CUBD
brain-bending iOS puzzler
Indie developer Tom Evans put Away3D and Adobe AIR to good use recently with his fast-paced 3D puzzle game for iOS. Described by fans as “a cross between a Rubik’s cube and Tetris”, CUBD rocks a starkly minimal retro style to keep it all about the gameplay.
Players have to rotate the cube and spin sections to create groups of matching colours. Away3D provides the 3D engine and lays the ground for the innovative yet intuitive UI - CUBD is a great example of how a good 3D engine can facilitate new gameplay styles as well as cutting-edge graphics.
Tom made his decision early on to use Adobe AIR for publishing CUBD on iOS, where the touchscreen lets players feel like they’re actually spinning a cube, not just poking at a mouse. He told us:
You can do some amazing, complex things with Away3D’s lighting and materials, but they’re also great for more subtle touches. I used a combination of outlines, matte materials and lighting to make CUBD feel solid and tactile yet abstract, minimal and stylised – Away3D let me do all that with a couple of lines of code. The resulting App runs smoothly even at hi-res on an iPhone 4, and this was really important to me as an indie dev – the more platforms and devices I can support the more copies I can sell!
You can view a video tutorial of the game via the vimeo link below, and of course install the game for iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch from iTunes. CUBD has already received some notable praise, most recently from FWA where the game collected a Mobile app of the day award. We highly recommend you check it out!
