Mummy Sandbox Review – Delightfully, Invitingly Strange
Developed and published by Z_Bill
Available on PC
MSRP $2.99
You are not thought or form. You don’t exist, until you do. You are form without thought, until there is a a singular, driving thought, piercing through:
Breathe
You take breath, and you are form and thought. Your form is weak, barely breathing on its own. You sense, but cannot see.
Breathe
Something touches your form. It is round, but you don’t know the word for round. You add it to your form and your thought. It is an eye, though you don’t know that word yet. You now see the world around you, although confusing and muted.
Breathe
That’s pretty much how Mummy Sandbox starts. You are what I have affectionately referred to as “beef jerky”. You’re a stringy bit of red grossness with an eye and a dream. You live in a sandbox, and no, you’re not allowed to know why. I wrote in the title that Mummy Sandbox is invitingly strange. That’s because it absolutely is. It doesn’t trouble you with long drawn-out exposition or world building. You are jerky, and you must dig. Starting out, you’re slow, almost useless. Every block of sand you dig takes what feels like eons. Eventually, you’ll discover things buried under the sand. Things that will help you.
You are not strong, but you sense something beneath the sand.
Breathe
You cannot put words to it because you do not have words, but you feel a pulsing beneath the earth.
Breathe
You fitfully dig your appendages into the sand. This is your first experience with work. It is pleasing.
Breathe
As you dig out more of the sandbox, you’ll find corpses. You can exhume these corpses and they’ll be pasted up on the edges of the sandbox for further examination. You can throw things at them to get more things. If that doesn’t make sense, I’ll give you an early example: One of the first bodies you exhume has on glasses. Since your beef jerky only has one eye -and not a good one, at that- you can throw a stick at the corpse’s face to knock off the glasses so you can wear them. This is how puzzles generally play out in Mummy Sandbox. You dig up corpses to get items that will help you dig up more corpses.
The work is hard, but rewarding.
Breathe
You have found those that came before. You learn about creation. You wonder if you can create.
Breathe
You take the old ways, and decide to walk in mankind’s footsteps. If there is no god, you will make one.
Breathe
So, there is like a whole metanarrative in the game, and you can take from it what you want. It’s never explicitly explained what’s going on. I find it enthralling. Just using the environment to piece together what is happening in these sandboxes. Each box holds different tools and a bit of environmental storytelling. These bits give you just enough to build a narrative in your head. I love it. The gameplay comes first. Anything you can pull from the rest is just gravy. Mummy Sandbox lets you make a story while you play. The gameplay is so solid that you can just settle into a rhythm of digging while you concoct things like weird, freeform poetry to put into your review.
Mummy Sandbox was a standout to me in the 2021 Haunted PS1 demo disc, and this full release is what you played, but more of it. There was no feature creep. The developer obviously knew what they wanted, and did it. You won’t find new, exciting mechanics and a fully voice acted 4000 page script written by George R.R. Martin. This isn’t that game. If you want something mechanically sound, with some absolutely bonkers visuals, then pick up Mummy Sandbox. You will be entertained by all the weird.
Breathe
