qube

Q.U.B.E. is a first person puzzle solving game where the player finds themselves set in an environment built from white cubes. The objective is to explore the environment and complete challenging puzzles by manipulating colored cubes using a special pair of gloves. The player can pull out red cubes, launch themselves using blue cubes, pull out multiple sets of yellow cubes and push around green cubes.

Q.U.B.E. began as a student project and inspiration was drawn from an animation called “The Room” by students at Vancouver Film School. Our thinking was, “this would be great to play as a game!”. By throwing cubes into the UDK and playing around, we soon came up with a puzzle-based game, deviating from the action found in The Room animation.

Q.U.B.E. has a very simplistic graphic style, using primary colors on a white background. This makes it very accessible and easy to play. There is no text, voices or hint system in the game so the player literally starts by having to find things out for themselves. There is a good variety of puzzles within the game, ranging from logical physics based puzzles to 3D Jigsaws and plat-forming. This coupled with interesting changes in the environment and music setting mood and emotion, we feel Q.U.B.E. is very unique. Deliberately not choosing to go with an in-depth storyline, we want to fully bring the player into the experience and let their imagination take over.

The game is currently a work-in-progress, but it has been in development for over a year now (8 months in which we were at University). There should be (fingers crossed) only a few more months left in development now.

Figuring out how to learn the UDK. This was the biggest hurdle to get over, but once we picked up the basics we were on our way and things became a lot easier. Also, because we are working with cubes, it is very quick to build and prototype levels and so we can focus more time on the actual design of the puzzles and how they function.

The game is full of surprises and the player can expect something new every time they turn a corner. The game has been created without the need of a programmer (we are all designers) and this is a point we want to push – anyone can make a game without touching a line of code.

The game was originally codenamed: Project Qube. We thought this was too generic for the full title, although found it hard to come up with a name that fitted the game well. So we decided to go for an acronym and call the game “Q.U.B.E.” standing for: Quick Understanding of Block Extrusion. Quite a mouthful, but it does sum up the game and the way the player picks things up straight away.

High Wycombe, England

University of Newport, Wales

I think I played my first game at the age of 4 (Noddy on the PC if I remember correctly!). I love first person shooters including Halo and Call of Duty, as well as Starcraft 2 and Guitar Hero. My favourite time for gaming is system link parties – nothing beats chilling with your mates, a few beers and pizza whilst pwning each other!

I’ve known the team for 3 years now. We met in our first year of University

Halo Reach, Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock

Halo 3

Prometheus

When my mate tripped over another mates Xbox 360 controller cable, sending the console hurdling onto the stone floor and laser burning his Guitar Hero disc! The entire room went silent. The funny thing is though, the guy who tripped over it had to pay my other friend £40 for a new game – So I took the scratched disc of his hands and managed to get it repaired for £2. Win win!

Sega Master System

Xbox 360

Playing electric guitar, playing in my band, creating websites, editing videos, playing video games, basketball, football, skateboarding and watching movies.