Q.U.B.E. Review

By Devin Miller, Staff Writer/Senior Podcaster

In case you haven’t guessed it already, Q.U.B.E. is literally all about cubes.

The acronym also offers a familiar definition: Quick Understanding of Block Extrusion. The environment is constructed completely from cubes and the gameplay focuses on the manipulation of specified colored cubes. Throw in some puzzle and platforming elements in a first-person perspective and that’s Q.U.B.E.

Honestly, the idea, when written down, doesn’t sound amazing, and maybe it really isn’t. But it's how Toxic Games took this basic idea, added a good mixture of their own creativity and made it flourish in a unique way that makes Q.U.B.E. so much fun.

With the start of a new game, the character, equipped with some nifty-looking futuristic gloves, drops into a room full of white cubes. After you realize that the left glove has the power to pull blocks, and the right glove pushes blocks (sort of like using the force), the frustration can commence.

As the game progresses more puzzle elements are introduced, but only a few are reoccurring and worth mentioning. 

The most frequently used cubes are blue, yellow and red, and each has a specific function. The red cubes can only be pulled out, the blue ones are launch pads and the yellow ones come in sets of three which can be pulled out into steps fashion.

At first, the puzzles are centered on you getting from point A to B using the provided colored cubes. As you progress, the puzzles start to get more difficult. Advancing to the next stage soon becomes contingent on getting objects such as bouncy balls, electrical wires and rotating mechanical balls through the puzzle rather than just maneuvering yourself.

Bouncy balls need to be strategically rolled down the level by moving the ball different directions. You do this by pulling cubes out from the walls in order to hit the ball towards the other wall (like the initial impact of the ball in a pinball game). Electrical wires dangle from the ceiling and are used to recharge defective cubes. Using the physics-based elements was crucial here. 

Lastly, rotating mechanical balls (think Wheatley from Portal 2) had to be guided through a maze. The point is to eventually connect it to an electrical wire and break through a wall, similar to a wrecking ball. Of course, there are many other elements to explore (like rotating walls), but that’s best left to the interested player. 

Once it became necessary to use various objects as vital pieces to the puzzle, the difficulty shot up a couple notches. I didn’t spend a ridiculous amount of time on any puzzle, but some really had me thinking for a while. 

There were times I walked into a room and just didn’t know where to start. The feeling can be annoying, but I never felt inclined to give up. Instead, I saw it as a challenge that, with enough time, I could figure it out. Luckily, those moments of understanding come, you see how it all fits together, and, for an instant, you feel a great sense of achievement. Then, it’s off to the next test.

The most irritating puzzles had to be the ones with magnetic walls. 

For instance, one room had magnetic buttons on each wall and the objective was to move two big and two small boxes into four beams of white light directed at specific areas on the ground. Still following me? By turning the magnets on and off and using the red cubes, you move the boxes towards the wall. Needless to say, it was easy to mess everything up, forcing you to restart.

Possibly the most unexpected aspect of Q.U.B.E. is the lack of both a storyline and dialogue. Not having a story isn’t totally uncommon, but having literally zero dialogue (voice or text)--that’s a bit more rare. 

To be clear, there are no tutorials, in-game messages, etc. to show you what to do or how to progress. The environment does this all for you, as you simply pick up on the game mechanics yourself. The environment is similar to Valve's Portal: the walls, floors and ceilings move to create paths. Altogether it may seem odd at first, but it actually fits perfectly with the specific setting Toxic Games is trying to get across. 

Actually, it's almost unnoticeable, which says a lot about how engaging it truly is.

Immersion appeared to be the key of the development process. The soft, relaxing music sets the tone perfectly as you take your time trying the various combinations of pushing and pulling blocks to find just the right way. The UI, or lack thereof, only consists of a small oval reticule, and that’s all you need. Subtle details like these permeate the feeling of loneliness and make you wonder just exactly where you are, or more importantly, who you are.

Looking back, there is only one complaint I had with Q.U.B.E., which had nothing to do with the gameplay. This happened to be the auto-save feature. 

You'll notice the lack of a "Load" or "Continue" option...

In fact, it wasn’t just the auto-save; it was the lack of manual saves, because there were none. 

Indeed, without my saved file getting corrupted near the end of the game, I probably wouldn’t have noticed this flaw. Once Q.U.B.E. crashed, every time I chose to continue my game, I decided to load up an earlier save, except I couldn’t find any. 

Also, after completing the game, you are forced to start a new one, and all the sectors are locked again as if it’s your first time.

At its core, Q.U.B.E. is a puzzle game that leaves room for some creative solving. Some have said it is a mix between Portal, Pushmo and Q*bert, which is probably pretty accurate. The game isn’t really long either, but that depends on how quickly you pick up on the puzzle elements, which, as mentioned before, can get quite difficult.

9 out of 10