Build a camp and ride llamas in The Superfluous Sand's free alpha demo

How's your Stardew Valley farm doing? Have you finally finished tinkering with your Minecraft town, and dug every precious thing out of the ground in Terraria? You might want to take your tent and pitch it in The Superfluous Sand, a post-apocalyptic sandbox building game set in a big ol' desert (that used to be Alaska).

You know the sort of thing: chop, build, craft, defend. But in this game you get to ride llamas. And have a swarm of cats. The pixel art in this top-down settlement-expanding game is just delightful, while there's a detailed science fiction backstory, if you need a reason why you're building yourself a home.

This free alpha demo gives you a taste of Superfluous's sandy sandbox, with plans for the future including cars, and special abilities including sand-based magic powers for your hero. A post-apocalyptic setting makes a lot of sense for a craft-'em-up, but this game's kinda adorable look should make it stand out in a desert of similar offerings.

For more great free experiences, check out our roundup of the best free PC games.

Tom loves exploring in games, whether it’s going the wrong way in a platformer or burgling an apartment in Deus Ex. His favourite game worlds—Stalker, Dark Souls, Thief—have an atmosphere you could wallop with a blackjack. He enjoys horror, adventure, puzzle games and RPGs, and played the Japanese version of Final Fantasy VIII with a translated script he printed off from the internet. Tom has been writing about free games for PC Gamer since 2012. If he were packing for a desert island, he’d take his giant Columbo boxset and a laptop stuffed with PuzzleScript games.