Q.U.B.E.(Quick Understanding of Block Extrusion) is an amazing indie puzzle game created by Toxic Games. The concept is very simple, yet very addicting. Players wake up dazed in a white cube filled environment and must find their way out. In order to do so you have to navigate through rooms by extracting colored block from the walls. Naturally, as you progress through rooms the puzzles get more complex.
Depending on the color of the block, the players interaction will be different. Blue blocks will launch you into the air, while red blocks extend out. Pink blocks allow you to rotate sections of the room. Yellow blocks come in a set of three columns that extend at various lengths depending on which you click first. You can’t directly interact with green blocks or balls; you have to use other blocks to move them. Last are white blocks, which you can only move by using magnetic switches that are on the walls.
For the first four sections players get a good, solid understanding of all the different block types and how they work. This is needed because for most of the fifth section you will be in darkness. In these dark levels there is some lighting but not much. The only way you can see the color blocks is when you turn on the light switch for each, and you can only have one on at a time. While you are down in the darkness things start falling a part. The walls are falling down and consequently disconnecting the power lines to the block you need to move; so you have to find ways to get the power lines to touch the block in-order to re-connect them.
Then there are many styles of puzzles, such as ones where all you need to do is extract blocks so you can get the other side of the room. Then there are the more difficulty ones where you need to get either a box or a ball into a goal in order to unlock the door to the next area. Sometimes you will even have to play artist and get the ball to be a certain color when it gets to the goal in order for it to work. So you have to figure out how to get the ball to go through a blue and a yellow to turn it green, and then have it fall on the goal as green. If after going through the yellow block for some reason it goes through a red block it will then turn orange and then it won’t unlock.
Out of all the different styles of puzzles, the ones that use the magnetic switches are the ones that felt the most difficult. This is because sometimes you have multiple white blocks that you need to get into several different positions simultaneously in order to unlock the door to the next area. On the other hand, I found to be the most reflecting prism puzzles more enjoyable. For these you have to rotate blocks so that the beams of light hit and light up a block at the end; the beam has to be the same color as the block.
The graphics to this game are simple, but great. Every thing is very clean and crisp. We so frequently see the future being portrade as a very bright clean sterile environment, and that’s exactly how you feel with these graphics. Sometimes as you go through hallways to get to the next puzzle, the room or halls will start moving and you think you will end up getting squished; but don’t worry you won’t. The way in which they have the blocks move at times made me think of optical illusions. They also reminded me of the movie Cube; made me think that maybe there was no escape. Don’t worry though there is a way out.
Q.U.B.E. is the best puzzle game I have played in a long time. I found it to be very enjoyable, and it really does require you to think some too. I won’t spoil it for you but there is a pretty epic ending to this game. I really do hope they make another.
