Rulebooks/Sand Balls
Rulebook 10 · Drawing puzzle
How to play Sand Balls
A cluster of balls sits at the top of a wall of sand. You drag a finger through the sand to carve a channel, and the balls roll down whatever path you have cut. The aim is to get as many of them as possible to the bottom. Dig badly and they scatter into gaps and are gone; dig well and the whole group arrives together.
- Game type
- Drawing and physics routing puzzle, single player
- One level
- Twenty seconds to a minute, at your own pace
- Input
- Drag a finger through the sand to remove it
- Attention
- Relaxed; nothing moves until you cut a path
- Progress
- Balls delivered per level
What is on the screen
A vertical slice of ground seen from the side. Balls at the top, a collection point at the bottom, and between them a body of sand with obstacles buried in it — solid blocks you cannot dig through, gaps that lead nowhere, and gates that only open for a certain number of balls.
The counter at the bottom is the score, and it is a count of balls, not a time or a distance. Everything about how you dig should be aimed at keeping that number high.
Playing a level from scratch
Trace the route with your eyes before you dig. Sand does not come back once removed, and there is no undo — a channel cut in the wrong place is permanent for that attempt.
Dig narrow. A wide channel lets the group spread out sideways, and a spread-out group loses balls to every gap it passes. A channel barely wider than the balls keeps them in a column and delivers nearly all of them.
Where the level has a gap you cannot avoid, cut your channel so the balls approach it fast and along one side rather than drifting over the middle of it. Momentum carries them across; a slow drift drops them in.
Controls
Drag to dig. The width of the channel follows roughly the speed of your finger — a slow drag carves wider than a quick one — and that is the only nuance in the control scheme.
You can dig while the balls are already rolling. Levels that look impossible on inspection are often meant to be solved this way, cutting the next section of channel a moment before the group reaches it.
What a session feels like
Fast and low-stakes. Levels last well under a minute and the failure state is soft — you finish with fewer balls rather than losing outright, so there is rarely a reason to restart.
It suits very short gaps of time. It is not a game that rewards a long sitting, and it does not pretend to be.
Pointers for a first hour
- Dig narrow. A tight channel keeps the group together, and a group that stays together loses almost nothing to gaps.
- Look before the first cut. Sand does not come back and there is no undo within an attempt.
- Cut ahead of the balls. Digging while they roll is allowed and is the intended solution to most awkward levels.
- Speed carries gaps. Balls moving fast bridge a gap that slow ones fall into, so approach angle matters more than route length.
- Drag slowly for wide, quickly for narrow. The channel width follows your finger speed, and most people never notice.
Quick Play Notes is a reference site. This page describes Sand Balls from our own play; the ball count it mentions is a display number inside the game. We have no commercial relationship with its publisher, and the title is named only to say which game this page explains.