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 itch.io
- A 97% "Overwhelmingly Positive" score from over 800 reviews
- A #3 ranking for highest-rated demo of 2025 (and 12th of all time!) 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” - GamesRadar+
- “Noita meets Factorio in an oddly intriguing pixel-physics factory game” - 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 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 modloaders! 🤯
❌ 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.
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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