Spend a day in the desert of Shifting Sands, and you could steal a bird, fish something alien out of a whirlpool of sand, or get relationship advice from a sandworm with strong opinions about your love life. It’s a strange desert, and Silent Sun built it that way on purpose.
Released into Early Access on Steam this past August, Shifting Sands is a hand-drawn, isometric roguelite about outliving a planet that resets itself every single day. We wanted the lowdown straight from the source, so we put the questions directly to one of its developers.
Josh was more than happy to talk through everything from what inspired the game to what players can expect as the game progresses through Early Access. We also learned more about how a heist as absurd as Grand Theft Birdo actually happened and got to the really important questions like who they would want around if they were stuck on the Nexus themselves.
So, before we dive in to this Q&A, we’d just like to thank Josh for his time and for letting us dig deeper into this strange and wonderful roguelite.
Where did the original idea for Shifting Sands come from, and how different was that first version from what players can play today?
It was born out of a love for desert-scrapping vibes and sci-fi…Somehow, the scene of Luke Skywalker looking out over the horizon at the two suns on Tatooine stuck with me. Jawas, Rey diving into derelicts on Jakku, the creativity of the Fremen on Arrakis, and a dozen other sci-fi IPs have inspired everything that went into the game.
The earliest version of the game was actually a digital board game, so it was super different from what we have today, but it was a great way to test those first principles in the design.
There are a lot of roguelikes and roguelites out there now. What did you want Shifting Sands to do differently?
The “lite” or “like” after rogue gives you a ton of freedom in terms of what you interpret the genre to be. Shifting Sands has die-and-retry and procedural world-generation loops, but outside of that, it quickly departs from other conventions and leans toward an atmospheric action RPG where you have the freedom to express your playstyle through your inventory choices.
A lover of the genre will get that familiar “one more run” vibe after diving into the desert, but they’ll find they have a lot more agency in the long haul when it comes to how their decisions and builds influence their playstyle, rather than stacking meta-progression and waiting for good RNG to produce temporary OP builds.
You’ve described the desert as part wreckyard, part graveyard. Does that give you an excuse to get a little weird with what players can discover?
Oh boy, does it ever provide fertile ground for weirdness. There are over 50 rare, unique random encounters in just Early Access, and the likelihood of any player experiencing all of them in a single playthrough is very low.
I loved the Easter egg encounters in Fallout and Fallout 2 that referenced other IPs and popular culture, and lovers of sci-fi and video games will find plenty of inside jokes here if they’re willing to poke around.
In terms of the weirdest thing we’ve put in so far, it would have to be the relationship-advice-giving sandworm. Thousands of years sliding through the sands should give the worm a few grains of wisdom to offer, right?
How much can the storm actually change? Can one day in the desert feel fundamentally different from the last?
We’ve got global events that can make the desert feel fundamentally different, with things like sandstorms, increased gravity, and metal-eating nanite swarms. The most impactful are probably the Rampage or Raid-type events that fill the desert with a given faction of enemies. Those days might be better spent hanging out in the Nexus, sorting scrap, cooking meals, and upgrading your gear.
There are about a dozen different mini biomes too, such as crash sites, flora blooms, and bird migrations, which can make individual rooms feel very different.
We have to talk about fishing. How did that end up in Shifting Sands?
At first glance, the game may seem like a classic action RPG, but we wanted to provide more of a sandbox vibe with some more casual activities. There’s scrap sorting, bird racing, card games, cooking, and, of course, fishing. The idea of a strange silt whirlpool made from thin, fluid-ish dust that somehow supports an alien ecology of fish creatures was simply too appealing not to dive into.
That philosophy extends to violence itself, which the game treats as one option among several, not a requirement.
Combat isn’t always the answer. Why was it important to let players fight, sneak past enemies, or simply run?
From the beginning, we wanted players to decide how they solve problems in the desert instead of trapping them in a series of rooms where they have to kill everything around them. Ultimately, it’s about choices. That does create a different experience from what Hades or Enter the Gungeon players might expect, so that distinction is important for us to communicate.
If you choose to fight early on, you’ll likely find yourself biting the dust fairly often unless you’re dodging and blocking extremely effectively. You can also just go “nope” and exit the map any time you want. There’s a surprising skill ceiling there for combat, but there’s also plenty to do if combat isn’t your thing.
If you had to live in the Nexus yourself, who would you want around, and who would start getting on your nerves?
Right now, there are around 40 Nexus NPCs in the game, with several more planned. Personally, I’d like to have Scrapper Blackwell around because soulful music would be powerful medicine when stranded on a desert world. He’s a direct reference to the real blues icon whose song “Nobody Knows You When You’re Down and Out” feels pretty appropriate for our protagonist, N01 (no one).
The Overseer would get on my nerves because she has so much control but isn’t very forthcoming…and maybe because I have mommy issues?
With ships being dragged in from elsewhere in the universe, you’ve essentially given yourselves permission to bury almost anything beneath the sand. Are there any rules?
Our only real constraint is that things need to be sci-fi adjacent. Of course, with sci-fi being a huge genre spanning many decades, there’s no shortage of goodies that can get mixed into the sands. Our references cover a huge tonal range, from grimdark Warhammer 40,000 all the way to WALL-E, which should give you a sense of where things can land.
That being said, we love the community and want to engage with them about what they’d like to dig out of the sand too.
I’ve attached a picture of some of our references that people might recognize! Let me know which ones you spot!
Early Access players have already found some creative ways to break things. What’s your favorite “how did they even manage that?” bug so far?
Oh we did a social post on this which was titled “Grand Theft Birdo”. Players found a way to ride a Sand Strider birdmount out of the Nexus without paying for it. Though you’d only get it for one joyride…
Finally, without spoiling anything you’d rather keep buried, what are you most excited for players to discover next?
Without a doubt, it’s the expansion of the main questlines beyond the current Early Access content. There is a grand mystery at the heart of the Nexus and this desert planet.
Why are spacefarers being pulled out of FTL travel and down to the surface of this world?
Who built the Nexus, and why?
What’s with the storm?
The current Early Access version lets players dive in and get dusty, but it doesn’t let them get to the bottom of things. Can’t wait to share that with players!
What’s Left Buried
Shifting Sands features a desert that redecorates itself every single day, a fishing hole secretly teeming with alien life, and a fanbase chaotic enough to earn its own nickname for stealing a bird. Oh, and a worm with opinions about your love life. There’s still a much bigger mystery buried under the Nexus, and by the sound of it, Silent Sun is only just getting started digging it up.
You can buy the game now in Early Access on Steam for $19.99 on Windows and macOS. Pack your bag, dodge the storm, attempt to steal a bird if you absolutely must, and go find out whether that worm’s advice is actually any good. We won’t judge you either way.