WHAT IS SHIFTING SANDS? Shifting Sands is about a weird bad patch of universe that pulls ships in from all over, strands them there, chews them up in the storm, and spits them back out across the desert for scrappers to dig through. That premise is the game. It is a wreckyard, a graveyard, a scavenger town, a mystery, and a pile of sci fi things that probably should not fit together but somehow do. We love old sci fi, strange sci fi, pulpy sci fi, haunting sci fi, gamey sci fi. This is us dragging all of that into the same storm and seeing what comes back out. If that sounds like too many things in one game, fair enough. But that is Shifting Sands. YOUR SHIFT CURRENTLY INCLUDES
Scavenging runs into a shifting sci fi desert that gets torn up and reset by the storm.
Crashed ships, buried wrecks, dangerous salvage, pack management, and the choice to push a little farther to get a valuable part vs a chunk of scrap.
The Nexus, where you can meet odd survivors, take strange jobs, rent an apartment, upgrade your gear, upgrade yourself, and get wrapped up in bigger problems between runs.
Fishing giant alien creatures out of whirlpools made entirely of sand.
Cooking bugmeat harvested from alien pillbugs.
Eating spice and seeing things.
Throwing stuffed animal grenades.
Squeezing a baby sandworm until it farts out edible Wriggler Goo.
Bird mounts, little droid companions, hoverbikes, hoverboards, derelict diving, weird relics, stranger anomalies, puzzles, mysteries, and weapons powerful enough to do rude things to reality.
Death too, obviously. You can do that more than once.
YOUR SHIFT STARTS NOW Shifting Sands is live in Early Access. You leave the safety of the Nexus, walk into a desert full of wrecks, relics, bad weather, strange jobs, stranger people, and things that should have stayed buried, then try to get back before the storm resets the whole place with your pack full and your legs still attached. Sometimes that works out. Sometimes it does not. WHAT EARLY ACCESS MEANS HERE You can play the game right now and get the real shape of it. A lot is already in. A lot is still being built, tuned, rewritten, balanced, or pulled out of the sand. This is the part where we keep making it stranger, sharper, deeper, and hopefully better without sanding off the weird little bits that made us want to make it in the first place. You will find bugs. You will find rough edges. You will also probably find one odd relic, one suspicious side job, or one weird little hole in the sand and realize it is much later than it should be. WHAT WE WANT FROM YOU
Tell us what hooked you.
Tell us what confused you.
Tell us what felt good dangerous and what just felt annoying.
Tell us what you kept coming back for.
Tell us what you bounced off of.
Tell us what broke, what seemed unfinished, what made you feel clever, and what made you say "one more run" when that was clearly a lie.
Specific feedback helps. Sharp feedback helps more. Weird field reports are welcome too, as long as the useful part is still in there somewhere. Thank you so much for clocking in. Watch the grains tumble and give us a hand! We will be actively updating the game and engaging with our supporters on Discord and Steam!