Sand Saga Insider: Winter 2026

Patrik Harag, 2026-04-05

Hello everyone! Welcome to a slightly different update – starting from now, Sand Saga blog posts will be released on a quarterly basis instead of monthly. This should allow me to focus more on development while still providing meaningful summaries of progress.

The first quarter of 2026 brought a mix of new features, improvements, and experiments – from sound effects and natural phenomena to gameplay tweaks and platform changes. Lets take a look at what has been added over the past few months.

Additions

Human Improvements
Some of the changes were focused on movement across the map. Trees are now placed in the background relative to humans, allowing them to move through nature and forests more freely. This also applies to projectiles, which can now pass through vegetation. Ladders were added as well, enabling the creation of multi-level maps. In the future, it may be worth considering whether other elements or templates should also be placed in the background, similar to trees and ladders.
Another set of changes focused on making humans more durable, because obviously, if they die after the first hit, it is not very fun to interact with them.

Randomize
A new tool that you may already know from Sand Game 2, but until now had not yet made its way into Sand Saga.

Ads
All traditional content ads (that permanently stay on the page) were removed and replaced with a new type of ads that appear only at suitable moments, such as during interactions in the game menu. When the player interacts directly with the canvas (e.g. pouring sand), no ads interrupt the experience.

Access Improvements
Additional options have been added for players who have the main domain blocked.
More details can be found in the updated article: Sand Saga Unblocked

Natural Phenomena
New natural phenomena have been added: Geysers and Volcanoes. The player can place them with a click, after which they start forming from the bottom of the map and gradually build up until they erupt. This adds an extra layer of variety and makes the simulation more interesting.

Sound Effects
The first batch of sound effects has been added. Adding sound is a longer-term project and will be expanded gradually over time. It is an important step for immersion, because not everyone is creative or vocally skilled enough to provide their own sound effects during gameplay. I don't have prior experience with sound design, so I am learning as I go. There are already some known issues, especially with large explosions, which will be addressed in future updates.

Conclusion

That's all for today. As mentioned above, in the next quarter I will be focusing on sound design, and there will likely be some new features as well. See you at the beginning of July for a summary of the spring updates.