Q.U.B.E. Demo

When Valve’s Orange Box was released, the main focus was on the second episode in the Half-Life 2 series, as well as on the highly anticipated sequel to Team Fortress. However, no one really paid too much attention to Portal, seeing it as more of a tech demo, or a small trinket thrown into the mix by Valve in order to make the package appear heftier. As it turned out, Portal got to be one of the most highly-acclaimed puzzle games of all times, and it even got a sequel a few years later.

Q.U.B.E. (an acronym for Quick Understanding of Block Extrusion) attempts to take advantage of the ideas made popular by Valve and Portal, by integrating them into a rather different environment. However, the two games are very similar to each other, especially when it comes to graphic style and the general atmosphere, considering the fact that the action takes place in some sort of laboratory in Q.U.B.E. as well.

On the other hand, you do not have a gun to create portals with in this installment, but rather a pair of gloves that can manipulate the environment. Every room is made out of cubes, but the colored ones can be extruded and manipulated in your favor, by using either the right or the left-click mouse button. Using them, you must make your way through the levels and try to get to the end.

There are multiple types of cubes, all of which are of a different color, depending on their function. Hence, red cubes can be extruded three times, depending on how long you need them to be. You can also use blue cubes as trampolines, while the yellow ones come in pairs and they can only be extruded all at once. Obviously, you will need to combine them in every-which way over the course of the levels, otherwise you won’t be able to make it through.

As far as the technical aspect is concerned, the game uses Unreal Engine to render the environments, which was certainly a good decision. On the other hand, regardless of how well it may look, it doesn’t change the fact that it resembles Portal so much, which might make it difficult to appreciate it as an original idea. Other than that the music is nice and, while there aren’t many of them, the sound effects go along just fine with the general atmosphere.

In the end, Q.U.B.E. suffers from the same problem Portal did at the time: it is a bit too short to make the experience memorable. However, while Portal had the brilliant story to account for this and managed to remain in everyone’s minds ever since it was released, Q.U.B.E. does not have the luxury and it may just fall into obscurity quite soon.