"CUBE 332 - fascinating runer. In which, you need to get from point A to point B, using only the mouse and one button. Simple, is not it?"
Well, apart from some typos, yeah.. it looks really simple judging from the Steam store description, although it has some weird tags like "hard" and "frenetici" which can be translated as "frenzy" or "frantic" and it isn't so promising if you want an indie casual game.. which by the way are other tags this game has xD
Oh, Google suggests me to translate the tag as "berserk".. xD
Reading through the store page is a real pain - it seems that the lines have been put down on a foreign keyboard without even checking or re-reading them: "runer", "a beautiful graphics".. and you know what? If you're watching just the videos shown here, you're getting a distorted image of the game itself - it runs WAY faster than those videos!
But let's get into it.
The only options regard English/Russian text, full screen and the volume level so we can definitely pass everything and go straight to the game.
Clicking on "new game" will put you right into a side-scrolling 2D environment without a single line of text, no help, no tutorial, literally nothing.
The game, as the tag (but not the videos) say, it's really fast and frantic. You'll play as a green cube (no, "beautiful graphics" is definitely not the right phrase to describe this game) and you'll be automatically running to the right over platforms - there will be checkpoints marked by vertical green lines and pink walls that will crack open on a small part when you'll click on them
Everything looks random - sometimes you'll break down the walls in an unaccessible area, or the spikes are too close and you get killed - but anyways, you'll almost instantly respawn and go on forever. Yeah - there is only one level.
Let me explain - you'll have to keep an eye both on the keyboard and on the mouse. Even if the left mouse button will still jump just like the spacebar, it'll be even more impossible to play since the left mouse cursor (not the button, just the cursor) will instantly crack down and eliminate a chunk of a pink wall, but as I was saying if you don't pay a maniacal attention to your right hand you'll just pass the mouse cursor over the platforms you're supposed to jump on, or even the platform you're running unto.
It's a total mess because even if this weird mouse+keyboard system is in some way challenging and "new", the game starts fast and gets faster after a few seconds making everything impossible to play. The checkpoint system is nice too, but there's only one level and it sucks since it's the same environment over and over - just more spikes, more walls, more platforms to jump or to avoid.
The mouse system is a mess since as I said it's needed only a small movement to eliminate everything - walls, spikes, platforms and so on.. given on the other hand that the side-scrolling is extremely fast, you won't ever be able to properly watch keyboard, mouse and your green cube.
So, the game gets frustrating even in its first minutes and gives no options to customize it - no "easy" levels, no speed reduction, not even a single tutorial or whatever else. Just some stupid electronic music loop and a poor 2D design.
Keeping an eye on both the mouse cursor and the green cube with all its fast jumps and such is plain annoying and frustrating, trust me. And it takes only a small bump into any kind of wall or hole to be killed.
Too bad that for some reason the game doesn't allow users to make screenshots (you won't find a single screenshot in the whole section!), but you got the point.
And I know that I wrote something uncorrect - there are actually 12 levels. But they're all the same.. hence, when I passed the first one, I thought I was in the same stage. No changes at all, as I wrote: same platforms, same pink walls, same spikes.. just more platforms, more spikes and more walls plus more speed.
No, it's not challenging or funny at all.
The price is definitely low and I recognize it, but for a single level with such annoying mechanics the game can't be recommended in my view. It's not challenging, it's stupid - keeping eyes on both mouse and keyboard is just too hard if the game goes so fast, and on the other hand there are no options at all to adjust something and maybe fulfill some players' desires.
Had it been developed better, it could have been a nice Flash game to kill some time but as it is, with its speed and mechanics, it's just annoying and won't last more than half an hour probably to the average player, especially if he's searching for something relaxing or just, I'd say.. "playable".
