Qubies Review

There are lots of pieces of other puzzle games smashed into Qubies, from Dr. Mario to Tetris to Bejeweled. However, this doesn’t make it some kind of greatest hits collection. It’s actually fairly derivative, even if its pieces do fit together pretty well.

Qubies' elements are so familiar that players could probably figure it out through sheer puzzle game instinct. Rectangles fall from the sky made up of three colorful squares. Players can rotate the rectangle so it will fall into the well at just the right angle. As more rectangles fall, players align them until three squares of the same color match up, causing them to disappear. Occasionally, the squares that were previously attached will fall and fill in the gaps, but sometimes they’ll just hang in mid-air as obstacles.

However, even with such modest gameplay, Qubies still has some annoying issues. The big bright squares look nice on-screen and their size makes them easier to adjust via touch. However, the controls still feel a little sluggish, and the huge blocks also make most games too short to be much fun. And although marrying Tetris to a match-3 game is a neat idea, the physically identical bricks rob the game of the strategy Tetris derived from its diverse pieces while the slow, limited options don’t compare to Bejeweled's overwhelming possible moves.

But the deeper you dig into Qubies the more personality you'll find. They’re behind a paywall, but the game does offer more interesting play modes like "Sprint" and "Rows," with more apparently coming in the future. And if you pay attention to the soundtrack you’ll start to notice a strange but pleasing hip-hop/electronica sound full of sampling and record scratches and mellow ambient tones.

Qubies is adequate, but it’s less than the sum of its famous parts with no real identity to call its own. It’s a totally square puzzle game, and not just because it has blocks.