Q.U.B.E.: Quick Understanding of Block Extrusion Details

Overview

Q.U.B.E., short for Quick Understanding of Block Extrusion, is a puzzle game played from a first-person perspective. The player controls a silent and unknown protagonist in a sterile environment reminiscent of Portal's testing chambers. The goal is merely to proceed through the different rooms. The character can be moved around, look freely in any direction, and jump. The main puzzle elements consist of manipulating differently coloured cubes in the environment, combining speed, reflexes, physics, timing and spacial thinking. At the start of the game a large gate is shown with nine squares. Each square denotes a series of rooms that introduce a new puzzle element. Each set of levels builds upon the previous ones by taking all earlier mechanics and introducing a new one, which makes the puzzles progressively harder. A red cube in a wall for instance can be pulled out in three steps to form a bridge or a temporary platform. One button is used to pull it out, another to make it withdraw. Each colour offers a new possibility. Blue ones launch the character into the air, yellow ones form blocks with different height, green ones are used as platforms to reach heights and can be reset to an original position, etc. Many puzzles have buttons where shapes such as balls or blocks need to be guided through a path where the player manipulates cubes along the way to make it reach a destination. The sequence can be repeated until it is completed. Other rooms have purple arrows that turn the environment 90 degrees. There is no health, HUD or opposition.