After being left behind at the beach, the toy soldiers find themselves stuck on a sandcastle with a rising tide. They know their treasure, a shining pearl, should be protected at all costs. But the crabs of the beach think very differently! They believe the pearl belongs with them. Will the pearl stay with the toy soldiers, or will the crabs take it from their castle?

When I was a kid, I used to make sandcastles for soldier crabs and pretend they were the soldiers that would defend the castle. Of course, if you have ever seen soldier crabs, all they want to do when a kid comes and picks them up is dig down into the sand to keep safe. So, my sandcastles would often include a big pit in the middle where I constantly would re-dig the crabs out of to sit them on the castle walls.

After thinking of this, my challenge was coming up with a way to portray my memory with the selection of sand-coloured elements available to me. I built the towers' tops first as they had size limitations (due to piece availability) and then, quite literally, worked my way down with the base being the final part constructed.

About halfway through, I thought having access to the interiors was a good idea (for play purposes or just interest), so I changed how each section connected to separate each level with only a few connection points. Separating this design also gave me the ability to include a pit in the centre of the castle as a further nod to my castles when I was a kid (my castles looked much more like this, with only the bottom section).

The updates that have been made for this season of BDP include adding soldier crab figures, toy soldier figures, and small changes to the sandcastle. The idea of soldier crabs attacking a sand castle tickled me, so I was really excited to include them in this build.