Review: Cubix
Score:
83%
I know that Cubix has elements from a bundle of other games. I know that I can spot the callback to the minor arcade classic Plotting in this title. I know that there are elements of Dr Mario in here. And I know that the structure of having a collection of levels acting as a mission is lifted from the how to extend your game guidebook. But there’s no need to forgive developers Herocraft for this approach, because all those ingredients have been mixed together and work really well! Here's my illustrated review.
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Let’s start with how the gameplay actually works. You’re in isometric land with the gameplay grid tilted to a thirty degree viewing angle. You have one coloured block ready to throw onto the grid (the next three to be given to you are on display, in a manner reminiscent of Tetris’s 'coming next' line up), these can be thrown in a straight line from the two edges of the square game grid that are closest to you. Once it hits the collection of jumbled cubes in the middle, any groups of three or more matched blocks will disappear.
There are two more lovely touches to the game. The first is momentum - if your thrown block hits a block with nothing behind it, they both start sliding. And the second adds so much more options to your strategy: the game grid is fully three dimensional. Your colour groups can be on different levels, gravity will pull down blocks into created gaps (allowing for chain reactions), and as you progress you get angled blocks that can push up cubes on the front line when they crash into the static blocks and slide under them.
Most importantly, Herocraft haven’t gone for just the continuous game option with constant random blocks being attached to the game grid (although that is there as “Infinity” at the very bottom of the menu).
The main game presented is an approach based on reaching a goal on each level (typically vanishing a set number of blocks) and when you hit that, it’s on to the next challenge. This gets rid of the annoying stages where you have just a handful of blocks, and also keeps the game at a more complicated level with lots of colourful options to choose from.
Options makes strategy. Strategy makes games. Games make money.
You also have the arcade variant (same levels, but now against a timer), and the puzzle version, with much more complicated layouts that will need careful planning to solve. Staying with the polished clichés, as you progress through the levels you get more special blocks – the angled block I’ve already mentioned, but there are colour changing blocks, crumbling stones, blocks that explode an entire line… again nothing that’s new or innovative, just mixed together really well.
Controls on the touch-screen are incredibly simple – you slide your finger around the outside edge of the grid, and when you release your finger, the block slides into the screen. To help with the aiming, you get a shadow of the colour that you are aiming at on screen so it becomes less of a guess and keeps the puzzle roots of the game.
I really like Cubix. It’s a simple game at heart but there is a complexity to playing the game that I really enjoy,. At the same time, it’s been “on-the-move-ified” so it’s suitable for playing in short bursts as you get on with life. This title could so easily have been coded well but got the feel of the title wrong – but credit to Herocraft, they’ve got a great little arcade puzzler here, and it’s going to be on my smartphone for a very long time.
-- Ewan Spence, Jan 2011.
Reviewed by Ewan Spence at