Space Qube is a fun new addition for fans of voxel games with a cool twist – you can take the characters you build out of virtual reality and into real life by ordering 3D prints of them. The retro-style space shooter for iOS gained traction after winning Best In Play at this year’s GDC, as well as being a Sense of Wonder Night finalist at Tokyo Game Show. Space Qube was created by Qubic Games, a Taiwanese studio founded by Louis Lu and Owen Wu.
The two first met in Taipei before moving to North America to seek job opportunities. Lu went to California to work at Sony Santa Monica, where he was the lead character artist for the God of War series, and Wu served as a senior graphics engineer at AMD in Ontario.
When the iPad was released, friends were excited about the new possibilities it offered independent game developers. They began collaborating on the Space Qube prototype before returning to Taiwan last year.
Space Qube has two main parts. The shooter, controlled by tilting the iPad or using its touchscreen, lets you battle monsters and collect “qubes,” or voxel blocks, across 13 levels. You can use your qubes in Space Qube’s Ship Builder, its in-game 3D editor that makes it easy to build characters and ships layer by layer. The amount of qubes you use affects their attributes (for example, more qubes increase a ship’s armor but make it less agile). Creations can be shared via social media or on the Space Qube website and you can order 3D prints via the app’s in-game store.
After years of working on the increasingly gruesome scenes of God of War, Lu tells me he now wants to focus on making non-violent games (he’s also a member of LND Games, the creator of the Color Band children’s music app).
“We used all our creativity to make the games as bloody as possible,” he says. “It didn’t feel right to me.” Qubic Games’ mission is to create games that will appeal to a wide range of ages. You can create very complex characters in Space Qube’s Ship Builder, but it was designed to be easy enough for a child to use (Wu’s five-year-old son tested the prototype and is described by his father as the “co-producer” of Qubic Games.”).
Lu and Wu say about 30% to 40% of Space Qube players have built their own characters or ships, and they plan to continue adding more features to the editor. In the pipeline is a marketplace that will allow people to make their creations available for other players to order as 3D prints, as well as embed chips into the figures so they can be used as parts. interactive games on iPad screens. Qubic Games also plans to create educational apps that will use voxel editors to teach children about spatial awareness.
Space Qube is currently available for $2.99 on the App Store and will eventually be ported to Android, Windows 8, Windows Phone 8, and console platforms.
