The Sandbox was founded as Pixowl in May 2011 by game designer Adrien Duermaël and entrepreneurs Arthur Madrid and Sébastien Borget.

Pixowl was founded to develop new games and manage updates for Doodle Grub which had garnered more than 3 million users and 200,000 active daily players by August 2011.

[1] In 2012, the company released The Sandbox, a world building mobile video game in which the user can create a "universe" that fits on a single screen using "elements" such as trees, fire, water and mud to achieve the increasingly complex objectives presented as levels in the gameplay.

The game included short animated cutscenes to advance the story line over a total of eight episodes with plans to release additional storylines every few months.

Developed in partnership with Paws, Inc., the production company for the comic strip, the game allows the user to control multiple characters to complete quests on an expanding wilderness campsite.

[15] In March 2022, the company announced a partnership with Paris Hilton's 11:11 Media to include "with an avatar and a dedicated space within the platform featuring a game-like experience themed around her".

Animoca Brand's founder, Sat Yiu said that this number was not representative of engagement, as the Sandbox claimed to have around 200,000 monthly active users at that time.