Cubetorial is an educational twisty-puzzle app whose domain language centers on authored guides, puzzle state, and visual explanation. This glossary defines product and puzzle terms, not implementation details.
Guide: An authored learning path for a puzzle, such as a beginner method or a case catalogue. A guide is educational content, not solver output. Avoid: Tutorial, lesson, walkthrough
Guide Player: The primary product surface where a user reads a guide while the puzzle view animates and highlights the active explanation. It coordinates guide content and puzzle presentation without making either one own the other. Avoid: Sandbox, tutorial screen
Guide Section: A major division within a guide, such as a solving phase or a case family. Sections organize guide blocks and may establish an initial puzzle state. Avoid: Chapter, module
Guide Block: One coherent explanation unit within a guide, usually short text plus optional actions. A block may be explanatory only, visual only, or contain one or more moves. Avoid: Step, slide, move
Guide Action: An authored instruction executed while a guide block is active, such as applying a move, focusing the view, highlighting stickers, or showing annotation text. Actions use guide-owned symbolic references that the guide player resolves during playback. Avoid: Command, animation, script
State Setup: An optional starting state declared by a guide section or block. It may load from solved or continue from the previous state before applying setup moves. Avoid: Scramble, reset
Puzzle: A twisty-puzzle type with faces, pieces, slots, stickers, legal moves, and solved-state rules. The term is generic across 3x3, 4x4, Skewb, Pyraminx, shapemods, and future families. Avoid: Cube
Puzzle Family: A concrete supported kind of puzzle with its own topology and move set, such as Rubik3 or Skewb. The term names app-supported definitions, not broad mechanical categories. Avoid: Puzzle type, cube type, cube
Puzzle Reference: A symbolic name in guide content that points at a puzzle family, move, slot, piece, sticker, or face without depending on puzzle-model types. The guide player resolves puzzle references during playback. Avoid: Model reference, scene reference
Puzzle Model: The Unity-free puzzle layer that defines topology, state, legal moves, validation, queries, and serialization. It is the source of truth for puzzle state. Avoid: Core, simulation, Unity model
Puzzle State: A particular arrangement and orientation of pieces in slots for a puzzle. A state can be current, solved, authored, imported, or produced by applying moves. Avoid: Scramble
Move: A legal puzzle-native transformation identified by notation and defined as transfers between slots plus orientation changes. Avoid: Rotation, turn, animation
Piece: A physical puzzle part that can move between slots and carries one or more stickers. Avoid: Cubie, cubelet
Slot: A puzzle position that can be occupied by a piece. In the solved state a slot is occupied by its matching piece, but slot-based references target the position on the puzzle, not whichever physical piece currently occupies it. Avoid: Position, cell
Sticker: A visible facelet on a piece. Sticker selections may target current slots or physical pieces depending on guide intent. Avoid: Facelet, color square
Face: A named puzzle side or direction used by moves, stickers, and notation. Avoid: Side
Puzzle View: The Unity presentation of a puzzle model, including meshes, transforms, materials, move pivots, animation, highlighting, and input affordances. Avoid: Model view, visual model
Visual Annotation: A temporary visual explanation attached to the puzzle view, such as a highlight, arrow, marker, outline, ghost target, or text callout. Avoid: Decoration, gizmo
Sandbox: A secondary product surface for free puzzle exploration. Sandbox uses the same puzzle model and puzzle view APIs as guides, but it does not drive the architecture. Avoid: Main mode