Lantto

Sandustry

179

So?

Game was supposed to release January 2025. It's May.. Any update would be appreciated

sourceofpain

May 14 @ 10:29pm

General Discussions

Demo Hotfix 8 arrives to restore botanical order!

Feb 21

New Flower algorithm.
- Lots of changes to flowers to make them less unruly. Can you spot them all?
You can now hold Control to replace/override buildings.
Hydro Sponge upgrade for Grabber.
- Only works above ground.
The world is no longer looping.
- I know a lot of people liked this and had fun abusing it in various ways, but it created too much noise in bug reports.
Addressing “stuck on ‘Loading…’” issues.
- There was a loading problem when the game couldn’t detect the number of cores on the user’s computer or when there was not enough logical processors for the concurrency buffer. This has now been fixed.
- Added significantly more logging to help debug the remaining issues.
- You can now open the Debug Console from the loading screen. Press the button in the bottom left corner and screenshot or paste the log when reporting loading issues! (Only applicable on Steam. If on itch.io - use the regular DevTools, e.g. Ctrl+Shift+J on Chrome.)
Embers from Lava will now ignite Moss/Flowers.
When placing block foundations in gaps partially covered by Bedrock a frame foundation will now be built, fully sealing it.
You can now press anywhere in the selection after highlighting it with the marquee (or Shift), instead of having to press one of the selected buildings. This applies to copying as well.
Additional improvements to make buttons less sticky and more responsive.
- Fixed a dead zone on hotbar and item/building buttons by changing the active pseudo-class.
- You can now Lock Hotbar in the bottom right corner of the Building and Inventory screens. This will make the buttons activate on mouse “press” instead of “release”, making them much more responsive, but you naturally won’t be able to drag’n’drop until turning it off again.
Better support for AZERTY keyboards.
- The hotbar is now mapped to the physical keys instead of numbers.
- A lot more improvements to better support all kind of keyboard layouts is in the backlog.
After selecting a filter, you can now reselect the previous item without having to switch items.
When placing 1-tile-wide filters, they will now respect the direction.
You can no longer use the Rocket Launcher in the first artifact room.
Changed a lot of text and emoji indicators.
Wrangled a few rogue pixels in the conveyor graphics.
- Sharp eyes, pixel detectives!
Increased the circuit breaker when building from 100 to 300.
When drag’n’dropping items/buildings within the hotbar the buttons will now swap instead of copy.
Autosaves are now bound to your world ID.
Rocket Launcher has been nerfed against Redsand.
Added icons for everything. RIP ambiguous C icons.
Flamethrower and Rocket Launcher now have their own graphics.
Some fixes to better support widescreen.
- Less windows should now overflow the screen. Still not perfect and you may have to use UI scale to adjust it.
- Lots more planned to better support all kinds of resolutions.
Version is now always displayed in the bottom right corner.
Fixed some bugs with Amethelis and filters.

Sandustry

187

Demo Hotfix 7 is out!

Feb 12

Patch notes:

You can now phase through buildings while hovering in the air.
- The people have spoken. An overwhelming majority (88%) voted in favor. I personally think the challenge/puzzle of designing a traversable factory is interesting but also very frustrating.
- For those who still want to play the old way there's now a "Hard Mode" setting.
Snow now vaporizes into Steam when burned.
Queued buildings now block Water, and you can grab Water that is inside them.
Dragging a button onto itself now clicks it instead of canceling.
- This was a big reason the buttons felt "hard" to click.
You can no longer zip by placing blocks on top of yourself in rectangular mode.
You can no longer build outside the map in the other dimensions.
Added some fixes to the sound engine to mitigate crashes when too many sounds play at once (let me know if it still happens!).
Many lighting improvements to reduce flickering.
Water no longer deletes lava.
You can now grab particles that are being launched (including ones stuck inside launchers).
You can now grab Steam.
Added some fixes for the "no menu buttons" issue due to corrupted meta data.
- Still haven't figured out the root cause though.
Fixed a bug that deleted Gold when the Shaker was full.
New saves will now have much more Redsand on the map.
Refined and clarified many tutorial texts. Also added a new "Tutorial Finished" popup.
Fixed bugs causing issues when pressing "Skip Tutorial" after partially completing it.
The Grabber's Material Scanner upgrade now says "Interacts with:" to clarify what the emojis represent.
- Some people on Linux have reported that emojis are not showing.
Added damage type indicator to all weapon descriptions matching the interaction texts.
Added interaction text to Steam and Cinder.
Updated some item descriptions for clarity.

The modding community has also been hard at work and has made the first **modloader**. Check the pinned messages in #modding on Discord for installation instructions. Link: https://discord.gg/HJNk5eMnmt

I find it absolutely incredible that the demo hasn’t even been out for two weeks, and we already have people doing some insane stuff with the game! Hats off to the amazing talent in this community!

Sandustry

147

Is lottie a Good Boy/Girl?

Nebgama

May 15 @ 3:00am

General Discussions

Any "sandbox" mode? Or money Cheat?

I've cleared the map multiple times now, I'd really like to start from scratch one time with my factory already built. Then dig to the bottom and let her rip by opening the launchers and watch everything process all at once. Is there a way to cheat the money??...

ukillme68

May 15 @ 7:48pm

General Discussions

I'm going crazy over kinetic slag presses.

They are not consistent. I am dropping burnt slag from well above the suggested height but one little particle will just land on it and then it creates a massive pile up and I have to scoop it all out by hand. It's so frustrating. I've tried everything. Dropping from conveyor belts, from launchers, off sloped blocks, even from twice the height. But its the same result every time. These little inconsistencies with the physics are gonna make this game frustrating....

Ziyor

May 12 @ 2:32pm

General Discussions

BUG: When I start the game all I see is a black screen

literally every time I launch the game it's just a black screen with audio. It seems like I can interact with the menu buttons too but the screen stays black no matter what. I literally have no idea why this is happening and don't see anyone else having the same issue......

SQWONCE

Mar 14 @ 6:00pm

General Discussions

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