What do the counting cube, writing cube, and skull artifacts mean or represent?

Question

I know how the tome works, but what do the inscriptions on the counting cube, writing cube, and skull mean or represent? Are their inscriptions used as a code for something? Is it just an Easter egg, or is it apophenia? Again, I'm only interested in the meaning of these patterns, not their symbolic translation.

artifacts

Sure—on the bottom, but I want to know if it represents anything anyway. — Wolf, Apr 18 '12 at 20:19
I think I missed something. How do you look at the bottoms of the artifacts? — murgatroid99, Apr 18 '12 at 20:22

jamesdlin · Answer 1 · 2012-04-22T10:15:20.060

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I don't know if there's any meaning to the skull cube.

For the number and writing cubes, I cannot definitively prove that there is no additional meaning behind them, but there does not seem to be any evidence implying otherwise. Taken at face value, they're clearly tools for Fez denizens to stamp out numbers and letters. This is implied by:

Each face is unique.
Each known number glyph corresponds to one of the number cube's faces in some orientation.
Each known letter glyph corresponds to one of the writing cube's faces in some orientation.
The raised portions of each face correspond to where ink appears when you normally see Fez-world writing.

edited Apr 22 '12 at 10:15

answered Apr 22 '12 at 05:49

jamesdlin

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Hi jamesdiin, if you don't know or want to speculate about the answer, please do so in a comment, not an answer. – Apr 22 '12 at 08:04
@MarkTrapp: I don't think this deserves a downvote. I gave what I think is a correct answer for the number and writing cubes. The poster seems to think that the glyphs on them form a message; I'm saying that those cubes are just stamps listing the symbols. – jamesdlin Apr 22 '12 at 08:15
@MarkTrapp: I've edited my answer with some justification. Is that less speculative? – jamesdlin Apr 22 '12 at 08:27
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@MarkTrapp: Short of being one of the developers, it seems hard to give any answer that is guaranteed to be definitive. (For that matter, there can be a philosophical discussion on "truth" for a variety of things.) I still maintain that this is a valid answer to part of the question, and I provided evidence to back it up. Maybe it doesn't deserve to be upvoted, but I don't think it deserves a downvote. (And I know how SE works; you can check my SO rep.) – jamesdlin Apr 22 '12 at 10:02
Put another way: for this sort of question, if in truth there is no additional meaning, the question is impossible for a non-developer to answer. Even if someone does find some additional meaning, it is impossible to prove that there aren't additional undiscovered meanings. We answer questions with what available human knowledge we have. The question asked for a meaning, and I gave the obvious one. – jamesdlin Apr 23 '12 at 03:08
And how is this answer more speculative than, say: http://gaming.stackexchange.com/a/64706/2188 – jamesdlin May 03 '12 at 06:03
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At least in the PC version, when you recieve these artifacts the game tells you that they're used for writing. So this isn't very speculative at all. – starwed Sep 21 '13 at 21:28
Assuming this is the use of the writing cube, there's a pretty obvious error in the game assets - the geometry is mirrored from where it should be. It would be impossible to write out letters in the correct orientation by inking one face of the cube. – fluffy Sep 22 '13 at 05:32

score 2 · Answer 2 · edited Aug 01 '22 at 04:52

The writing cube and the counting cube [¡¡¡¡¡SPOILERS!!!!!] are used in the heart room, after collecting all 3 red cubes, if look at the writing cube and enter the code: LT RT RT LT RT LT LT LT and then look at the counting cube and enter the code: RT RT RT LT RT RT LT LT the red cube will disintegrate. Be careful, in the XBLA version this code may corrupt your savefile. It seems like nothing happens next, but I think there is still things to be discovered

score 1 · Answer 3 · edited Jul 09 '14 at 11:20

The Artifact for the Numbers, and Alphabet is to show what they use to write. When going inside the room where the skull Artifact was, Dots said "I can feel the Universe in here." after getting the skull Artifact Dots Said something like. "They Really were Here!". My Theory states that the Artifact Explained more about story and the Skull is just proof that the "Visitors" were really in that world.

score 1 · Answer 4 · answered Jul 05 '12 at 14:22

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so the writing cube and counting cubes are for writing kinda like pens for us, but they imprint. you can twist and turn the figures on the blocks to match their alphabet or numbers (translations shown in this article)1

answered Jul 05 '12 at 14:22

spottedarc

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score 0 · Answer 5 · edited Jul 31 '22 at 22:44

The counting cube has the zuish numbers on it. the line on the top means 1. Rotate 1 clockwise ⟳ once and it's 2. Rotate 1 clockwise ⟳ twice and it's 3. Rotate 1 clockwise ⟳ thrice and it's 4. A blank square is 0. numbers Now, for numbers that look different, like 5, think 1+4=5. put the images for 1 and 4 together to make 5. The numbers even have different images 5 could be 1+4=5 3+2=5 don't use the same number to make a number don't use 0 to make a number

The writing cube has the zuish numbers and 6 images rotating the images will let you see every zuish letter.letters

Tome/Book and skull The tome can be used with the skull and hexahedron's pattern in the boiling room to make a code I think? I found out that skull's eyes on page of the tome "E6" says 1 E 2 E 3 R. E-E-R. Tome & Skull artifacts

What do the counting cube, writing cube, and skull artifacts mean or represent?

5 Answers5