Across the Sands is a short, minimalistic, textless game about crossing a great desert.

Trade your tea with other travelers and earn enough to build a new home at the distant edge of the desert.

Helpful Hint

In each run of Across the Sands, the ingredients you earn will be randomly assigned a symbol. Before starting a stage by clicking your Sand Skiff, you can refresh your memory of what symbols are assigned to which ingredients by clicking on each ingredient.

Game Jam Info

This is a submission to the RPG Maker 2025 Game Jam and the theme of "Beyond Expectations" is both embodied in the great distance you must travel and the lack of "expected" elements such as text and dialogue.

I hope you enjoy this meditative (and sometimes hectic) journey. Try and reach a score of 600 or more coins for the best possible ending!

Credits

• Plugins: Yanfly, Caethyril, Yami, SumRndmDde
• SFX: freesound_community (Pixabay)
• Music: ArtSlop_Flodur (Pixabay), Nature's Eye/Leigh Robinson (Pixabay)

Usage of AI

Game Jam Rules: "Using ChatGPT to help with debugging or to create code templates that you then build on yourself is fine. The restriction is mainly aimed at generating final game content (like art, music, or text) that’s directly used in the game without significant user input."

As per the regulations of the game jam seen here, Across the Sands has used ChatGPT to help with debugging and creating code templates that were then built upon. No AI was used for the creation of art assets (art, music, text.)