Two shadows. One shape. Work out what casts both.
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Umbraform is a free browser puzzle game about building in three dimensions from flat clues. Each level shows you the shadow a shape casts from the front and from the side, and asks you to stack blocks into something that casts both at once. Depth is invisible in a shadow — a whole row of blocks behind one another leaves a single square — so reading two views against each other is the entire puzzle. Every level can be solved within a block budget, and beating that budget means finding a cleverer shape rather than a bigger one. Sixty levels grow from a small three-cube box with two views to a five-cube box with three, and there is a sandbox with unlimited blocks and eight materials for building whatever you like and sharing it as a link.
Each level shows the silhouette your shape has to cast, drawn on the walls it falls against: the front view on the back-right wall, the side view on the back-left, and from level six a plan view on the floor. There is nothing to translate — a square on the wall is a square of shadow in that row, at that height.
The colours tell you where you stand. Green is a square you are already casting correctly. An outlined amber square is a shadow you still owe. Red is one you are casting that the target does not want, which means a block is in a row it should not be in.
The trick the whole game turns on is that a shadow has no depth. Ten blocks lined up one behind another cast exactly the same single square as one block. That is what lets a small shape satisfy a broad silhouette, and it is why the answer is almost never the obvious solid.
Every level carries a block budget, and matching the shadows is only half of it — you have to do it within the budget. Filling in every cell the shadows permit always matches them and always busts the budget, so the puzzle is finding the efficient shape rather than the safe one. Beating the budget outright is possible on most levels.
Umbraform is a free browser puzzle game about building in three dimensions from flat clues. Each level shows the shadow a shape casts from the front and from the side, and you stack blocks into something that casts both at once. There are sixty levels and a free-build sandbox, and it plays in your browser with no download.
Yes, Umbraform is completely free to play in your browser. No download, no signup, no paywall.
Tap or click the floor to place a block, and tap a face of a block to build against it — the top to stack, a side to build outward. The silhouettes you have to match are drawn on the walls they fall against, so a square on the wall is a square of shadow in that row at that height. Green means you are casting it correctly, an outlined amber square is one you still owe, and red is a shadow you are casting that the target does not want.
You are over the block budget. Every level can be matched within a set number of blocks, and matching the silhouettes is only half the puzzle — filling in every cell the shadows permit always matches them and always busts the budget. Remove blocks and rearrange: the same shadow can nearly always be cast by fewer.
A shadow has no depth. Ten blocks lined up one behind another cast exactly the same single square as one block does, so a broad silhouette does not mean a broad shape. Reading two or three views against each other to work out what is really there — and what is merely hidden behind something else — is the whole game.
Sixty. They start in a three-by-three-by-three box with two views to match, grow to four cubes across, and from level sixteen run in a five-cube box with a third view added on the floor. The block budget tightens as the boxes grow.
Yes. The sandbox gives you unlimited blocks in eight materials and no brief at all, and it saves your model automatically. Any build can be turned into a link with Copy Build Link, which opens the model for whoever you send it to.
Yes. It is tap-to-place with a fixed camera, so it needs one thumb and no camera controls — tap the floor to start and tap block faces to build against them.