I often wonder how indie developers come up with the concepts behind their games. Thomas Was Alone is a game about platforming shapes with a story behind it; Little Inferno is a game about purchasing and then burning items; The Floor is Jelly is a game where the floor is... well, jelly, and there are countless other imaginative concepts out there. Cube & Star: An Arbitrary Love is another game that fits into that list of odd and unique indie titles.
An apt way to describe Cube & Star is by calling it the freak love-child of De Blob, Sim City and Noby Noby Boy. You play as a cube that has the ability to color the world and bring life to its grey planet. The Cube is controlled using the arrow keys, while Z, X, C and F use your acquired powers. You gain colors by knocking into plants that cover the land. These plants will either drop a star or a block that is the same color as one of its layers. After gaining the color, you spread that color out to the ground. After a while, your color will drain, leaving you once again in a neutral, colorless state. Like the ground, when you pass near plants they will also change from grey to their own color. This process of coloring plants and gaining their color blocks when you run out of your own is key to painting the game world.
The stars that are dropped by plants are used as currency in a manner of speaking; they can be used to 'motivate' triangles that travel the planet. These triangles, after becoming motivated, turn into a specific color and then change the color of the ground and trees around them. Unlike your own Cube, these triangles never run out of color. Gradually, life begins to return to the planet as a result of your actions. Wildlife even begins to appear and these creatures also leave a trail of color as they move around.
The world of Cube & Star is full of various collectibles. The most important of these collectibles are the 'knowledge totems'. These totems give the player various powers. Three of these powers - Joy, Passion and Logic - give rise to the 'Tiny Things'. The Tiny Things are a small triangular race that have their own human-like society that raises buildings. Depending on the color of the ground, and the order in which you use these three powers, the structures and color of the Tiny Things will vary. Be warned, however; when using the power multiple times in the exact same place the game will become buggy and will slow down considerably. The final power is fire, and as the name implies it allows you to scorch the land, turning it black.
This is an excerpt from the full story which was originally featured on gamrReview, read the full version here - Cube and Star: An Arbitrary Love (PC) - Review
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