Sand Saga Insider: September 2025

Patrik Harag, 2025-10-01

Hello everyone, September brought another set of updates to Sand Saga. The main highlights this month are improvements to humans, including the introduction of soldiers, and the addition of more powerful modding tools.

Additions

Soldiers

A new type of human has been introduced: soldiers. Currently, there are three weapons available — machine gun, rocket launcher, and flamethrower. At this stage, they can only shoot straight ahead, but aiming support is planned for the future.

With the future addition of AI for humans, it seems natural to eventually introduce two factions of soldiers that would fight each other. At the moment, soldiers only march around randomly, just like regular humans. However, they can also be directly controlled, and you can fire their weapon by pressing F.

Custom Material API for JavaScript Mods

Modders now have another set of tools they asked for. Previously it was possible to create new elements only within the constraints of what the engine allowed — mostly visual changes (like recoloring) or new combinations of existing materials (for example, take Thermite, recolor it, make it gaseous and give it a new name). What was not possible until now was defining entirely new behaviours and reactions.

The API exposes low-level manipulation of elements directly on the canvas. You can create up to 32 materials (5 bits of information). That may not sound like a lot at first, but each material can be combined with all basic element types (fluid, powder, etc.) and assigned different properties such as flammability and more.

The API may change if it proves insufficient.

Example: Workshop Item – Example
API docs: https://sandsaga.com/dev/jsdoc/latest

Conclusion

In the next month, I'll likely focus further on improving the humans. See you next month!