Cubic Enigma

Nice-looking puzzle game with apparently simple mechanics, but the rules are not explained well enough. You start the game alone in a small location with a locked door and a puzzle in front of you. Nothing tells you who you are or what weird world you've found yourself in. There's just this voice that wants you to solve all the riddles. Everything takes place outside, either an ancient ruin or a mystery garden. Although the game's world is mostly barren and dead, it nonetheless looks great, with large sculptures in the distance and smaller ones you can see while progressing through puzzles. The walls are slightly overgrown with plants, and most statues are missing pieces, but the entire area appears to be well-maintained. Now to the puzzles. The mechanic utilizes a board with several stone cubes. As you move cubes around the board, you also move larger cubes on the ground nearby. The goal is to figure out where to position the cubes on the board such that they match the "rules" observed from the surroundings. There are multiple zones that can be tackled in any order. The goal in each is to reach the last puzzle and solve it to light up the big number. Depending on your skills, you might beat the game in a few hours. A zone has around 7 or 8 puzzles that all use the same cubes, although they include different mechanics that are marked with different colors. The most obvious hint are the tiles on the floor. When you look closely, you will notice that some of the tiles are dark. The first puzzle of each zone usually has dark squares to point you in the right direction. However, those little clues are quickly gone and you’re forced to work hard to find a solution. Some are obvious, such as a laser that must pass through cubes, or another where cubes move platforms that allow you to cross the water. Unfortunately, some don’t teach you how mechanics work. I’m currently stuck in three zones because I solved the first puzzle and still don’t know what I’m supposed to be looking at. Nothing seems out of the ordinary, and the cubes apparently follow no logic. Although water is the only thing that can “kill” you, there are some barriers missing from the game’s world. For example, in one zone, you can move across rocks to reach the final challenge. Then there's the platforms zone, where you can bypass the right solution by just placing two platforms that allow you to hop to the other side.

Having played through the game a few times, I can recommend this game to other puzzle lovers. It's not without its problems so let's start with those. Cubic can be confusing and I understand what the developers are trying to do, they want you to work out how the puzzles are figured out and then work them out. It's the how part that's frustrating and after a bit of back and forth from the developer (I love developers who are active with the community) the puzzles were a breeze, almost too easy. So the hardest part is figuring out how to solve the puzzles and it felt like that side of it could of done with a bit of work. Definitely playtested more from people not involved in the development. There are other issues like performance and easily breaking out he map and bypassing puzzles. I don't see bypassing puzzles as an issue though, it's typical with SVG games and it's up to you if you want to cheat yourself. I do enjoy finding these areas to break out though so that's why I probably giving it some slack. Having said that, it is great. Most zones are fun to work out. Just one super confusing zone. The map is small and condensed but looks great. A nice variety of puzzles and a good learning curve. For anybody about to play, here are some things that might make you less confused. Don't try and solve the platform zone puzzles. They can't be solved in the way you expect, just make platforms to jump from one side to the other. Zone 5 I had the most issues with but if you pay attention to what rule is applied first, you should have more fun with it (a patch has added the ability to see the starting and completed state after you have completed the puzzles which makes it much easier to work it out). When you come across the black block, it's all there to work it out. The best example in the game of how to introduce a new block. A fun, short, and unique puzzle game. I hope SVG does a sequel because this could be something really special. I love how they improved the Door series with each new release with Insignia being one of my favourite open-world puzzle games and I would love to see similar improvements to Cubic. Also, play Door3 Insignia after you played this :)

Отличная головоломка для тех у кого ещё не совсем заплесневели мозги и не притупилось внимание. Приятная графика, хорошая музыка. Те, кто не дружит с логикой, могут проходить мимо. Всем умникам и умницам - рекомендую. A great puzzle game for those who haven't completely got their brains and attention dulled yet. Nice graphics, good music. I recommend it to all smart guys. Ein großartiges Puzzlespiel für diejenigen, die ihr Gehirn und ihre Aufmerksamkeit noch nicht vollständig abgestumpft haben. Schöne Grafik, gute Musik. Ich empfehle es allen schlauen Jungs.

С выхода Door прошло уже 3 игры и с каждым разом всё хуже и хуже. (3 дверь пока скипнул но не суть) По ощущениям единственное что растёт это графика. (но не оптимизация лол) Уровень повествования такой же как во второй двери (зато кривую озвучку сделали). ты просто появился непонятно где, ты непонятно кто. ни какой-то вступительной кат-сцены, ни какого-то экрана с текстом. появился - иди решай кубы ок, появился. какой-то голос что-то говорит. то есть уже какой-то намек на сюжет. правила головоломок тебе никто не расскажет (да тебе и про управление никто не расскажет лол) - думай сам. на второй же головоломке я сидел минут 5 пока не заметил что кубы на стене двигают кубы в мире. (♥♥♥♥♥♥ неудобно тыкать кубы на стене не видя мир. походу не смогли сделать анимацию перемещения кубов лол) иду дальше, вижу красные кубы. понятно что они инвертируются. иду дальше - тоже просто. дальше ситуация: два красных, два обычных. обычный, как я понял, должен оказаться на черном квадрате. ВОТ ТОЛЬКО КУБА ДВА А КВАДРАТ ОДИН. (так ещё и цвета кубов в мире не сходятся с цветами в мире) тут и случился выход из игры, а затем и рефанд. (после запроса на рефанд ещё побегал для обзора) ок, пошел на другие кубы. желтые. вроде все понятно - на один вверх. потом опять появляются обычные кубы (и цвета опять не совпадают с миром) и всё сломалось. Игра пытается строить из себя открытый мир, но появляешься на локации ты всё ещё в одном фиксированном месте. Прошел от начала пол-мира и решил передохнуть? После загрузки - иди туда снова (ладно хоть разраб смог сделать сейв головоломок. прогресс чо ахахах). упал в воду? телепорт на поверхность. а зачем вообще можно упасть в воду? где невидимые стены? (КОТОРЫЕ, БЛИН, БЫЛИ ВО ВТОРОЙ ДВЕРИ и ты просто не мог туда упасть) И если всё это в первой двери было простительно, ибо там был просто набор головоломок который так себя и подаёт. То тут страница в стиме говорит тебе: [i]эй, я похож на Talos Principle и на Islands of Insights (в которой тоже есть головоломки с кубами и сделаны они лучше) и у меня крутые головоломки![/i] А на деле это опять симулятор додумываний. Игра пытается быть круче, чем на самом деле, и её это не красит. Как-то даже грустно. Ведь первая дверь подарила мне море удовольствия и мне было настолько интересно, что даже гайд про неё сделал, но всё что было после неё - какая-то недоделанная шляпа и попытки прыгнуть выше потолка(

Generally just bad A lot of places need invisible (and some - even visible) walls And the puzzle logic needs either more examples or an option to properly re-trigger solved puzzles (instead of resettin pieces but retaining "solved" state) Breaking point for me was a puzzle where using any previous rules two pieces neede to occupy the same space and I honestly didn't care enough to replay four level-sets again or pester people in discussions about it

puzzles are very hard. undoable. -100/10, would never recommend. save 8 euros for smth else

Хотелось бы, чтобы это было похоже на Витнесс.... но нет. Во-первых в игре отсутствует оптимизация. Играть в 40-50 фпс на низких настройках на хорошем железе не приятно. Во-вторых "в этой игре есть правила, но я тебе их не скажу"... крайне глупо, когда ты должен перебором пытаться решать головоломки с "правилами" не зная их. В итоге первая головоломка, которую я прошел, оказалась 6ая, тупо потому, что ее можно пропрыгать почти нне решая, но в конце тебе никто не подскажет, правильно ты ее сделал или нет. Отсутствуем логика происходящего. Игра не дорогая, но, к сожалению, не работает от слова совсем... или я слишком тупой для нее.

TL;DR: A short fun puzzle game with a few flaws, but definitely worth a look. Cubic Enigma is a puzzle game based around grids of coloured blocks. It's set in a slightly mysterious world with a loose narrative that provides the backdrop to the game. Similar to games like The Witness, it works on introducing puzzle mechanics incrementally, steadily building up complexity into the later puzzles. Pros: - [b]Simple concept[/b]: May take a bit of head scratching at first. But once you get your head around the base mechanics the game is pretty straight forward to figure out. - [b]Beautiful setting[/b]: Using the Unreal Engine the game looks very nice. Cons: Although I do recommend giving this game a try, there are a few downsides (to be fair, some of which are bugs which are likely to be fixed soon). - [b]Inconsistent voice over[/b]: Almost certainly a bug that will be fixed, but during my play through the voice over suddenly switched from English to Russian and didn't come back (though the subtitles staying in English). - [b]Short once you've figured it out[/b]: With a few exceptions, once you've figured out each block mechanic you can pretty much zip through the rest of the game. Would have been nice to have had a few more wrinkles, or some expansion on other mechanics that turned out to be one-shot rules. The last con is really my biggest downside. Once I was into the game and figuring through its puzzles it was a shame it was over so soon. I did enjoy my time with Cubic Enigma and just wish there was more. Hopefully there will be a longer follow up as the concept is generally a fun one. Edit: Updated to review to clarify a couple of my original issues (invert Y option and separate music volume) have now been fixed. Good work on the quick update devs!

I so wanted to like this - it had the vibe of The Talos Principle and was pure logic, but while some puzzles were fun (like jumping across chasms after positioning surfaces), other puzzles were obtuse and although I did finally figure out the patterns, it felt like work rather than fun and I just stopped playing. I didn't get those joyous Aha! moments, it felt more like completing my taxes correctly. I think the developer has a good concept but just needs to make it a bit more fun - provide further training - more simple puzzles before going complex - although from some of the comments in the discussions, the dev seems to think we should just be smarter. Maybe so, but we're paying for this.

Le falta algo de pulido aquí y allá, pero no debería ser un problema. El progreso consiste en entender reglas en puzles simples y luego aplicarlas a puzles cada vez más complejos pero de una forma muy abierta que deja múltiples interpretaciones por lo que hay que hacer descarte. Es bastante corto (eso es bueno).