World^3

 

Ohgodohgodohgodohgod

I recall the hashtag appearing on my twitter feed. #CubeWorld. Started out as a trickle and soon became a thundering onslaught of palpable excitement and exclamation over this game. First thought, judging a book by it's title, was it was some sort of Minecraft clone/wannabe. I headed over to the game's site, Picroma, and my suspicions were almost confirmed. If Minecraft is, visually, the NES version of a game, then Cube World is easily the SNES version of that same game. Higher resolution cubes! Complex landscapes, flora, and fauna are much easier to render when built with smaller chunks. It's single player! And multiplayer! I dove deeper to determine if the juice was worth the squeeze. I determined that... well you'll just have to read on to find out.

On the surface, the game takes you aback. It's as if someone was dissatisfied with Minecraft as being "too blocky" and set out to stylize the same game world their own way. That someone is Wolfram von Funck, winner of the Awesomest Name of Anybody of the Year Award. He, along with his wife Sarah, are the architects of this brave new world. The von Funcks have appeared to flesh out a world like no other and I was sold on trying this out along with my cohort and our friends of the Tavern.

Murphy's Law

If only it were that easy. Right after Antilles registered and bought his copy, the game's site was sundered by a DDoS attack. It seemed that either A) we were witnessing the critical mass of an indie video game star being born and the site just couldn't handle it's new-found popularity, or B) some jerk wanted to troll the Internet and let slip the dogs of cyber war. Granted, I was probably part of the program, refreshing the site anywhere between every 15 seconds and every minute for hours straight. It was like a game in and of itself. Multiply that times thousands of other slavering gamers and you have the recipe for a low-grade DDoS. But Wolfram, also known as Wollay, posted a graph of his server traffic, confirming that there are scoundrels in this world with nothing better to do than digitally attack poor indie game developers.

Well THERE's your problem...

Hours turned into days and I have never been so obsessive about checking a website in my life. My F5 key rarely gets any attention and the poor thing was taking a beating to make up for lost time. Antilles, the hero of this story, was watching the registration and shop status religiously while I was at work behind corporate firewalls. He caught the registration when it was up for all of 30 seconds, one day into this madness, and was able to nab me an account. Alas, the shop was still down, and was for the rest of that day. The finish line was in front of me, and yet there I was. I haven't stepped one digital foot into this world and yet here I am in the lobby, like an addict, waiting for my dealer to open up shop. On Day 2, I check the site with my phone and lo and behold! It's open for business! But, between my Paypal account being empty and being at work, Antilles once again saved the day by facilitating the transaction. Glorious victory. I felt like I had already won the game I was about to play. I had, at the very least, scored a win against the bastards of the Internet.

Time to see if this was worth the trouble.

A Harsh Mistress

I rolled with a Frogman Rogue, specializing in the Assassin tree. Stealth and a katana-like sword. Me-likey. But you know what I don't "likey"? Chickens. At least in Cube World. Poultry karma has come home to roost and it is acting with a furious vengeance. Every chicken I have ever kicked, thrown, or slaughtered in my video gaming career has come back to haunt me through the avatars of these uber-chickens.

But let me explain.

The first mob I ever stalked as an amphibious assassin was a chicken. Level 1.

"D'awww, it's a cute widdle cubey chicken... Imma eat youuuu," I probably said.

Thought it would be a piece of cake, but this uber-chicken hit like a freight train hauling cargo consisting of other freight trains. I hurled myself at the bird, swinging the sword left and right to build my combo, doing somersaults and cartwheels to both dodge the chicken's attacks and look badass. Meanwhile, the Avenging Chicken God of Doom kept up with my Frogman's gyrations and laid into me. One would have thought that the beak of the chicken had been replaced with a diamond-tipped jackhammer with the speed at which my health depleted. It would have been wise to familiarize myself with the controls, especially the "drink healing potion" key, but who are we kidding. I learn the hard way. The killed-by-a-bloody-level-1-chicken way.

Out of shame and curiosity, I decided to give it another try, but with a ranged water mage this time. Strategy also led me to pick the Dwarf race this time. The smallest race and the legit smallest hit-box. Never give your opponents any unnecessary advantages in Cube World, and that includes the size of their target. This game is all or nothing, and melee combat was exposing me to too much risk as a brand new player.

On my own, I was able to survive decently. Ranged combat plus the alt fire with a chance to stun can work wonders. I didn't yet have a pet, so I didn't have any assistance until I could meet up with Antilles and other Tavernites. Once I did, I was given a sheep as my first pet. Oh boy. Nothing strikes fear into the heart of an attacking critter quite like a sheep, or as I named him, Doomwool. At this point, the pet was useless, as I was getting power leveled and I couldn't ride it yet until I had enough skill points to bring my pet skills up to task. If a Boss mob so much as sneezed, Doomwool was obliterated.

Just ridin' muh sheep. NBD.

Some pets are ride-able and some aren't. By the time that I was able to mount my wooly steed, I had acquired a somewhat more amusing pet. A black cat. Between a sheep and a cat, my menagerie was far from impressive (Editors Note: I have since collected a Pig, a Mole, a "Spitter", a Collie, a Crab, and currently on the hunt for a "Jelly", a Penguin, a Hornet, and a Seagull). Old McDonald eat your heart out. At least a cat is a predator. I struggled with a name, calling him "Dude" temporarily until inspiration struck during the battle with an Ogre. I wasn't a very high level yet and Ogres still posed a challenge. Dude proved to be useful at attacking while I kited the Ogre and stunned it when I could spare a moment to fire off a volley. We ground it down and Dude put the final kibosh on the Ogre. I leveled and determined that the best name for Dude would be "Ogrefucker". I was tired and had been drinking. My creativity was lacking, but I digress. By leveling,  I saw that I could ride pets now. And I could ride a cat. A dwarf saddling a cat. Awesome. And poetic.


One of the most surprising aspects of Cube World is that the world feels very much alive. The sheer variety of wildlife, most of which is tamable, is staggering considering it's in Alpha. Landscape is dictated by "biomes" that are quite large and offer specific sets of critters. The biome types include Forest(spring/summer/fall/winter varieties), Desert, Ocean (islands and no air meter!), and "lava/hell". My favorite so far is the Ocean biome. One can buy a boat and set sail from island to island. The diversity of even the sea life surprised me. Piranhas, sharks, puffer fish, seahorses. I applaud Wollay in really committing to the world building, as the effort shows. Each biome has a town/city that serves as the quest hub right now. These quests can take you to ruins, castles, mountain ranges, canyons, lakes, rivers, and anything in between. I've stumbled onto travelers, both hostile and friendly. You'll see camp sites where NPC's are staked out with beds and campfires that you can use to either rest up or craft some food. On top of riding and boating, you can hang glide from peak to peak, or tree to tree.

Better pack a lunch...

The Bottom Line

The only thing that truly makes Cube World feel like it is in Alpha, other than some awe-inspiring bugs, is that you are very single-purposed. Go to a town. Sleep at the inn. Reset quests. Go kill the Boss at each quest location. Wash. Rinse. Repeat. It's somewhat cathartic, but it's something I can only do for so long. Reading the game's site, there are plans to add the ability to make buildings, presumably homes. More races, more stuff to do. All in good time.

And don't punch trees thinking you can "mine" the world like Minecraft. No-go, and frankly I'm OK with that. In Minecraft, I obsess over building and mining. I never go very far because I'm constantly devising better fortifications for my base, mine, crops, and livestock. In Cube World, I have no choice but to explore and it's very liberating.

And so, I'm a level 38 Dwarf Water Mage at the time of writing this. Myself and my trusty lvl 35 uber-pig (+3), Kevinbacon, are now dominating any chicken that so much as looks cross-eyed in our direction. But +3 chickens on the other hand... *shudder*.

It turns out my pig is six degrees of separation from everyone in Cube World.

For $20 USD you can be the proud owner of the Alpha version of this eponymous Cube World. Simple, yes. I still highly recommend it. This game is a gem and as long as Wollay can keep up, he could become the next indie success story.

Sláinte
-WF aka Cuculainn