Carefully Slide And Match Your Way To The Top Of The Charts In Cubits

Cubits! ($0.99) by Rocket Mobile is a minimalistic color-matching puzzle game that will keep you entertained for hours. If you enjoyed other sliding puzzle games like SideSwype and Threes!, then you’re going to get a kick out of Cubits!

Puzzle games are definitely my favorite game genre, and it’s even better when they’re of the straightforward variety. Lately, it seems that sliding puzzles are all the rage since Threes!, except now we’ve moved on from numbers to matching colors, like SideSwype. Fortunately, Cubits does things a bit differently, and it’s quite addictive.

The visuals in Cubits are beautiful. If you appreciate simple and clean graphics, then you will love the flat, blocky, and vibrant colors that are offered in Cubits. There are no extra frills in the design that will detract you away from the gameplay, which is rather nice. The animations when you clear out a group of blocks and have more blocks falling in are smooth, and I experienced no lag on my iPhone 5s. The ambient soundtrack in the background is also quite soothing, and the sound effects will keep you coming back.

There are three game modes in Cubits: Moves, Time, and Zen. In Moves, you will only have 24 moves to make in order to get the highest score possible. Time gives you 90 seconds to make as many matches as you can and rack up the points. Zen is the calming endless mode that you can play to practice and hone your skills, or just relax with.

Regardless of the mode you choose, the gameplay itself remains the same in each. The game board will consist of an 8×7 grid of assorted colored squares called “cubits,” and your job is to match them horizontally or vertically in groups of three or more to clear them off the grid and make room for more blocks. To do this, you need to slide rows or columns with your finger so that you can connect lines of like-colored cubits to clear them out. The rows and columns wrap around the grid, so if a block is on the end of a row that is being slid around, it will just end up on the other side. You get more points for matching on the outside as well.

While the minimum amount you need is three, if you get matches of four or five, you can create power-up blocks that can clear out columns or rows, or a group of adjacent squares (Cubit Blast). And if you can make six matches in a row, you can eliminate all cubits of a single color (Color Blast).

After each game, you’ll earn some “bits,” regardless if your score was good or bad. These bits are the game’s currency, and you can use it in the in-game shop to purchase power-up items or even more color themes (you have two to start with). The power-ups include adding more seconds to the clock, getting extra moves, as well as the Cubit Blast and Color Blast.

There is also full Game Center integration for leaderboards and achievements, in case you needed more replay value.

I really love color-matching puzzle games, and Cubits! is definitely one of the more fun titles I’ve played as of late. It may look simple at first, but it’s actually quite challenging, since you need to plan out a strategy to max out your points. The more matches in a row and combos you make, the better your score, so it’s important to not move a row or column and not make a match with that move (it becomes a waste). I’ve been playing it quite a bit lately and I have found it hard to put down. It’s the perfect little puzzle game to keep you entertained in short bursts or extended gaming periods.

If you enjoy color-matching puzzle games, then I highly recommend checking out Cubits! You can get it on the App Store as a universal download for $0.99.