The Sandbox is testing how players join the same match and keep items between sessions in Studio, its game creation tool. The team also plans to build avatar support into the templates creators start with.
The Sandbox outlined its latest Studio tests on November 5, ahead of opening the game creation tool to more developers. The team is bringing players together in real-time matches and checking how items from its first in-game shop reach a player’s inventory. Shared avatars are next for beta testing, with the aim of letting players take a character from one supported game to another.
In its October 30 developer update, the company set aside a few extra weeks to work with alpha and beta creators. At the time, developers were checking whether matches and purchases worked reliably and securely on a separate test system before inviting more beta creators to use them. The November announcement gave no date for the public launch.
How will players join the same match?
Matchmaking finds opponents or teammates, who can gather in a lobby before joining a match. A dedicated server decides the state of play rather than leaving that decision to one player’s device. Creators will also have local tools to try out how their games behave over a network.
| Format | How players compete |
|---|---|
| One on one | Two players face each other |
| Two on two and four on four | Two teams of two or four players each |
| Eight-player free-for-all | Each player competes individually |
The roadmap also lists in-game chat and networked physics. A server could, for example, settle where a falling object lands so that players see the same outcome. The eight-player figure refers specifically to the free-for-all. The team did not say how many players a server can handle or how much lag it measured.
The team is adding multiplayer and avatar support to starter templates so creators need not wire up networking from scratch for each project. The plans cover first-person and third-person games. In its August 31 workshop, starting at 4:19, the designers explain why an object drawn for an over-the-shoulder view needs different detail from one seen at a distance. The camera angle also affects how players control the game.
What happens to an item after checkout?
A player who leaves and returns should find a permanent item still in their inventory. If the player used up a consumable before logging out, it should not reappear on their next visit. The shop trial includes both fixed-price purchases and free items. Keeping an inventory record does not in itself give a player the right to resell an item or take it into another game.
Creators will not have to assemble payment systems country by country. Under the Xsolla partnership announced on October 14, they will have access to a web shop for sales outside the game, the Pay Station gateway and fraud checks. Xsolla acts as the merchant of record, handling sales tax, VAT, compliance and payouts to creators.
The figures the company cites describe Xsolla’s overall reach: more than 200 countries and territories, over 1,000 payment methods and more than 130 currencies. Players are meant to be able to pay in their own currency by card, local wallet or bank transfer without a crypto wallet. The Sandbox did not name the countries where the shop is being tested.
The team says players will be able to buy packs of in-game currency with SAND when Studio launches. Players would spend the balance from those packs inside the game. The November update gave no pack prices, conversion rates or net payout figures for creators.
Shared avatars and the public launch
The aim is for players to take their own character into games that support it. According to the Studio product page, creators can already convert voxel assets made in VoxEdit or bought on The Sandbox marketplace for use in Studio. The team plans to support existing avatars too, but has not said which characters will work in which games.
Creators can apply for the beta, and the team selects participants to try the tools and give feedback. Players can already open some of the games without an invitation. In KriptoMeta’s September Farmadillo demo review, the reviewer reached the help screen and game area without an account or wallet connection. That test did not cover the new shop or November’s match formats.
The Halloween game jam drew 31 submissions for a $6,400 prize pool across the main and special categories. In a separate competition, Larry Hryb returned to judge mobile-first games designed to be easy to share. The Last Hayride and Cat-astrophic Pest Control are among the games players can open on the Studio site. Creators who want to start their own projects without an invitation are still waiting for a release date.
