Game Review: Join the bizarre world of Cube Koala!

Cube Koala by Happymagenta is game that knows how to mess with your composure. Its minimalistic setup and gameplay simplicity were good indicators of what to expect in terms of difficulty and frustration but even so, I couldn’t bring myself to quit playing it despite the anger increasing. And there is a good reason for that, since simple games like this one focus a lot on the challenging aspect and the steadily increasing difficulty that players experience soon after they successfully clear the first few levels.

Plot

The story of Cube koala is funny and sort of gory at the same time. Our hero the Koala is placed, or better, trapped in a kafkaesue tesseract containing deadly traps. He was put there by Sharksuit, the evil mastermind behind these trials, whose sole reason for doing this is that he hates Koalas.

Gameplay

Your job is to rotate the world (up to 75 levels) that the Koala exists in, in order to reach the exit. There are two large buttons located in your screen’s bottom side, each pointing in a different direction that rotates the world accordingly. The first couple of levels are introductory and easy to clear, but soon you will experience the real horror of this game as traps in the form of spikes (or in other forms) start making an appearance and one wrong move leads our dear Koala to perish.

Every time you lose, you start over. If you lose a few times in a row you are given an “anger management” solution which is to move to the next level without completing the one you’re currently playing, by paying a small amount of cash. Trust me, losing again and again in only a few seconds each time definitely raises your anger levels. However, I never used this option because I knew things would only get harder on the next round and also it was a matter of pride to clear the current level before proceeding.

I appreciate that Cube Koala has a zoom function because otherwise you would only know where the exit door is by rotating and losing on purpose. Zooming allows the player to see the whole room thus organizing their moves accordingly. But be warned that you can’t play while you’re on zoom so make sure you take a good look before returning to normal view.

You get a perfect score if you manage to collect all three stars of every round, but as you can guess that’s not so easy to achieve. Despite the difficulty though, every level has a way out and even though it might take many tries you’re destined to escape one way or the other so don’t lose your patience and take note of your false moves each time. Moving slowly is not always the best choice in Cube Koala as every time you rotate the Koala floats and you can use that in your advantage to avoid spikes but you have to rotate fast.

In-App Purchases

The nightmare of every freemium game player doesn’t play a significant role in this game! Rejoice! The only IAP of Cube Koala is an ad-removal purchase for $0.99. Ads are not common though so it doesn’t really make much of a difference. Also, as mentioned earlier, if you want to move to another level there's the option to pay $0.99 for that, or by collecting a fair amount of stars.

Graphics & Sounds

The graphics are pixelated and not very detailed but that’s on purpose and it won’t bother you, since they were aiming for old-school feelings such as GameBoy games. The colors are moody and they only “happy” color is that of the Koala. The rest are shades of black and grey to match the rather spooky atmosphere of the game. The sounds are also unique and add to the whole feeling of “desperation”.

Conclusion

Cube Koala belongs to the puzzlers that know how to mess with your brain and yet have that secret element that keeps you from stop playing it. It is so cleverly designed that you won’t find it hard to love it and wll definitely start to get better and better by learning its mechanics. I recommend that you give it a try and see for yourselves why this game is among the best games that were recently released. Help save the Cube Koala!

Download Cube Koala for iOS here.

Cube Coala Screenshots