Spoiler Warning: Please go play Sandstorm, at least for a while, before reading this post. In it, I discuss the game mechanics, which are purposefully left unexplained in the game. I also discuss the ending, though not in detail.
You might expect a game set in the desert to be about survival, but Sandstorm is much more concerned with navigation. Its creator, Daniel Linssen, wants to show you what it feels like to be lost.
You have undertaken some sort of pilgrimage to a distant mountain named Mount Distant. The only route there from here is across a desert and the only effective method of making the journey is apparently by camel-drawn wagon.
You have that, but the camel part of it keeps wandering off at night. Each morning of the journey, you wake up, propped up against the wagon, with no camel in sight. One or more of your possessions might be gone, as well. So each day, you have to go find the camel and whatever else you’ve lost.
In the desert, visibility is limited, so you have to actually walk around and explore your surroundings. When you’re on foot, the landscape tilts and lists, lazily spinning around you, so that, for example, north doesn’t stay north. You have to continuously alter your course to keep walking in the same cardinal direction. Your compass helps, but it seems to be almost as disoriented as you are.
While you’re wandering around, you might come across a page from a melancholy journal left behind by someone who must have made the pilgrimage before you. These missives are of little practical help, but they do enhance the atmosphere, provide some obtuse clues, and sometimes creep you out.
At least you don’t have to wander completely at random; your dragon charm vibrates to let you know when you’re close to the camel. Once you’ve found the beast, you have to lead it back to the wagon, which is easier said than done. You can’t retrace your footprints very far because they are always gradually being covered up by the shifting sands.
Fortunately, you’ve got a bundle of sticks that you can plant in the ground to mark your passage. But you only have 6 of them, so you have to use them sparingly.
To make matters worse, the sun is starting to set. You don’t want to be caught out in the open at night. You’re not sure what goes on at night, but there is one unsettling journal page that mentions a bunch of hands… Maybe that’s where your possessions go. But you can always find them again out there in the sand.
The desert holds many secrets, and you might come across one of them one day. Since there’s not much to see out there, you’ll know one when you see it. It might be some form of vegetable life that really shouldn’t grow in this climate, or it might be an animal, or something else…
One way or another, you make your way back to the wagon before nightfall and hitch up the camel. You climb up onto the wagon and head eastward, toward your destination, finally making some actual progress on your trek. Until you wake up again the next morning…
There’s a lot of wandering around in this game, but you can reach the mountain and complete the pilgrimage. Finishing the game even gives you a reason to play it again; depending on your performance, you might be awarded a new pack animal to replace your jackass of a camel.
Sandstorm is $3 (Windows only).
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