How exactly does it communicate these changes, if I might ask?

I did something similar using these: https://eu.aqara.com/products/aqara-cube-t1-pro (or rather, an earlier iteration). Just Zigbee, nothing too complex, and then you hook it into something which knows how to interpret the events it sends (or events + current state if you want it to be a little more contextually smart). I generally tried to centralise the smarts, dumb devices and a smart interpreter always worked out more robust than clever devices. It's amazing how many combinations of actions you can indicate just by shaking/tapping/turning/flipping - more than enough to do the things you commonly do with one actuator (a light or set of lights for example).

One that comes to mind is: flip over to turn on/off, flip over and back again to randomize (like a snow globe).

Check out the zigbee2mqtt page for the cube

https://www.zigbee2mqtt.io/devices/MFKZQ01LM.html

kolektiv's parallel comment explains it perfectly.

And if a guest comes round and messes it, the lights dim, blood runs down the walls, nails come out of your head, and the furniture starts moving.

NO NO NO NO NO! Not the wed wun. Don't EVER push the wed wun!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q_IE_0-Xlis