Sandwalkers

Sandwalkers is a roguelike turn-based exploration and strategy game developed by Goblinz Studio (known for Legend of Keepers) and published by Goblinz Publishing. After a successful Early Access period starting in June 2024, the full version was released on April 8, 2025, for PC (Windows, Mac, Linux). The game successfully blends the punishing exploration of titles like Curious Expedition with deep, tactical, party-based combat.

The World of Phithi

The game is set in the desolate, post-apocalyptic world of Uwando, a land ravaged by a meteorological chaos known as The Phithi, which has fractured civilization and made life outside protected refuges nearly impossible. The player controls a caravan of adventurers, known as "Sandwalkers" from the Mka tribe, who are sent out every decade on a vital mission: to navigate the treacherous lands, establish new trade relations, and, most importantly, find and resurrect the Mother Tree Umama to repair the broken climate.

Each expedition is a "run" in the roguelike tradition, designed to fail, or at least conclude, so that the knowledge gained can be passed on.

Core Mechanics: Exploration and Survival

The journey across the desert is managed on a hex-grid map, where movement and survival are intricately linked:

• Supply Management: Every tile the caravan traverses costs precious Supplies (food/water). The difficulty of the terrain determines the cost, forcing players to carefully plot their route to conserve resources and avoid starving. Failing to manage supplies results in the caravan taking damage.

• Environmental Events: The weather is a constant, dangerous factor. Caravans must survive acid rain, sandstorms, and heat waves, which can impact character movement, combat effectiveness, and trigger random narrative events that test the party's morale and cohesion.

• Procedural Generation: The maps, events, and encounters are procedurally generated, ensuring that no two expeditions are the same and promoting high replayability.

Tactical Turn-Based Combat

When the caravan encounters hostile forces—including monstrous creatures, pirates, and corrupted humans—the game switches to a tactical, turn-based combat screen.

• Party Setup: Battles feature a four-person party, requiring strategic positioning: two characters are placed in the protective frontline, and two in the tactical backline.

• Class and Role-Playing: Caravan members are drawn from different fantasy races and professions (like Archaeologist or Hunter), each with unique skills, elemental attacks, and armor. Success depends on using buffs, debuffs, and elemental weaknesses effectively, often prioritizing stunning enemies by breaking their armor.

• Roguelite Progression: When an expedition inevitably ends, the accumulated knowledge and a meta-currency are preserved and passed on to the next caravan. This persistent, meta-game progression allows future groups to push further into the wasteland with permanent stat boosts, better starting resources, and unlocked features, slowly inching toward the final goal of repairing the climate.