TikTik - Collaborative Puzzle Game

Description

TikTik is an online, puzzle game developed for Dr. Cvetomir Dimov at the University of Geneva to study individual and collaborative problem-solving. In the game, players must work together to navigate two characters, an ice cube and a fire ball, to their respective target locations. The characters' paths are obstructed by a series of fire and ice rays that carve the game board into isolated regions. While characters can move freely within their current region, they cannot cross between them alone due to strict movement rules: the ice cube can pass safely through ice rays but is instantly destroyed by fire rays, while the converse is true for the fire ball. Because characters cannot cross opposing rays on their own, the core problem-solving mechanic relies heavily on teamwork. A character can block a ray of its matching element, cutting off the ray in its direction of flow and effectively opening a safe path for the other character to pass through. To succeed, players must collaborate to discover the correct sequence of these ray-blockings that ensures that both characters safely reach their targets. Source code for the task will be provided after contact by email.

Contact & Lab

Contributors

Citation

Dimov, C. M., & Bavelier, D. (2025). Tik-Tik: A video game for the study of search in problem solving. In Serious Games (Lecture Notes in Computer Science, pp. 189–205). Springer Nature Switzerland. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-032-10518-9_17

Credits

Main implementation by the Fondation Campus Biotech Geneva (FCBG) VR team, with Mael Lacour leading the development.

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