Cubeshift

For my Experimental Game Design course, I wanted to push the boundaries of dimensional puzzle mechanics. While games like FEZ pioneered the 2D-to-3D perspective shift, I noticed their puzzles often relied on repetitive solutions—rotate the world a few times, and the answer reveals itself. My goal was to retain that "aha!" moment of spatial reasoning while adding genuine complexity.

I split the world into independent rotating layers, each affecting the player’s path differently. Instead of four fixed rotations, players now had to manage multiple layers at the same time.

This created puzzles where solutions felt more like assembling a kinetic sculpture than just "turning until it works."

Key Learnings:

1. Iterative Simplicity: The most satisfying puzzles emerged when solutions weren't buried in noise, but felt obvious in hindsight, even if they took time to deduce.
2. Player Cognition: Testing revealed that 3+ layers overwhelmed players - just because the level seems more complex, doesn't mean the puzzles are harder. In fact, they just get more frustrating.

The game is playable here with the password: portfolio