A falling-sand game is a genre of video game and a sub-genre of sandbox games which typically utilize a two-dimensional particle or cellular automaton based game engine to simulate various materials interacting in a sandbox environment.
In falling-sand games, the user can interact with (e.g. place and remove) particles on a canvas which can interact with other particles in various ways, which can lead to complex emergent behaviour. [1] As sandbox games, they generally have an emphasis on free-form gameplay, relaxed rules, and minimal goals. [2]
Despite the name, falling-sand games typically contain a multitude of materials besides sand, often called "elements"[ citation needed].
Title | Year | Platform | Details |
---|---|---|---|
Down fall | 1993 | Atari ST | 2 player falling snow [3] |
Falling sand game | 2005 | Java | Also called "Hell of Sand" or "World of sand" [4] [5] [6] [7] |
wxSand | 2006 | Windows | The first standalone version [8] |
Powder Game | 2007 | Java, HTML5, Android, iOS | Multi-platform with liquid simulation [9] |
This is Sand | 2008 | Flash | Added changing the colour of the sand [10] |
The Powder Toy | 2010 | Windows, Linux, OS X, Android | Has liquid simulation and Newtonian gravity [11] [9] |
The Sandbox | 2012 | Flash, Windows, Android, iOS | A series of games, including some 3D versions [12] [13] |
Sandspiel | 2019 | HTML5 | Popular web-based version [14] |
Noita | 2020 | Windows | A hybrid of "falling sand" style game with a Roguelike [9] [15] |
Sandboxels | 2021 | HTML5 | Has hundreds of materials, life, and chemical reactions [16] |
The first known popular example in the "falling-sand" genre was a web-based Java applet on the Japanese Dofi-Blog in 2005 [4] [5] which was later expanded and rehosted as the "Falling sand game", [5] which kick-started the genre as a trend and gave it its name. [17] [6]
The genre is not limited to free play canvas-style games; games such as the Powder Game contain additional mechanics, such as pressure based fluid simulation [ citation needed] allowing for example water equalisation, and RPG elements such as controllable characters.
Noita blends the traditional sandbox physics with Roguelike RPG mechanics, with sophisticated playable characters and enemies. [18] [19] [15]