April 20th-23rd 2012 :: 10 Year Anniversary! :: Theme: Tiny World
Serendipity with Cubes is a puzzle solving game!
Running The Game:
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Simply unzip it to wherever and run game.exe (or game_BUGFIX.exe if you don't want the game to crash :)
NOTE that you'll need the latest DirectX runtime installed! Most gamers have this already, but if you get the error "The program can't start because d3dx9_43.dll is missing from your computer. Try reinstalling the program to fix this problem." you'll need to install it. It's available here:
http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=35
Rules:
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*Connect the two pulsating cubes with a path of same-color cubes
*Click on a cube to select it, and an adjacent cube to swap their colors
*The goal is to remove all the colored cubes
*When a path is connected, all connected cubes of the same color will be cleared
*If any cubes become stranded, never to be connected, the game is over
Concept:
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"Tiny World" brought to mind the idea of how small the world is, bringing people together. Then I thought about the game "ticket to ride". Then I thought about cubes. Then algorithms. Then I started coding.
Controls:
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*NOTE: min/max/close window buttons don't work. Exit by pressing Escape.
Exit: ESC
Select Cube: Left Mouse
Rotate World: Right Mouse
Zoom: Scroll Wheel
Increase Num Colors: 0 (up to 5)
Decrease Num Colors: 9 (down to 2)
Increase World Dimension: = (up to 9x9x9)
Decrease World Dimension: - (down to 3x3x3)
Restart: R
Display Stats: S
TODO:
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* music
* min/max/close window buttons
* fullscreen mode
* not all cubes are solvable, but the algorithm tries its best :)
* lighting
* lots and lots of polish
Downloads and Links
Ratings
![]() | Coolness | 53% |
#92 | Innovation | 3.74 |
#177 | Graphics | 3.52 |
#252 | Fun | 3.15 |
#302 | Overall | 3.19 |
#500 | Audio | 2.30 |
#543 | Mood | 2.50 |
#678 | Humor | 1.73 |
#811 | Theme | 2.12 |
Comments
Hey, thanks for the comment! You're totally right; I wish I could have had someone playtest the game before I released it. I hope to upload a more final "non-compo" version with some bug fixes and cleaner rules. When I get home I'll also try to upload some videos of myself playing just to demonstrate some of the subtle rules. Hope you enjoyed playing!
It took me a while as well to understand the mechanics, but the game's really well done and the concept is pretty clever. Good job!
Really fun and enjoyable! There aren't enough 3D puzzle games in the world, and this is a great step in the right direction :D I also had issues understanding how the game worked, but after figuring it out it was pretty fun. My only other gripe is the fact that the "cube selection" sound was too annoying; specially if I'm supposed to click many cubes to create a path, it felt like a punishment more than something I should want to do. Really clean and appealing visuals, and a very nice control scheme. Great job!
[Comments and ratings from this account come from various team members]
Visually appealing but I found it quite hard to get a grasp of the gameplay. Camera and controls felt great but I think the zooming in and out could have been a little faster. I think maybe the game could have used some very simple levels with a smaller field as a tutorial to get used to it. Other than that quite a polished game for the time and great concept. Good work!
I can't run this - I get the error "The program can't start because d3dx9_43.dll is missing from your computer. Try reinstalling the program to fix this problem." I have DirectX 11, Windows 7.
I'm sorry about that! You have to have the latest DirectX runtime installed; most gamers with windows machines have it installed because it's required to play most modern DX games. I'll put a link to it in the description.
My computer is only a month old and fully up-to-date - not sure what I'm missing - could it be you're looking for an older version somehow?
I ran into some crashes preventing me from getting too far. Great game concept, though, from what I got to play :).
Very nice. Once I'd worked out what to do it was enjoyable - although I admit I had a hard time being able to plan ahead to avoid "floaters" because the next two pulsing cubes to join was random. Those are small, tweakable things, and overall it was worth playing.
I agree that the "game over" condition is entirely non-obvious given the other goals. But that's somewhat to be expected when you make a rather novel puzzle game in 48 hours.
Good job!
Interesting screen shots... too bad it doesn't work on my mac. :C
Worked smooth and was pretty fun to play. It only lacked something like a timer to add to the challenge. Nice entry!
Interesting to play but the gameover conditions feels a bit unfair.
Great concept, but gets repetitive. It would be more interesting with some more challenge.
Needed a while to figure out how to connect the cubes. After that it was still very hard though. Very tricky to foresee the impact of a move.
I also agree the instructions are confusing (for the reason the first poster mentioned). Neat concept though.
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It took me a little bit to understand the meaning of "Connect the two pulsating cubes with a pair of same-color cubes" because the pulsating cubes were different colors. I would have written something like "change the color of the pulsating cubes so they match, then connect the pulsating cubes with a chain of cubes of the same color".
I like the style and the basic gameplay is nice, I noticed it's most effective(?) to connect more cubes of the same color than you need to. The only problems are A) gray cubes can still be interacted with and B) It's not obvious why you get a Game Over: it's hard to tell when you have "stranded" a cube.