Rubik's World Hands-On

The iconic Rubik's Cube should be instantly recognizable to anyone who lived through the '80s. The colorful puzzle block even made a bit of a comeback in recent years, and people are still speed-cubing in competitions to make their mark. In Rubik's World, you don't have to worry about solving the cube if you don't want to, especially if you've never been able to solve a Rubik's Cube without cheating and peeling off the stickers. Rubik's World transports you inside the popular cube so that you can see the supposed inner workings of the clever toy. What you'll find is a collection of challenging puzzle games that center around the individual cubes, also known as "cubies."

There are eight different modes that you can immediately dive into. Some include a collection of puzzles that are broken down into levels that you can access in any order. The ability to access all of the puzzles from the get-go is great, except that you'll most likely find yourself stuck early on, so it's not in your best interest to skip ahead. If you're a whiz at the original Rubik's Cube, those skills won't necessarily help you here (except of course if you play the mode designated to solving the colored cube). However, considering that the majority of the other modes require a lot more planning, strategy, and an extreme amount of patience, these qualities should already be part of your nature if you're remotely good at solving Rubik's Cube.

In Deconstruct mode, up to four players can take turns tossing little white cubies for points. You are given a limited number of cubes to knock off the green and blue cubes off the platform for a targeted amount of points. If you by chance knock over the other colors, your score will be lowered, which means that you can easily find yourself in the negatives. This might sound easy, but the cubes are stacked in some fairly intricate environments that make it extremely difficult to knock off the cubes. You'll also find situations in which all of the wrong colors are stacked on the ones you want to remove. You don't have much control over your throw in terms of power, so all you can do is change your trajectory.

Guide mode has colored cubes popping out of one area, and the goal is to put down flags to direct the cubes into their respective holes. The miniature blocks will roll in a straight line until they hit a roadblock or a flag, at which point they change direction. As the levels get progressively more difficult, you get access to flags that can make cubes stop, speed up, or slow down. This mode becomes tricky very quickly because your cubes can't collide with one another, either. It'll be common to see multiple cubes rolling in different directions, and you'll have to make sure that your cubes don't fall off of an elaborate structure. This is a challenging but intriguing mode to play in, given that the difficulty shoots up quickly.

There is a Fit mode in which you need to position your cubes or other shapes around the screen to match up with an empty slot so that when you trigger the wall to move toward you, your blocks won't get pushed off. Sometimes you'll need to do a balancing act because the hole is on the top of the screen and there is nothing to lean your blocks on. When you pick up the individual pieces, you can't rotate them unless you have them bounce off of the wall and fall over. This can be a bit of a pain because you're trying to build a balance tower and you need one piece to be on its side.

Switch mode is another mind-bending puzzle mode in which you are given a single cube and the goal is to swap with the cubes that are onscreen so that you eventually clear them all. Every time you swap and have at least five cubes of the same color touching, they'll start to jiggle and disappear. The goal is to initiate these combos so that ultimately you have cleared the entire screen. The catch is that you are limited in the number of times you can swap cubes, so it requires some careful planning to finish the level.

If your brain isn't already fried from all of these puzzles by now, View mode lets you stack your own cube, but it provides certain requirements that you need to meet. For example, in the first puzzle you're making a 2-by-2 cube and you need to have one face that has two greens and two reds stacked. You also need to have four instances in which only two reds are stacked and then five green and red cubes next to each other.

The other modes are a bit abstract, and they include a Compose mode in which you can assign music notes to a specific cube. You can also select preset music as well, but the purpose wasn't exactly clear as to why you'd want to do this. In Create mode, each assignment asks that you build something to teach the cubies; for example, it'll ask you to create something you admire out of colored cubes. Once you save your composition or creation, the assignment is complete and you move on.

Rubik's World wouldn't be complete without having the actual Rubik's Cube in it, so there is a Rubik's mode that includes a tutorial on how to solve the cube, as well as different-sized cubes for you to tackle. To change up the game a bit, there is also a mode in which you begin with a solved cube that you have to unsolve to match the cube face that is shown, and meanwhile you're on a timer.

Rubik's World has a lot to offer so far for people who are dying for some tough puzzle-solving. The presentation is very simple and plain, and the controls are easy to grasp so that anyone can play. Solving the Rubik's Cube is still easier by hand than on a television screen, but the other modes could potentially keep you busy for a long time. Rubik's World is set to be released later this year.