A fun and clever puzzle game that challenges your spatial awareness.
+ In this puzzle game you have to place signs down on the 3D environment to change the direction and movement of colored cubes. You place the signs where you think are correct and then after clicking submit the cubes will begin spawning and hopefully they all reach their proper destination (if not you can just try again). These signs include four directional arrows which completely change the orientation of the cube's path, a conveyor belt tile which just shifts the cube one space and then it continues on its previous path, a stop sign that will halt the cube's movement for a few seconds, and a directional tile that will send the first cube that touches it right and then the next one that touches it will go left, etc. If a cube hits a wall when it is rolling it will change direction and begin moving to the right, but if there is another wall directly on its right it will (logically) go backwards in the direction opposite its original path. Finally, warps are introduced as part of some maps later on, which simply teleport the cube to the matching warp color location. Some limitations that make the game just a little more challenging are the fact that you are working in a small, floating environment so very often a cube will fall off the side (in which case you will have to try again). Also, no cube can crash into another cube after they spawn even if they are the same color (so you must prevent collisions by typically having a unique path for each colored cube). These are the rules that the game lays out for you and then lets you run wild. I thought the difficulty perhaps could have been smoothed out since the easy and medium groups of levels are quick to breeze through and don't provide too big of a challenge, but once you reach the hard puzzles it soon becomes a real struggle. I'm not considering that a big complaint but the jump from medium to hard seemed to be arbitrarily big. I'm glad that there were some real challenging hard levels, though, because after beating the easy and mediums levels it made me realize that perhaps I shouldn't be as confident as I was before. Still, the game really forces you to use your brain and figure out how to spatially direct a number of colored cubes to their proper exit. It never punishes you for a wrong answer and lets you pick up right where you left off after you make a mistake. And if things get really too unbearably hard you just are dying to know the solution, there is a hint system that will help you. Overall it was a clever game and I'm glad I played it.
Story/Presentation: (N/A)
Graphics: 4/5
+ Everything is colorful and pristine. Nothing is distracting or too flashy, but there is enough visual appeal for a puzzle game like this. They even make rotating the camera a simple task, though the camera will prevent you from moving at a certain low point and a certain high point (which rarely is a factor). Sometimes in the 3D environment it is harder to see what's going on inside structures, so an option to make things transparent might have helped. But essentially it's not completely necessary and the game can still function without it.
Value: 4/5
+ To be honest at first I thought this game was going to be disappointing. I beat the easy and medium levels in just a few hours and didn't felt all that challenged. But as soon as I reached some of the real difficult hard levels I knew I had jumped to a conclusion too soon. I took the time to try and find a solution on my own, which meant that I struggled with a few hard levels for over an hour. I managed to beat all the hard levels, though, and now have 11 hours put into the game. There is also a special bonus section within the game, which you are allowed to access simply by joining the official RUSH group on Steam. The developers keep releasing a few new levels in this area so it gives you something extra to play around with. Overall for $5 this game has a lot to offer. I kind of wish they had fewer easy/medium levels and had included more levels that were in between medium and hard. But still, being a puzzle fan I really enjoyed this and would definitely recommend it.