Shifting Sands is a single-player extraction roguelike set on a storm-battered desert planet. Rise from the dust like a scavenger — collect scrap, search for shipwrecks, upgrade your gear and race the daily sandstorm that erases everything from the surface. Venture deeper for richer rewards.
If you’ve ever fantasized about surviving Jakku like Rey, or sifting through the wreckage of Tatooine like a Jawa… this is that dream — and you can play it yourself.
Players who enjoy these games will love it
Dredge • Sable • Moonlighter • Far: Lone Sails • Subnautica
Lungs full of sand, backpack full of scrap, the storm at your back.
A wreck half-buried in the dunes. The wind picking up. Your pack nearly full… but you haven’t opened that sealed compartment yet. Pry it open — and you might pull out alien tech good for a week’s journey; or you might come up empty — and the storm will sweep your overloaded pack away, never to see home again.
A scavenger’s life is like this. This desert planet buries everything… then exposes it again somewhere else, for those who are fast enough. At the center stands the Hub — an ancient monument that holds the storm back for only a few hours each day.
You are only one of countless souls drawn here. Each morning you set out; each dusk the dunes reset. What you take with you is the only thing that survives.
Explore the Wastes
Yesterday there was nothing here. Today, half a freighter pokes out of the dunes.
The storm reshapes everything. That wreck you found? Gone. That cache you looted? Now deeper… or right at the surface, waiting. Every expedition is a fresh map, every expedition a new opportunity. You learn to read the dunes: where wreckage piles up, where the raiders make camp, which anomalies warp the air. But you never finish learning… because tomorrow everything changes again. Risk a deep dive for rare salvage, or stay close to the Hub. The choice is yours — and so are the consequences.
Mind Your Backpack
Your pack has a limited number of slots. The component in front of you takes up four slots.
Bring it back to camp and it unlocks a brand-new tool — one that will change your game forever. But your pack is already stuffed with twelve slots of scrap from the run. Drop it? Then the trip was a waste. Keep it? Then the component belongs to the storm.
This is a game within the game. Every slot is a gamble: common scrap is reliable value; rare components rewrite everything… if you make it back. Once you die, you lose almost everything — only items locked in your Omnipack are safe. How much risk will you take for one more slot?
Upgrade and Adapt
That scrap in your pack? It’s not junk — it’s potential.
At the Hub, scrap becomes upgrades: scanners that reveal caches, reinforced boots for crossing dunes, cutters that slice through sealed compartments — and the secrets inside them. Every haul is a choice about who you want to become.
Some upgrades make you faster, some tougher, others open paths you never imagined. You can’t unlock everything in a single run… so your choices shape what kind of scavenger you’ll become. The wastes give you parts; you decide what to build.
Define Your Playstyle
Two scavengers walk out of the Hub at dawn. One comes back with a full pack; the other never returns. They were playing two different games.
Your gear changes everything: slip into a cloak and you can ghost past raiders; strap on a probability manipulator to bend luck in your favor when it matters most; pull on sand-boots to claw back precious seconds when you’ve gone too far and the storm is closing in.
There is no “right” loadout, only the one that fits your style… and the moment you realize it’s no longer enough. Every piece of gear is a trade-off, every expedition an answer to “what matters more.”
Survive the Wastes
The desert is not empty. Raiders patrol the wrecks, monsters nest in the ruins, anomalies flicker in the heat and warp the space around them.
You can fight, but that’s not the point. Combat costs time and stamina, time and stamina cost distance, and distance means the difference between making it home before the storm buries everything and not.
The most seasoned scavengers know when to fight, when to hide and when to run. Sometimes you cut a path; sometimes you take a detour; sometimes… you realize too late that you should have turned around three wrecks ago.
Preparation beats firepower, positioning beats courage, and knowing when to run beats everything.
A Small Society of Survivors
The desert forgets; the people of the Hub do not.
Between expeditions, the Hub has its own life. Merchants haggle over loot, scholars collect debris from the wrecks, exiles nurse grudges, priests sell blessings — for a fee, of course.
Relationships build slowly: a favor here, a chat there. Someone remembers you helped them… and shares a piece of intel that can change your next run. But trust is a double-edged sword: help the wrong faction and doors will close on you; betray someone and the Hub will not forget. In a world that resets every day, people — are the only thing that lasts.
The World Resets Every Day… You Won’t
Each night the storm comes, each morning the desert is new.
But you remember. Your upgrades are still there, your knowledge is still there. Relationships, secrets, unlocked paths… all of it stays with you. The planet forgets; you don’t.
What are you willing to risk to escape the sands?
Storm. Loot. Refuge.
Features:
Extraction loop — head out, grab what you can, race back before the storm buries it all
Daily reset — the storm levels everything, tomorrow’s desert is a brand-new map
Procedural expeditions — wrecks, routes and encounters are different every time
Loot-driven economy — scrap, alien tech, rare components: everything has value… or risk
Permanent progression — the desert resets, your upgrades do not
Backpack Tetris — every slot is a choice, every choice a gamble
Modular gear — upgrade and customize your kit with loot
Style-defining loadouts — your tools decide how you play
Living NPCs — survivors with memories, secrets and their own agendas
Faction consequences — who you help, who you betray, shapes your path
Real-time isometric view — explore hand-drawn pixel scenes
Dodgeable tactical combat — fight, sneak or run, your call
Pixel sci-fi wasteland — inspired by Tatooine, Dune and classic post-apocalyptic fiction
