The Sandbox is a 2D “sandbox” game for BlackBerry 10 by Pixowl and Bulkypix. All the items in The Sandbox’s universe are made up of pixels of different simple elements, all with their own behaviours. These elements react to each other in such a manner that is both oversimplified and very very fun. The game had it’s origins as a fun flash game by onimatrix.
Things that would normally take eons to do takes mere moments in The Sandbox. Pour some water over rock? Instant erosion. Want a battery? Put the acid element around a coil of metal element. Speaking of batteries, I suggest playing this game plugged in because it’s easy to find yourself with a hot phone and lost hours.
Sandbox games are sweet for goofing off and playing God. In a nutshell, you’re given a palette of elements and you paint them into existence in a Microsoft Paint sort of manner. The Sandbox is great for this and includes a world-pausing zoomed in edit mode that makes editing the elements at the pixel level very easy. These abilities are gradually unlocked, the fill mode probably being the most important tool.
The Sandbox has a well constructed single player story line and has the stylings of a well designed social game with daily challenges for extra mana, the stuff that purchases new elements. The game is freemium so you can pay to unlock elements at a much faster rate if you like. I Find the free play scenario great as it provides a good pace of working through the game’s narrative.
The oversimplified style of the game makes it a funny game world and entertaining to play. Lose yourself if free mode by making beautiful landscapes teeming with life, only to unleash a twisted Rube Goldman-machine of acid and lava. It’s the same stress relief that you get from adding a tornado or a monster in SimCity.
The humans are really fun too, think Lemmings but dumber and more needy. All the animals in the game are pretty fun too. It’s tricky to create a balanced ecosystem, especially when you start messing with temperatures. The water cycle is a natural part of the game and you can really go crazy when you mix in temperature changing mechanics like the electrically powered heater and cooler elements.
It’s also available on the other platforms, tend your friends to http://www.thesandboxgame.com/
