Falling Sand Game
Falling sand games are a genre where materials – such as sand, water, steam – are simulated falling under the effect of gravity, using a cellular automaton based particle system on a two dimensional plane. Solid immovable particles and particles that act as liquids or gasses are often present, as well as other types of particles such as forms of energy like photons.
Other aspects that can be simulated and influence the motion and state of the particles are air pressure, alternate sources of gravity, temperature, and interactions between different types of materials such as combustion or freezing. Some include electrically conductive substances that can be used to create complex creations such as machines and simple calculators or computers.
In most falling sand games the player is only able to create and destroy particles, with most of the gameplay emerging from the resultant interactions.
Noita is notable among falling sand games in that it is also a Rogue-lite with a controllable player character and many enemies and other entities that can navigate and interact with the environment. The environment itself is much larger than the fixed area that most falling sand games use, and is procedurally generated rather than being entirely created by the player. It also includes rigid body simulations.
Other Examples
Simpler
- Websand - most minimal - (source)
- Sandspiel - long blogpost with earlier versions and source
- ProjectSand.io - (source)
Complex
- Sandboxels, includes animals and over 400 unique elements
- The Powder Game (c.2007)
- The Powder Game 2 (c.2011), "more realistic physical calculation"
Downloadable
- androdome.com/Sand - "World of Sand", "Hell of Sand", etc – the historical 2005+ Java applets, updated into Java Applications. (good screenshots)
- The Powder Toy - for Windows, Apple, Linux, Android - Includes a basic player character that can be moved around the environment and spawn particles, and an AI controlled enemy version. (source)
- The Sandbox - iOS
- つぶつぶ - Java.jar from 2021 (originally here?)
- Wings 2 - for Windows, Linux - Multiplayer space ship fighting game. Doesn't have complicated particle simulations but still interesting.
Further reading
- Wikipedia:Falling-sand game – (good timeline and refs)
- 2019 - 80.lv "Noita: a Game Based on Falling Sand Simulation"
- 2019 - Rockpapershotgun.com - "From falling sand to Falling Everything: the simulation games that inspired Noita"