Cubism is an upcoming VR puzzle game from indie developer Thomas Van Bouwel that challenges you to think in 3 dimensions. Inspired by puzzles like the Soma cube, or a cube composed of smaller Tetris-like geometric pieces, Cubism tasks players with assembling increasingly complex shapes in what results in a real brain teaser.
First announced a month ago, Van Bouwel has now published a working demo of Cubism, which gives you a quick slice of the sort of difficulty ahead.
Starting out with basic ‘flat’ geometry, you soon encounter interesting jaggy 3D shapes and hole-filled messes that start to take a toll on whatever primordial part of your brain is tasked with processing colorful Duplo blocks.
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The control scheme is intuitive, mapping a button that magnetically assembles the blocks nearby, something that makes picking them up from the zero-G environment and clicking them into their spots an easy affair. You can also move the wire structure and turn it to get a better sense of where the next block should go.
After playing for about 15 minutes and taking off the headset, I noticed a sort of 3D version of the ‘Tetris Syndrome’, the unique effect that occurs when you finish playing a round of Tetris and your brain is still engaged in placing blocks (despite the Game Boy being stashed in your nylon, neon book bag). The effect wore away after a few minutes, but it was interesting to note that I was now ‘thinking in 3D’.
Cubism is currently still under development, and is slated to release sometime in 2018 with support for Oculus Rift, HTC Vive, and all Windows MR Headsets. The demo, which works with SteamVR-compatible headsets, can be downloaded here.