h3ss
This game is from the old Ludum Dare platform. You can try viewing the original page on Web Archive
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tl;dr: we have remixed Sokoban in 3d hyperbolic space and mashed it with Conway's Game of Life.
h3ss was originally made for LD35 as a test for our engine for a game in 3-dimensional hyperbolic space. The primary feedback we got from LD35 was that the game was interesting (was in top 10% for innovation) but needs a better introduction/tutorial as it was not easily understandable.
We've been working on this and think we've come a long way (but still have a longer way to go). One idea I was playing with to help make it clearer is to give an indication that a block needs to be in a certain location. This idea mirrored the depiction of the storage locations in Sokoban (pictured in wikipedia) and this MiniLD got me to finally get around to implementing this idea.
The other main mechanic (which was there for the LD35 game) is that the icosahedral grid that tiles the hyperbolic space (like cubes in 3d Euclidean space) acts like Conway's game of life. That is, if an empty cell has three neighbouring blocks, a new block will form there. If a block (full cell) has three or more neighbouring blocks, it will be removed. The players can then push blocks around and trigger these state updates (by hitting space) in order to remove all the blocks from the level. This would finish the level and load the next level.
Now, with both mechanics, all the 'sockets' (storage locations) need to be covered by a block and all other blocks must be removed to complete the level.
h3ss was originally made for LD35 as a test for our engine for a game in 3-dimensional hyperbolic space. The primary feedback we got from LD35 was that the game was interesting (was in top 10% for innovation) but needs a better introduction/tutorial as it was not easily understandable.
We've been working on this and think we've come a long way (but still have a longer way to go). One idea I was playing with to help make it clearer is to give an indication that a block needs to be in a certain location. This idea mirrored the depiction of the storage locations in Sokoban (pictured in wikipedia) and this MiniLD got me to finally get around to implementing this idea.
The other main mechanic (which was there for the LD35 game) is that the icosahedral grid that tiles the hyperbolic space (like cubes in 3d Euclidean space) acts like Conway's game of life. That is, if an empty cell has three neighbouring blocks, a new block will form there. If a block (full cell) has three or more neighbouring blocks, it will be removed. The players can then push blocks around and trigger these state updates (by hitting space) in order to remove all the blocks from the level. This would finish the level and load the next level.
Now, with both mechanics, all the 'sockets' (storage locations) need to be covered by a block and all other blocks must be removed to complete the level.