The Muddy Sand Game

Intro

"The Muddy Sand Game" is a particle-based physics sandbox game developed by GameOverGames Productions and based on the "Falling Sand Game". As a genre these games tend to be rather free form with very few rules. As such it's probably going to be a bit of a challenge to stretch this review out to over 300 words in some ways without going into a lot of details about how certain substances appear to act with one another. This is because this game lacks any sort of narrative or sound elements. So there isn't much else for me to talk about. Though, I'll admit I'm a bit surprised this hasn't been reviewed previously.

Graphics

Graphically things are rather limited to say the least. This is because the particles in this game each represent a single pixel on the screen. As such the particles are all uniform in color. As such it kind of feels like your drawing with colored pencils or crayons in this game at times. Especially if you've set the game speed to zero.

Gameplay

On the gameplay front the game is very free form with you being able to select between a few different types of particles and elements to work with. These range from wall, fire, water, plant, sand, wax, oil, salt, napalm, gunpowder, concrete, ice, C-4, and mystery substance. Each of these particles or elements have unique properties though some of them don't operate in a way that I truly enjoy if I'm being honest. For example if you place a plant particle on the screen it will turn any water particles in contact with it into more plant material. As a result you can quickly have a plant gush up to the top of the screen and cut off the water supply falling from the sky.



This same issue also applies to ice as well. As a result you can't create fun things like lilypads or icebergs in this sandbox. Another oddity in my opinion is that burning wax can't be put out by burying it in sand. So it's pretty obvious the game doesn't consider whether a fire has access to air or not in order to burn as well.

Another oddity is that if your using concrete the particles will sometimes get stuck as they fall towards the bottom of the screen. Admittedly this can be somewhat amusing as you slowly build up a bit of a mound as you move the concrete brush back and forth and see where the hills and valleys will form.

Though, I suppose the best aspect of these sorts of games is setting up some C-4 and other explosives and setting them off with a slow burning wick of some kind. Though, I'll admit the default speed can be kind of torturous if your wax candle is rather large. Though, I'll admit the best burn might come from plant material oddly enough. Albeit the mystery substance tends to explode like a firework. So I suppose it depends on if you like throwing random particles everywhere or like to see the flames just rush across the screen in all directions.

Conclusion

Ultimately I feel like "The Muddy Sand Game" is a bit of a mixed bag. On one hand it's always nice to play around with these sorts of games in order to see the crazy reactions you can get. On the other hand the way ice and grass work in this game kind of ensures that building a complex environment is kind of impossible. As such I tend to put this game down after messing around for a few minutes and usually end a session with a big boom.