Sand Sand Sand is another entry in the Falling Sand games from Dofi-Blog. This installment incorporates some of the best elements of World of Sand and Hell of Sand into one, allowing you to play with a variety of elements in even more ways than before.
If you aren't familiar with the Falling Sand games, here's the basic idea: you are given a number of materials with which you can "draw" on the playing field. These elements interact with each other almost as they do in real life. So, for example, if you draw a section of the Plant element and then apply Fire, the Plant will burn. Adding Water douses the fire. It's a great sandbox-style toy (if you don't mind the terrible pun) that's perfect for sitting and doodling with for a very long time.
Sand Sand Sand has a cleaner interface and adds two new elements: Seed and Ground. When the two new guys meet, a little tree will sprout and eventually grow leaves. Trees drop what appear to be petals that collect on the ground below. Although water doesn't seem to help the tree grow, fire does just what you think it would do. Making a return from the Hell of Sand game are the Zombie characters, mindless ragdolls you can trap, destroy, or just fling around the screen.
There's no real goal or purpose to Sand Sand Sand, just idle fun, a little zen thinking time, or rampant destruction with the ??? bomb. Either way, it offers a great distraction from the elements of real life -- rent, homework, bills, etc.
Everyone thank JIG reader Paul for letting us know about this one!
It seems as though the issues involving sinking and floating have been tweaked.
Oil now tends to float upwards if it's under water, water tends to sink if on oil.
I don't remember if it happened in the last update of the sand-stuff, but salt dissolves in water, and turns the water a lighter shade of blue. The salt water sinks in regular water.
Something interesting happens when something sinking in water meets oil that's rising in water. They push up against each other with equal force, for some reason, and stop each other.
In that way, sand or salt-water that's sinking in water can "land" oil.
Hmmm ... it's not working for me... Just a big white box. I don't have to install the language packs do I? I've never had to do that before, and I could play earlier versions fine. *shrug*
I have to say, the world of sand games are my favorite series featured here.
So much idle fun....
I'm glad there's another installment. The more complicated things are, the easier it is to just sit around and do nothing with this game.... and have a great time doing it.
The game doesn't work at all for me either. In fact, absolutely nothing works on that site for me. All the "games" are just big red x's. I have the language pack, if that has anything to do with it.
I'm suprised you guys just reviewed this, I was obsessed with it ever since I went to the site for the first "sand" games.
All I am going to say is that it is really awesome what the creator made with the seed growth and such. I am working on something like this in Visual Basic to analyze Fungal Growth, but this trully aswesome on how the creator made everything in Javascript. I think...
I love the dofi blog's falling sand games, but they're so slow. I discovered this on digg:
http://siebn.de/index.php?page=burningsand/download
It's programmed in C++ so it's a lot faster. It also has a wider range of elements and more detailed interations, and doesn't suffer from some of the odd aspects of the dofi blog ones e.g. sand in water landing on oil as described above. Give it a try, it's quite good.
New discovery.
I guess.
Water does in fact cause the leaves of the seed-trees to grow. Just very, very slowly.
I had the game running in the background with a spout over a tree, and forgot about it. When I went back thirty minutes later, I had found that the tree had gained an afro about an inch high.
Interesting find with the Burning Sand.... there is indeed a LOT to experiment with... I just wish it was labeled.
I do miss the zombies, though.
DerekW
It is labeled if you look at the bottom of the window. But I agree with you on the lack of Zombies though, It would be really fun to see them burned in acid, or crystalized.
I cant get it to work either it just has a blank box with a X.
what does the yellow stuff that comes out of the tree do exactly?
I cant get it to work i get the blank screen with the X.I have played other games on this site before and now they dont work. I have the newest version of java. What is it i have to do to play these games!
Weird, I have my java up to date too, and the blank box with an x appears too :-\ I really wanna play this game! Someone, find the problem pwease!
I remember reading over at the Processing site, that they recommend Java 1.4 over 1.5 for use with Processing apps.
My Mac has 1.4.2 installed and it runs this just fine.
...I swithed screenames and it worked for some reason.
Switched screen names?!
Must be a Windows machine you're using. =p
Yep,by the way love the site.
=D
Cheers, Jeff!
all that pops up on the gamescreen is a little red x how do i play it
same here
i wish it would work
because both of them sound good
but i cant get them to
work
bah everything is just about envoirmental oil,water,land,sand,plants and seed stupid science.
how do I make it work I got full updates on everything but just a screen with a red x in the corner and what are screen names
love the sand games...
my favourite thing to do, to waste time, is to try and make machines, ie, try to filter water from oil, etc... I'm terrible at it though, and usually end up flinging the zombies around and setting them on fire.
k I just figured out that if you mix water and salt, it makes salt water. The saltwater is lighter, and kills the slug thing
hey i cant seem to get on the game.. so how do i do it.. i think its blocked or sumthin
theres an X in the white box thingy
Is this update going to be released as a Google Gadget? I spend lots of time at work playing the old version.
This game worked before i got windows vista now it just asks me to install something each time and a the red little x appears >=[
I've got a challenge, who can make the most advanced computer/boolean circuit, with and/or gates, negation, etc. Using water as 1 and lack of water as 0 seems to work best so far...
im not sure what program to open burning sand in
You need Java installed to play the sand games.
i do i can play most falling sand games but the link posted by Caleb is the one i cant play
You know what's pretty zen in this thing? Watching a fire almost perpetually burning. Here's how:
-Fill the screen completely with water spouts.
-Use the ??? bomb once at the very bottom with the smallest pen size. There should be lots of little jagged spouts raining on the entire screen.
-Place tiny plants (not seeds) at the very bottom. Just a few dots will do.
-Once the plants grow and cover about 1/4 of the screen, light it on fire with one little dot of fire.
-Sit back and be mesmerized by semi-perpetual motion.
It will burn for a while, but there is a likelihood of the fire being rained out since plants won't grow downwards much.
what does the yellow stuff coming from the trees do?
I can't figure out what to do with yellow seeds.
i enjoy the yellow fruit from the tree,and the fire burn plant and oil fast, it can burn wax but slow (a candle is made of wax) i tried to build a beach (woohoo!) but if you wait and look at what the tree fruit does, it makes juice, and water trap the ragdoll (i wish they are people and controllable.
This is really bugging me. The game sounds cool, but there's just the little x.
I can play all dofi games except for the sand
i love sand sand sand, its the best everyone play it
wax + fire = smoke .lol
The ??? bomb seems very Game of Life-esque in the way it kind of erratically flies everywhere. Very awesome =)
Really. What DOES that weird yellow tree stuff do besides become a kind of land on water?
i love the sand games they are just plain pon;eD
Love the toy and have spent tons of time playing it, there are a few things about it that bug the physical chemistry major in me though. For one, the game doesn't represent things like water pressure, or any kind of pressure for that matter (like all the gas you would get from the combustion of all that plant stuff). Second, salt does not diffuse throughout the water, although it doesn't allow the plants to grow where the salt is. And if you pay attention to any larger amount of water, it very noticeably shifts to the right side of the screen. Not to be a downer, I have lots of fun with this thing, but I would love to see an updated improved version.
I loved this game for about 2 weeks then it got boring.
what slug thing?
What does the yellow stuff from the trees do?
For all those people who are curious about the "yellow stuff" it does nothing. My best guess is that it is pollen or tree sap.
Here's another guess for the "yellow stuff" it's maple syrup :P
Dude, this sweet! Also Yow I like that guess about maple syrup :) , but somethin tells me that these are not maple trees, sorry.
I wish it more like Pyro Sand 2's explosives :D
okay everyone who wants to know what the yellow tree dots are from the trees are press here
The yellow dots are really tree sap it is very thick and you can put mostly everything on it water oil salt ect
I get an error. No game for me, I suppose. :(
Despite a recent JIG link in another review (which is how I ended up here), this is STILL 100% broken, no matter what your settings are, no matter what version of Java you have. Don't bother. Much like that recent reviewer didn't bother to see if what he was linking to was an actual game instead of a dead page with nothing working on it...
[I apologize for that. It's news to us that DofI's games don't load anymore, but I'm looking into it. Thanks for the note. I've sent a message to DofI to see what he knows about the situation. -Jay]
I don't know what has happened, but none of D-of-I's games seem to load anymore on any platform. :(
I hope he fixes it soon.
Yay! It should be fixed now!
DofI just emailed us saying thank you for letting him know about it. :)
It still doesnt work :(
Update