Cubed (or DotLineAreaCube? no, I think that was the working title) is a game I made in 2010 to participate in a game jam hosted by Indievault, the Italian game community website ran by my friend Vincenzo Lettera (and me). I managed to convince the community to do a game jam all around the book Flatland by Edwin A. Abbott.

The game was intended to play like a small reflex-based game, where things happen across the four worlds (as narrated in the book): the 0-dimension pointland, the 1-dimensional lineland, the 2-dimensional flatland, and the 3-dimensional world.

At the top-left corner, the Dot King produces dots in time with the music. These dots fly to the left until they become lines in lineland. At this point, the player (who is represented by the small crown, the Line King) moves left and right to transform these dots into line. As they do so, the lines fall down towards flatland (the grid), where the player moves the Square King but this time in two dimensions (they control both kings at the same time). As they move around, capturing the squares, these rise in the sky, projected, becoming cubes in 3D. All very philosophical, I know.

It’s been 12 years since then and like many Flash games I made, I have no way to run this game anymore. Outside of the gameplay described above, I don’t think it had an ending. Regardless, it’s a game I treasure having made, since I’m a big fan of the book.