Destiny of the Cubes Demo

Real-time strategy games are pretty hard to get right, because a lot of elements need to work together flawlessly in order for the players to enjoy it over long periods of time. On the other hand, simple ideas can have the desired impact as well, in the sense that you may not always need complexity and a wide selection of units in order to have fun.

Destiny of the Cubes is not your average real-time strategy game, although you wouldn’t know it if someone described the gameplay mechanics alone. Hence, although it looks silly and rather childish, everything about the gameplay is borrowed from the classics of the genre, such as Age of Empires or Warcraft. However, everything is dumbed down and simplified to make it more accessible.

In essence, you have to build a base and sustain it with a constant stream of resources, including wood, stone and food, all of which are vital to your establishment. Although you start with a few worker units and a king that needs protection, more units and buildings become available as you manage to expand and collect more resources. Naturally, you need warriors to protect your land and guard your workers.

There are a variety of different game modes to choose from, not to mention the fact that you are free to customize each match according to your preferences and set up the teams as you wish. Once the game starts, the interface and the lack of a proper HUD makes it difficult to keep an eye on the units, but it is quite clear that the developers tried their best with the resources they had available.

In the graphics department, the situation is not exactly surprising, in the sense that everything looks about as basic as one would expect from an indie production. On the other hand, the animations and the units look much better than the buildings do, which are sometimes too simple to resemble the actual facility they are inspired from. You can learn to get used to this, however.

Although Destiny of the Cubes has been released and it can be purchased, the game is far from complete. Hence, unless you are satisfied with the small variety of units and the cumbersome user interface, you might want to wait for some fixes before making a decision.