Updated: 16 May, 2026.
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Erwin is a sliding merge puzzle played on the surface of a 3D cube. The player swipes tiles on the active face, and identical tiles combine into the next, higher value. Swiping the background rotates the cube.
The game has one mode: endless. The player plays until the board fills and no merges remain. There are no timers, no alternative rulesets. The game persists across launches — close the app and reopen, and the board is exactly where it was left.
Play long enough and quantum effects begin to appear. On a randomized schedule, a newly spawned tile appears in superposition — displaying two possible values simultaneously. On the next swipe that moves it, the tile "collapses" to whichever value would produce a merge with a neighbor, or to the lower value if no merge is possible. The player learns to position the board so the collapse goes their way. Future updates will add entangled pairs, quantum tunneling, and more — introduced gradually, not dumped on the player at once.
The background is solid black. The cube, floating in space, is rendered with physically based materials — tiles look like small blocks sitting on the surface, with depth, shadows in the gaps between cells, and realistic lighting. The color palette runs warm: cool cream at the low end, through golden amber and burnt sienna, to deep dark red at the top. Lower-value tiles are pale and neutral; higher-value tiles are warmer, more saturated, and gain a subtle metallic sheen. Procedural wear textures — grain, scratches, surface variation — mean no two cells look identical.
Erwin collects nothing. No analytics, no telemetry, no crash reporting, no advertising identifiers, no third-party SDKs of any kind. There is no user account and no sign-in. The App Store privacy label is clean.
This extends beyond data. The game sends no push notifications — no "come back and play" reminders, no daily login rewards, no streaks. Game Center features are opt-in. The game never prompts the player to share, rate, or compare scores, and never artificially stops the player from playing in order to sell something. Completely ad-free: pay once, and the game leaves you alone.
Erwin incorporates many of Apple’s robust accessibility features: VoiceOver, Voice Control, Reduced Motion and others. Full VoiceOver gameplay is planned for a future update.
Erwin is proudly Apple-native: built entirely with Apple’s native frameworks, without any third-party dependencies or cross-platform tools.
Erwin is a solo project by Tamas Bartal, based in Hungary. The game grew out of years of experimenting with 3D with Apple’s frameworks — first SceneKit, then RealityKit. The the 2048-like merge mechanic gave the cube a reason to exist as a game, and the quantum layer adds depth and a unique twist.