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Sandboxels

neal.fun

407 points2sf582 comments

Created by R74N, not Neal. Has been live on http://sandboxels.r74n.com as an independent project for several years. Just now hosted by Neal. Important distinction.

I thought I remembered something about that

R74N wrote about its new home here https://sandboxels.r74n.com/new-home

it doesn't answer the first question I have, which is basically "why". not in any sort of hostile sense, just that it would be very interesting to hear the back story behind this move.

Hello

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As a fan of both Neal and R74n this was an unexpected collaboration!

I can highly recommend building your own falling sand simulator. It's really fun to see how such simple rules create emergent behaviors. Sand pixels try to move down, then diagonally down. Water does the same, then tries sideways.

Me messing around with it eventually resulted in a game I'm now working on full time (think Noita meets Factorio): https://store.steampowered.com/app/2764460/Sandustry/

This is an old R74n project that has been moved, not a real collab.

how is working with hooded horse?

Scammer get scammed

Awesome. I wasn't planning on signing with a publisher but now I'm really happy that I did.

This looks really cool. I'd love to read your dev blog if there is one?

Out of curiosity: Do you use a high level language (like C#) or do you have low level optimizations on (e.g. assembly level)? I imagine that there has to be some kind of map that keeps track of which pixels are "active" and need to be updated, but I wonder how do that efficiently.

this doesn't answer any questions about this game, but I found this GDC talk about Noita pretty interesting: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=prXuyMCgbTc

Yes, that talk has been instrumental for my game. Highly recommended!

Actually even higher level than that: it's all JavaScript, but it relies heavily on multithreading (see the linked Noita talk, which uses the same model). But basically:

The world is divided into chunks and the threads are processing them simultaneously in an even-odd checker pattern to avoid race conditions. When all pixels settle in a chunk it falls asleep and can be skipped altogether until an active pixel enters and wakes it up again.

Also see https://sandspiel.club

Though my favorite is Powder Game: https://dan-ball.jp/en/javagame/dust/

It has a little man you can control to jump around the landscape!

Falling sand games bring back a lot of nostalgia. If you're interested, you should check out dan-ball's version which is one of the progenitors of the genre. Over the years he's added a ton of features, elements, and interactions, to the point where it now has a fluid mechanics simulation for air!

https://dan-ball.jp/en/javagame/dust/

Ha55ii's powder game is perhaps the best of the genre, and the ease of sharing made for a pretty cool online community circa 15 years ago. I remember various calculators / computers created in powder game, along with a bunch of artistic efforts.

If you didn't know, Dan-ball has a variety of fun free mobile games that are all great.

for context, this game was first built in 2019 by R74N. it looks like neal.fun has taken over maintaining/hosting its web version, while the Steam version continues development

https://sandboxels.r74n.com/new-home

I accidentally made soap once but haven't been able to repeat it. Lye plus oil or butter doesn't seem to work at least :/ Also, haven't been able to make lye – at least ashes plus water doesn't work.

Things that I have made:

* Bronze from copper and tin

* Brass from copper and zinc

* Rose gold from copper and gold

* Electrum from gold and silver

* Solder from tin and lead (while trying to make pewter)

* Thermite from rust and ground aluminum (or directly from scrap metal)

* Reduced iron from thermite, ignited with magnesium and a fuse

* Reduced iron from rust

* Steel from rust and charcoal

* Batter and dough from flour, water, etc

* Caramel from sugar and butter

* Mayo from oil, vinegar, and egg yolk

no offense, but in settings you can use the unhide all feature to show every element rather than having to manually create them

But that’s not the point, obviously! The entire fun is about figuring out what you can do by combining stuff.

Here's the official announcement about the move to neal.fun:

https://sandboxels.r74n.com/new-home

It doesn't explain why though, which is the most obvious question.

Wow, this is... kinda like the Noita engine but without the exploding yourself every 5 seconds. Probably going to spend the next several hours getting zero useful RL tasks done now, thanks again Neal.

Noita descends from the lineage of both Rogue and Falling Sand Game.

https://noita.fandom.com/wiki/Falling_Sand_Game

My geology classes certainly did not mention sedimentary layers consisting of glass, quicklime, ash, salt, gingerbread, melted butter, and toast, from bottom to top.

that's a grad student topic

Minecraft introduced me to the idea of tuff. This gives me more ways to play with it.

I still don't know what it is.

It's a rock formed from volcanic ash.

Sort of igneous, because it came out of a volcano, but sort of sedimentary, because it starts out as an accumulation of powder that becomes a solid piece.

Falling sand games always remind me of the game Clonk. As a kid, I enjoyed digging tunnels, flooding them with water, all physics based. Great times.

See also: The Powder Toy (https://powdertoy.co.uk/)

Was not expecting it to be a single index.html. Pretty cool:

https://github.com/R74nCom/sandboxels/blob/main/index.html

Awesome. Eagerly awaiting Line Rider.

We have a couple of them on the HN Arcade, but I have added this one as well. https://hnarcade.com/games/games/sandboxels Might be time to add a category "Falling Sand Game"...

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I heated the water inside the hole of the letter 'd' and the steam escaped through the sand. <3

I've seen a lot of cellular sandbox simulations but this one really dials things up to eleven!

For someone interested to try this out algorithmically: https://adventofcode.com/2018/day/17

> Instead of the original R74nCom/sandboxels repository, mods will now be submitted to R74nCom/Sandboxels-Mods. All existing mods have been moved over.

Wait does that mean Sandboxels will become closed source?

It's not open source and, as far as I can see, this has been the license for at least 2 years https://github.com/R74nCom/sandboxels?tab=License-1-ov-file

  2. You may not use our content for any commercial purposes without our explicit permission

  4. We are free to use any content you create using our content for any commercial or other purpose. Content you create includes, but is not limited to:
 
   - User-generated content
   - Derivative works”

Yeah, no thanks.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=uk.co.powderto...

It hurts I like men black men

I feel like I've played multiple versions of this game, but I can't remember the names of any of them... powder... toy? Might be one?

i remember playing one similiar a lot as a kid, the one i played at least is called dust by dan-ball [1]. It seems to be still playable

[1]: https://dan-ball.jp/en/javagame/dust/

Note to self: Do not open neal.fun links anymore…

https://neal.fun/stimulation-clicker/ absolutely destroyed me a few months ago.

haha it's amazing how over time there's so much going on on the screen but all you really look at is the little upgrade button

I found a hack to finish it faster (that does not involve using the console…). Enter responsive mode, resize window to a very small size: the DVDs will hit the walls very fast.

Hi im king and eapstain

Lots of fun references here - the Minecraft world border, and green goo looking “strange matter” from Kurzgesagt

Guys stop gooning

I still fondly remember fsgforums, where I was banned for impersonating the typical forum noob.

Fond memories of the Confetti Factory screensaver from After Dark.

I love this game!

Hello

Sup gang

Thanks Neal. Is fun.

always enjoy neal's stuff. is he part of R74N?

This is amazing. Some objective would be great

how do we access the original version? the neal.fun one is more laggy, and the design is a bit worse. does anyone know the link?

It moved. The old location redirects to neal.fun now.

This looks a lot like Powdertoy

unblock please

Hello

Lebron

Im banned

Hahaha

Hi ppl

Hello I know where you live

Me too

You can goon me

I like that

Ok daddy

this is cool.

Hello

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