This review was originally published on 27/01/2016 on our sister site
Cubot is a simple puzzle game. By simple I mean its mechanics are simple and easy to understand. You even get a few levels of thinking that you’re pretty damn good at it. But it doesn’t take long before you need to actually start thinking. And it’s when multiple simple concepts come together, than things start to get very tricky indeed. Get your thinking hats on puzzle fans, and get ready to put the brain to work and make it sweat.
The idea of the game is straightforward. You have coloured blocks that need to go in the same coloured squares on the white board. There is far too much white on the screen by the way, with the entire background being bright white aswell, but I guess it makes the colours stand out that little bit more. Anyway, each block will move with a push of the analogue stick, and all blocks on the board will move at the same time. Which sounds easy, until you get one block that moves two spaces instead of one, another that moves the opposite direction, and introduce lifts and colour changers. My brain really started to melt. Check out the video below of the first few levels of the game. You can see how much I start to struggle by the end, and I need to cheat a bit and look at the solutions of some to continue.
It only got worse once that video ends aswell. I gave up far more times than I’d care to admit, but a good puzzle game is meant to frustrate and challenge, so you get that feeling of achievement when you finally get it right, or the ‘of course that’s how I was meant to do it!’ moment when you see the solution. And with that in mind the developer has definitely succeeded in that regard.
The first couple of hundred achievement points will come quickly, and with 10 stages of 8 levels each, if you’re a pro puzzler then you might well find your way to the end of the game within a few hours. But at just £1.59 it's hard to say there isn’t enough game here for the money. Cubot’s minimalistic approach is its strength, and the fairly relaxing music helps keep you calm in the frustrating levels. If you’re looking for a cheap puzzle game to play, that will most certainly challenge. You’ve found it right here.
