New iOS arrival Hocus (stylized as hocus.) is a puzzle game by developer Yunus Ayyildiz, and truth be told, he doesn’t really say much about the game’s features on the App Store description. He calls it a “beautifully crafted minimal puzzle game” with “50 mind bending levels, but doesn’t add much to that. What Hocus is, though, is a game where you move a small cube through a series of beams that are connected to each other. And what makes the game interesting is how the puzzles are basically optical illusions; they appear to be 3D from a viewer’s end, but are, in fact, 2D.
Perhaps it was just as well that Ayyildiz didn’t describe the game in great detail – sometimes you’ve just got to play the game for yourself to see what’s up. But before you play this game for the first time, or if you’re stuck at some point and can’t move on to the next level, we suggest you to read the following Hocus tips, tricks strategies.
1. Don’t Rush It
Fortunately, you aren’t under any sort of time pressure in this game. Some puzzlers will set time limits for levels, with the required time getting shorter for each succeeding level. But Hocus doesn’t have any time limits, so you can take as much time as you need, and feel free to experiment and try something new if your old strategy didn’t work.
2. Change Directions When Two Beams Intersect
At some point, you’ll see where the beams connect to each other, and that’s where you’ll want to change directions. Be sure the cube is at the very point where the beams intersect before shifting directions and moving to a part of the beams that you wouldn’t normally be able to reach. And to reinforce what we said earlier, it’s about trial and error – try moving the cube in each possible direction. The answers in this game aren’t immediately obvious, so you’ll need to test all directions to figure out those puzzles that seem impossible to figure out.
3. Reverse Engineer Your Way To Success
Another useful tip is to trace your cube’s path backwards instead of forward. Do this for each intersection you spot, because that’s where you’ll be shifting directions. If you think of things in reverse, you may have a better idea of where to go, maybe even to the point where you’re back where you started from. When doing this, we suggest trying to trace the path with your finger instead of doing all the work mentally.
4. Concentrate Long And Hard
Once again building on the very first tip we shared with you, there is no time limit. Again, you want to think of these puzzles as 3D-like images that aren’t 3D after all. Concentrate and condition your mind to thinking that there are only two dimensions, and you’ll see them as two-dimensional soon enough. With the planes looking like flat surfaces, you likely wouldn’t think of the edges as the barriers they appear to be.
Also, we suggest that you don’t look too long and hard – it does help to take a break from the game if the puzzles get too hard for you to focus on.