INTRO:
Portal has shown that a first-person perspective is workable for a game with 3D physics puzzle-solving. Ever since that seminal game, there have been a considerable number (though not incredibly plenty) of games that try to do the same (minus that series’ signature portal mechanism, of course).
Q.U.B.E. is one such game. It falls below the high bar that has been set by the Portal series in quite a number of ways, especially in its story-telling and presentation. However, gameplay-wise, it is rather engaging.
PREMISE:
In the original version of the game, there were large rooms, long corridors and elevator rides that were there to pad out the game. Experienced players would know that these sections are used for storytelling downtime, but there were little story to be had; what little is there is not much for implied storytelling either.
The “Director’s Cut” version of the game inserted a story of sorts into the game. Yet, within the first ten minutes of introduction alone, the story would seem tacked on.
According to another character that is the mission handler, the player character is an operative that has been teleported on board a space-borne object. The space-borne object is on a trajectory towards Earth, threatening a calamitous collision. The player character is informed that his mission is to somehow “decipher” the interior of the object and dismantle it from within before the collision happens.
This set-up can seem hard to swallow when the player sees the sterile environments made of white cubes with rounded corners and edges.
VOICE IN THE EAR & SILENT PROTAGONIST…:
At sporadic times throughout the game, the player character’s mission handler would talk to him via what is seemingly radio communications. The player character never makes a reply, because he cannot due to the busted communications suite on his suit. He does not make remarks either, likely due to the purported amnesia caused by the teleportation.
The intermittency of the one-way conversations is conveniently justified by the handler’s location on the International Space Station, which moves out of orbit and thus out of communications range.
Most of what the mission handler would talk about is details about the player character’s past and career. This is part of an attempt to jog his memory, in the hope that he would remember important things about his mission.
Sometime thereafter, another disembodied voice makes itself known. This one plays the role of the well-worn paranoid conspiracy theorist, informing the player character that all that has been told by the other person are lies. Yet, this character does little else other than tell the player character to somehow stop what he is doing, even though there is nothing else to do.
… THAT ARE INCONSEQUENTIAL TO THE GAMEPLAY:
Ultimately, both voices and whatever story-telling that is conveyed through them would not contribute to the gameplay in practical ways. This is not without some justification of course; for one, they cannot see anything that the player character sees.
Yet, this gives the overall impression that the story-telling had been bolted onto the game. Considering how divested the gameplay is from its premise, the premise could have been replaced by some other sci-fi story (like the tried-and-true trope of hidden research facilities). It would not have made much difference.
Perhaps this was intended by the game-maker as a tongue-in-cheek response to critics that, back in 2011, criticized the game for not having much of any narrative context. Yet, if this was intended to be the case, the game could have done better with a humorous story instead of a seemingly serious one.
ROOMS:
Not unlike Portal, the puzzles in Q.U.B.E. are packaged in isolated rooms. After entering the current room, the doorway to the previous one will be sealed off.
To progress to the next room, the player has to complete the puzzle in the current room; there is no narrative reason for doing this, by the way.
The rooms can vary in size. Generally, they have layouts with a vantage point or two, from which the player can see most of the rooms. For example, in rooms with puzzles where a sphere has to be directed down ramps, the “rooms” are practically long sloping corridors aligned with the ramps.
SUIT:
The player character appears to have a sci-fi suit with colour-lit devices on the fingertips of its gloves. The player character can somehow manipulate the levels with these; there is no narrative reason for this.
Not everything can be manipulated, however. The player character can only interact with coloured objects, and even so, not all of them.
A new player has to figure out which ones can be interacted with, generally by looking at them. If an object can be interacted with, the player characters’ arms will appear on-screen. The new player would have to experiment with things in order to know how they function, however.
The suit also happens to negate any damage from falls. Speaking of which, there are no life-threatening hazards to be encountered. Exposed, sparking cables do nothing, heavy rolling spheres pass through the player character and such other unbelievable occurrences would make it clear that Q.U.B.E. does not intend to have any element of danger in its gameplay.
PHYSICS…:
Much of the physics scripting of Unreal Engine 3 is used to manipulate the cuboid walls and floors. Then, the player uses the realigned walls and floors to get to the exit of the room, or to get something to somewhere else. Of course, in these cases, the player is mainly dealing with relatively static structures; the player waits for them to settle before advancing.
There are of course moving objects which are not part of the interior. Manipulating them involves quite a lot of timing, especially in activating other objects that would redirect them elsewhere.
Fortunately, the game has an acceptable mix of static and dynamic challenges that should not be too frustrating for players who are already experienced in puzzle-solving games.
… THAT ARE RARELY INCONVENIENT:
Yet, the dynamic physics of Unreal Engine 3 also mean that moving objects may not have significant predictability in their motions.
For example, there are puzzles that require the player to move cubes by pushing them around with other objects or rotating the stratus that they are on. Sometimes, the cubes might not shift in ways that the player expects, which can cause a puzzle solution to go awry.
As another example, there are the aforementioned puzzles that require the player to roll spheres down slopes. The spheres have considerable inertia. Yet, being spherical means that there is little to stop them from rolling in any direction that they are not obstructed. The inertia also means that a sphere can take a while to gain enough speed to get going.
Granted, the player could easily reset such puzzles. However, having to reset such puzzles a few times in a row because the physics for the cubes or spheres go on the fritz is not fun, rare as this might be.
BI-DIRECTIONAL PILLARS:
The first interactive object that the player comes across is the red-coloured bi-directional pillar. The player character’s gloves can have the pillar protrude or retract, usually for the purpose for forming obstacles for moving objects or platforms for the player character to stand on. In some puzzles, the pillar is used to push another object. However, there is a limit to how far such a pillar can be protruded.
RETRACTABLE STEPS:
Next, there are yellow retractable steps. These appear in laterally-aligned trios; activating the step on either end causes this step to protrude out the most, while the other two protrude out less. If the steps protrude out vertically, they are usually meant to be used like a staircase.
In some cases, the retractable steps are used to trap a sphere or cube while the player does something else to prepare the way for the sphere or cube to move on.
If the middle step is activated, the steps form an upturned T with less vertical height. This is not useful for most puzzle solutions.
JUMP BLOCKS:
These are coloured blue. Activating them has them retracting into their recesses, (almost) flush with the top surface of their cells. Anything that comes into contact with them causes them to pop out, propelling the former. They are generally used to move the player character, a sphere or a cube to where they are needed. Some of the most entertaining puzzles involving them have the player stringing together a chain of jumps with them.
RESET CUBES:
There are green cubes that the player has to manipulate in order to provide a platform on which to stand on. Incidentally, these cubes also appear together with huge green reset buttons that are usually set to walls. When the buttons are activated, the cubes return to their starting positions, and all other interactive objects are return to their default state too. More often than not, this has to be done when the green cubes end up somewhere where it cannot be reached by any other objects.
SPHERES & FIELDS:
Spheres usually come out of chutes that are labelled with green stripes. The chutes appear together with triangular icons that are used for “Start” or “Resume” icons, or orange icons that have “replay” labels on them. The icons are used to trigger the release of the spheres; any existing spheres also happen to disappear.
Generally, where spheres appear, the player has to direct them into what appear to be sci-fi force fields. Directing them is a matter of predicting where they would roll, but as mentioned earlier, their rolling is not always predictable.
FIELDS & COLOR NODES:
The fields must be of the same colour as the spheres. For some puzzles, the spheres are already of the same colour as the fields.
In other puzzles, the spheres start out white. They have to be coloured by having them pass through translucent (and apparently not-solid) blocks; these blocks are henceforth referred to as “colour nodes”.
The default paths of the spheres rarely if not never pass through the nodes though, so the player has to manipulate the spheres while they are rolling in order to change their directions. These are essentially timing-based solutions.
LAYER ROTATION:
There are strati of the interior that can be rotated. These are marked with large icons that have directional arrows on top of purple backgrounds. The icons can be activated to rotate the strati. However, the player might need to experiment with them for a while, because the icons are generally too ambiguous to immediately inform the player about the exact directions of the rotations.
LOW-LIGHT SCENARIOS & LIGHT SWITCHES:
The latter half of the game has a segment where the rooms are poorly lit. The colours of interactive objects are also disabled.
There are white lights, but they are not strong enough to illuminate the rooms entirely. Therefore, the player has to determine the presence of objects by looking for their silhouettes against the aforementioned white lights.
There are light switches that the player can interact with in order to reactivate the colours of interactive objects. However, these light switches are effectively toggles: only one switch can be active at any time.
Interestingly, in the original version of the game, many rooms would go dark after the introduction of poorly lit rooms; the player would then have to depend on the coloured but weak lights of objects to solve puzzles in the dark. In the “Director’s Cut”, this is not the case. This is likely due to feedback from players who find the lack of overall lighting to be unfair challenges.
CHARGE-BEAMS:
There are beams of energy coursing through the environments that the player character would move through. The beams are completely harmless to the player character; crossing them does nothing nasty. Directing the beams back unto themselves does not result in adverse outcomes either.
The beams are there to charge the aforementioned reset cubes, which have to moved into the path of the beams. In turn, the cubes emit beams of their own, albeit they are green. The green beams are meant to be directed into receptacles, which eventually release locks on doorways or otherwise remove obstacles to progress after they are fully charged.
MAGNETS:
The aforementioned green cubes can be moved through the use of walls with magnet icons on them. After the icons are activated, the cubes are attracted to the walls in directions that are perpendicular to the surfaces of the walls. This attraction also defies gravity, which is an observation that the player should be able to make early on.
THINGS SHORTING OUT, CABLES AND RAILS:
After the player has made some progress, the rooms start to fall apart. Some of the interactive objects that the player would encounter later are initially malfunctioning; they do not respond to any attempts at activation. Coloured cables also dangle from the ceiling and other places. (The cables do not harm the player character in any way.)
The malfunctioning interactive objects can be reactivated by having them contact with cables of the same colour. The cables may be initially wedged into something, in which case they have to be freed. In other cases, the player has to move objects into them to provide them with swinging momentum. Some of the cables are mounted on rails, for whatever reason; in this case, the player directs them into obstacles or other things to force the cables to swing.
Interestingly, the physics-scripting for the cables are very tight. They always swing in predictable arcs, which is something that free-ended cords in Unreal Engine 3 often do not do.
SELF-MOVING SPHERES:
Not long after, the player encounters what seem to be robotic spheres. They scoot about on their own, sometimes defying gravity. They do not appear sentient. In the gameplay, the player would be redirecting their movement to where the player wants them to be. This is because they can reactivate malfunctioning interactive objects of the same colour. If they come into contact with exposed cables, they change their colours to those of the cables.
If there is any problem with them, it is a minor one. The mobile spheres appear to have six faces; with regard to their movement, one of the faces is designated as the “forward” face. There is no clear visual indicator for this face though, which makes observation of them more difficult than it should.
BEAM-ALIGNING PUZZLES:
In the penultimate levels, the player comes across what are likely the energy sources for the rooms that the player has solved earlier. These are – perhaps unsurprisingly – white floating cubes. They emit beams of light in specific directions, though the beams can be redirected with the use of what appear to be lenses in transparent blocks. The player’s goal is to have the beams recoloured and eventually directed to other floating cubes. Veterans of puzzle-solving games would find this very familiar, especially the parts about rotating lenses.
However, some lenses cannot be rotated. Rather, they are manipulated into place through the use of other objects. This is nothing new in the physics-based sub-genre of puzzle-solving games of course, but the other examples had been rather rudimentary. The ones in Q.U.B.E. are more complicated because the player has to recall and apply many of the previously learned techniques.
ABSORBING & RELEASING COLOURS:
The last gameplay element to be introduced is the ability to apply colours to disabled interactive objects. Each of the disabled interactive objects appears as a lateral trio of tiles set into the walls and floors; they flash periodically to indicate their presence.
As for the colours that can be applied, they appear as floating cores that are suspended in receptacles. The player can “activate” them like any other interactive object. In their case, the colour is absorbed into the player character’s suit, which changes colour accordingly. The next interactive object that the player character interacts with will be reset and have its function changed according to the colour applied.
The aforementioned trio of tiles conveniently accommodates the yellow staircases and the purple rotation icons. As for the green, blue and red interactive objects, only the middle tile is converted. This is important to keep in mind when positioning the green cubes that are spawned from applying green to the tiles.
AGAINST THE CLOCK DLC:
The “Director’s Cut” version of the game also includes “time attack” levels. Typically, the player has to overcome obstacle courses. The challenge is to complete these courses within specific amounts of time, which determines the performance of the player.
(Speaking of performance, the leaderboard system is only available in the Steam version of the game. The DRM-free Humble version, which has modified Steam files by the way, does not have this.)
To do so, the player will need to remember and apply what he/she has learned in the main game mode, such as the maintenance of momentum when using the jump blocks. The player also has to plan and refine movement route to scrimp on time.
In addition, there are also “power-ups” (for lack of a better word) which can be used to cut down on time further. These power-ups appear as icons that flit into the player’s view. They are consumed by activating them like the player would interactive objects.
Ultimately though, these are levels that veterans of puzzle-platformers would find all too familiar. There is considerable memorization and practice involved, leading to rewards for brutish determination.
VISUAL DESIGNS:
With regard to the game’s visual designs, the elephant in the room is the game’s use of Unreal Engine 3 – and how it seemingly under-utilizes it.
As mentioned earlier, the levels that the player character is in are composed of cubes and cuboids with rounded edges and corners. They combine together into lattices that look just as sterile. They do have animations, though much of these are just sliding around. There are some notable animations, such as strati of cubes that undulate in place and rotating helices of cubes, but such scenes only appear much later.
The game does utilize the Unreal Engine 3’s physics scripting for the movement of solids. This is not entirely a good thing though, because the engine’s physics scripting can be a little wonky, as had been described by a few examples earlier.
USE OF COLOURS:
Most of the colours that appear in this game are far from each other on the visual light spectrum. However, they may still pose a problem to players with severe colour blindness.
Of course, such a player can still manipulate the coloured interactive objects for a while in order to recognize which type they are from their responses. However, the main issue is that the coloured objects can occur next to each other. More often than not, in such a case, the solution to the puzzle at hand involves having these objects contact each other. This can pose a complication to players who have a colour blindness that specifically involves the colours of the objects in these cases.
The previous passage applies to puzzles where the colours merely act as visual aids. There are the puzzles that specifically involve colours, such as the puzzles that require colouring of spheres and redirection of coloured beams. This is where colour blindness becomes a significant impairment.
STILL AN IMPROVEMENT OVER ORIGINAL VERSION:
For all the aforementioned complaints about how the visual designs may not be friendly to the colour-blind, they are still an improvement over the visual designs of the original version of the game. The original version has unpleasant visual designs, such as uncomfortably bright objects contrasting dark environments.
For example, there is a late-game puzzle about manipulating boxes with magnets. In the original, the boxes were very bright white cubes, whereas the level was dimly lit – perhaps too dimly for the player to see the grid of the floor that the boxes are on. In the Director’s Cut version, the general level of luminosity is increased, the boxes are no longer light sources and they have trims that are darker than the floor. This helps the player track the silhouette of the boxes as they move about.
SOUND DESIGNS:
Most of what the player would be hearing in this game is the sounds of the esoteric sci-fi machinery of the levels. Players who have had plenty of experience with the Portal games and Quantum Conundrum, among other 3D puzzle-platformers, would find them quite familiar.
The sounds that the player should keep an ear out for are the chimes and other noises that can be heard after the player has made significant progress.
The music is mostly subdued, likely because it has been composed for the purpose of providing ambience. Most of the tracks are appropriate for the situation, such as a lightly ominous track that plays when things are falling apart.
SUMMARY:
At first glance, Q.U.B.E. looks like it is a me-too title, trying to follow in the wake of Portal. Perhaps, such a comparison is unfair, considering that Q.U.B.E. does not have the development resources that Portal and its sequel had. Yet, there had been small indie developers of similar size at the time that could do more for the presentation and storytelling of their games.
That said, the gameplay of Q.U.B.E. is its greatest strength (and it is apparently an enduring one since it is going to have a sequel). Gameplay elements are introduced throughout the gameplay, while the puzzle designs reinforce the elements that have been encountered earlier.
If they could overlook gameplay-affecting issues like its use of colours, players who value gameplay more than any other aspect of a game would not find their time with Q.U.B.E. to be a waste.