Having grown up partly by the sea, I always forget that there are many city dwellers who simply have not experienced the beach. It’s a tragedy! Or a blessing, depending on your tolerance for sunburn, children covered in ice, and finding sand in places you didn’t even know existed for days. So, how about a game that lets you have a little fun in the sun where all you do is build sandcastles in a literal, accurate sandbox called (predictably) Sandcastle?
Sandcastle is a much talked about game compared to Tiny Glade, although it may be a little simpler in some ways. To begin, you will have at your disposal a small piece of sand and some tools to shape it. You can start by building a wall, add a few towers, maybe add a touch of battlements. Over time, you’ll be able to unlock more locations, both seaside and vacation, in which you can play to your heart’s content.
Along the way you’ll also collect starfish and shells, the former giving you more customization options, making it a bit of a hidden object game at the same time. From the sounds of it, there are other items to find as well, at least some of which you can then decorate your castles with. I think what I love, aside from the refreshing atmosphere that the ocean waves provide, is the physical element.
Much like how sand works in the real world, it reacts to any moisture it comes into contact with. Dry sand will be more powdery and crumbly, or denser when wet. Building your castle closer to the shore will see it slowly eroded as waves crash against its walls. “Sculpt too finely and a tower can collapse; reinforce it with wet sand and it will proudly withstand the tide,” explains the game’s Steam page. It’s a kind of thinking I love to see in games like these, which take the game from just a game to something much more alive.
There’s no release date attached to Sandcastle yet, but a demo is coming on August 6, and you can add it to your wishlist on Steam while you wait.
