The Tesseract Puzzle

About The Tesseract Puzzle

A tesseract is a 4D hypercube. Since we are only puny 3D beings, we can't see the whole thing. Instead we get to see a 3D intersection of the whole thing, which gets then projected onto our 2D phone screens. It's kind of like a CAT scan, except the resulting picture is 3D instead of 2D.

A normal 3D cube has 6 square faces and each can be given a unique color. In this game we have a tesseract with 8 cube cells, each of which have their own unique color. The big tesseract is subdivided into 4^4=256 smaller tesseracts. Each of those smaller tesseract pieces can be rotated in 6 different ways, unlike cubes which can only be rotated in 3 different ways. When rotating a tesseract, it will do so along with 15 other tesseracts that together form a square that rotates around its center without intersecting other tesseract pieces. To choose which tesseract to rotate and which direction, you only have to hold your finger onto one and slide it into the desired direction in straight line.

It's also possible to rotate the big tesseract (or the camera, depending on perspective) by touching the background and sliding your finger any direction you like. If 3D is selected on the left, then the rotations are pretty similar to normal 3D rotations. If 4D is selected instead, then you get 4D rotations. The 4D rotations allow you to see the tesseract in ways you would otherwise not be able to see.

The slider on the right has two different purposes, depending on whether 3D or 4D is selected. If 3D is selected, it will allow you to zoom in and out. If 4D is selected, then you can perform a 4D scan of the tesseract. Note that if you slide too far, that the tesseract may be completely out of your 3D field of vision and seemingly disappear. Not to worry though, because if you slide back you will see it again. You can also press a button in the left panel to reset the whole orientation of the tesseract, so you will view it as if you had rebooted the game.

The game starts by shuffling the tesseract using the rotations mentioned earlier. The goal of the game is to color each of the 8 cube cells with a single color.