So you say you're bored with "traditional" point-and-click adventures, and you want something different. Something a little... outside the box? Are you sure? If you can leave common sense behind for a while, then you just may be ready for Back to the Cubeture Era 1, a game from Edible Castle that takes "It can't possibly get any weirder than this" as a challenge.
Based on a series of flash cartoons, Back to the Cubeture is a shortish adventure that features our hero, Cuboy, the ultimate friend. How ultimate is he? He's so ultimate that when dastardly bad-guy type Esquire Padrino (gasp!) builds a time-warping device to destroy the world, he springs to the rescue! Only to wind up trapped back in the wild, wild west, where men are itchy and horses are square. Will Cuboy catch Padrino in time? Will he uncover the secrets of the desert? And more importantly, who's going to clean out all these spittoons?!
For the most part, Back to the Cubeture plays like a standard point-and-click, with you pointing at things on the screen, and clicking to make Cuboy move or interact with people and objects. You have access to Cuboy's inventory via the box in the upper-right corner of the screen, where you can review objectives, check out the items you've collected, or play dress up. Which, you know, we're glad to see, since dress up is sorely overlooked in most point-and-click games. If you get into a fight, you'll showdown wild west style... that is, waiting for the traffic light to flash DRAW so you can tap the [space] bar to shoot your foe before he shoots you. Draw too quickly, and you're a filthy cheater. But draw too late, and you'll have to try again, once you peel yourself off the bar.
Play all the Back to the Cubeture games:
While Back to the Cubeture sticks to the basics as far as mechanics go for the most part, the design is definitely one in a million. Not only are the characters and the environments bright and colourful, but the audio as a whole in the game is top notch. The voice acting is well done, particularly Padrino, and the soundtrack is catchy, and as gleefully cheesy as the rest of the game. Come to us, horse friend!
Analysis: If you've never watched the Cuboy cartoons, as I hadn't, then the Back to the Cubeture experience is more than a little disorienting at first. Not because it relies on you having a firsthand knowledge of a lengthy backstory, but because it's so ridiculous. And it's when the game is embracing that ridiculousness that it's at its best. While not every line is laugh-out-loud funny, occasionally relying on somewhat crass humour for cheap laughs, Cuboy hits more than he misses.
Of course, there are times when the game seems to overestimate its own cleverness. While the wild west stand-off idea is fun at first, having to repeat a reflex-based shoot-out over and over gets stale with the only real variation being speed. And speaking of speed, I'd like to have a word in memory of my poor, destroyed [space] bar with whomever decided button-mashing was a great idea to win a race. If that sounds like a threat, well, it's not. After all, I can hardly be expected to beat someone up right now, preoccupied as I am with my ruined index fingers from hammering the keys. While some people may not have problems with these things, for the rest of us, it's a prime example of a joke taken too far, and I hope the developers reconsider reusing these gimmicks for future installments.
But the whole game is just so joyously oddball that it's easy to get swept up in it. Its off-beat sense of humour may not appeal to everyone. But chances are that if anyone has ever accused you of being "weird" (and why are you all looking at me like that?), you'll find something to like about Back to the Cubeture.
Ummm, bizarre.
I think my game's broken. I beat the Legendary Horseman TWICE and when I go to the saloon, no bandits!
Nevermind.
Isometric graphics makes me squeal like a little girl. And I'm a guy.
Maybe I just suck, but I can't push the space bar fast enough to beat the horseman :(
Reece: After you beat the legendary horseman, just go south.
gmpilot: That happened to me the first time; I just did it faster and switched hands occasionally to keep them from getting tired. (And now I realize the innuendo potential of that sentence. xD)
It was a fun game; I'm up to the final minigame, but keep messing up accidentally and losing =/
It was fun until the (what I assume is final) train mini game.
But every time you lose, you have to walk all the way through town. And since there doesn't appear to be any rhyme or reason to when to hit the button, I gave up.
The creator of the game has actually said that the Legendary Horseman minigame is harder the better your computer is because the Horseman is faster, thus forcing you to have to be faster. I didnt find the minigame too hard, however.
Darn. I got the drunk guy to tell me the directions but I made the mistake of not writing it down. Can anyone tell me?
@DeclanRM
Look in your inventory, the instructions should be there.
For the final minigame:
Haybale: Time your jump when it's close to the horse.
Bomb: After it's thrown while in mid-air.
I also had problems but persevered, it doesn't need to be so fiddly but it is the last challenge in a short game.
I hope this isn't too nitpicky, but it should be pointed out that one of the minigames in "Sam & Max Hit the Road" (one of the more famous and groundbreaking point-and-click adventures of the early '90s) is a dress up game. But to be fair, that game was pretty ridiculous as well :)
Played this right before jay is games and had to use autokey to beat the horseman (no matter how fast I was w/ the space bar he always won). But when doing the train finale, no matter how many times i won the grab a stick mini game I was shoved back off the train, had to catch back up and do it again. After too many of those I stopped. Great game for humor and I'd definitely try more from this developer but would love to see a change with the minigame styles.
Stand on top of the piano to visit the lady of the night. Hilarious wardrobe bonus.
Can't seem to...
get drunky to give directions
Any hints?
Shazbot,
Perhaps you should:
Give the drunk what a drunk needs, nay craves!
In more detail.
Ask for a beer from the barkeep, you have to space bar it just right to get it then you'll have a new talk option with drunky.
Oh and for those who need a walkthrough:
There is a link in the author's comments under the game on the newgrounds page that takes you to a walkthrough
hey, thanks so much for the positive review of our game, really enjoyed reading it.
Shazbot, what do drunks like best?
Am I the only one who feels guilty when the cat starts to cry? It always seems to me that whenever I make the character in a game cry (whether they're they bad guy or not) I feel bad afterward!
tee-hee. This is so adorable. No offense, but JIG has been lacking games I can really get into lately. I don't want to have to really think or get my adrenaline rushing, I just want a calm relaxing casual game once in a while. With funny English accents. Ya know?
I love Cuboy. <3
I can't get the
drunk to give me directions either.
I followed your advice and got him a beer.... he still won't help me!
I really should make an account. :-)
For those who need the drunk's information I provide:
Go to the desert: S E S W N W S
The address for the walkthrough does not exist. If anyone has time, please post a walkthrough. Thanks.
I'm stuck on getting
the Nude Boy, Do Lose Your head and Nature Boy medals
They're the only ones I need
Paul, you need to remove the spacebars.
http://www.newgrounds.com/lit/walkthrough_cubeture.html
Quirk factor is about an 8.5 on a 1-10... Love it. An excellent casual game, I just wish it had been longer; and that after you finish it, if you hit 'continue', that there was some extra content to uncover once you had liberated the town.
I managed to not die once from gunslingers, but I used a little trick, I
used one finger from one hand to partially depress the space bar, and gently rested my other finger on the bar, thus reducing the amount of time it takes to depress said bar.
Also, for the horse race
button mashing doesn't seem to be the trick, I had to find the right rhythm to win.
loved this game, it is incredibly entertaining! I like the isometric style and nice 'dress up'. :)
Would someone please explain how to get Cuboy to catch the beer? No matter when or where I click, he won't move in position to catch it and it ends up on the floor.
yeah i did do that but it didn't show up then. it does now though. Anyway,i played it and it was easy until the final showdown. i could not do it so i gave up. still a good game except the end.
@JIGuest: You have to
click on the counter on front of Cuboy just as it gets there
How do you kill the two bandits at the same time? I keep tring, and die after one and can't shoot twice. Is there something that needs to be disabled or enabled? Please help.
thomas, you need to...
press spacebar once, then wait for the sign to pop up a second time to get the other guy. You kill them one at a time.
I have the same problem as thomas hetrick :/
That was heaps of fun to play.
i gave up after trying to beat the horseman 10 times. seriously, by the time the finish line pops onto the screen, his fingers are moving so fst they are blurring.
but up until that, it was a good game.
I loved this game with my heart and also my emotions. Also, like a big Cheating McCheater...
I used two keyboards to beat the horse-race bit. Yes, two. One for each hand. Ha-ha.
I couldn't get the beer for the drunk so i just found the music anyway!
Here's a spoiler for those of us with faster computers:
Right click the game, choose settings, and uncheck the box for "enable hardware acceleration"
Even with this, the last part is tough! My poor keyboard.
Heehee, funny ending. Not quite what I expected, though...
...Then again, what was I supposed to expect?
I think they fixed the race, the race was actually REALLY easy to beat for me, the horseman was so slow and I went so fast that I wasn't actually on the screen anymore.
Awesome, all the quirky humor, charm, and polish of the Cuboy episodes rolled into a point and click adventure! The animation, voice acting, sound, and writing are all stellar and translate well to an interactive format. It was very enjoyable to play through, barring a little grievance with the repetitive standoff minigame.
I've liked the Cuboy series since the first two episodes in 2007, and I'm glad to see it coming back in full force this year. Excellent work, Edible Castle!
Aww man!!!!! I can't win at all in the horse race! This kinda sucks. I love the game overall but the horse race is so damn hard!!!!!
The horse rase is bugged so that some people can't win no matter what. Here's a fix/solution:
You have to drastically slow down flash. Here's some suggested ways to do that:
Step 1: If you have a multi-core cpu, go into task manager and right click on Firefox > Set Affinity... and then turn off all but one of the CPUs. However, even that is not enough.
Step 2: Next go to Google video and find some long videos (say 20+ length). Open and play a video in a new window one by one. Check the animation of the Cubeture game. If the animation has not slowed down, then open more videos and start playing them. Do this until the animation slows down a lot, but not so much that it locks up.
Now you can finally beat the horse race.
I really didn't have the problems a lot of you guys seem to be having, maybe it's easier with a laptop keyboard? I also found that looking at the spacebar instead of the screen made it way easier for some reason.
As for the last challenge, just time your reactions with Boss' prompts on the video phone. If you got past the horse race, you can do that bit as well.
Yeah, I agree with Georgia. This was going to be pretty good, until I realized there was no way for me to beat the Horseman. Even with consistent button mashing AND a significant lead, the horseman always speeds up and passes me right as we're approaching the finish line. It seems like the game automatically slowed my pace no matter how fast or far I'd previously advanced. Not fun.
Finished the last part today - not as bad as I originally found it (to be honest, I was just tired of hitting spacebar the whole game at that time). Now I want to check out the other Cuboy-related stuff. That was some quality content right there :)
to get the nude boy award, give the drunk 5 more beers, put on the suit and walk a space
need ultimate pest nature boy and do lose your head
to get ultimate pest, go to your inventory and click on the "boss" icon a lot of times until he gets mad at you.
I don't get the whole desert thing!! I always die of heat stroke before I finish following the drunk's instructions!! HELP PLEASE!
The directions in the desert do work. Perhaps you are confusing what NSEW are (north ir really top right).
I had no problem winning the horse race on my computer. On my first try I had a nice lead and took it easy but he raced ahead at the end. So then I realized he speeds up at the end exponentially, so you just have to build a solid lead early.
I AM SO CONFUSED! How the heck do i know what dirctions to go!?!?!?!?!? i know it is SOuth,East,south,west,north,west,and then south but i can do it! nothing happens~
Ok, so i followed the directions to get to the indian tribe. I have the indian outfit but now what? I went back to town and I dont know what to do.
I can't get Cuboy to get on the horse!Someone help.
Oh the greatness of cubism! It was quite entertaining...and the quips that were integrated into the game had me laughing. Great job - I hope another comes out soon.
I beat the horseman and now i can`t get on the horse
i cant beat the horse race. ive played it over 10 times, he always beats me near the end no matter how fast I go. I am very disappointed, a great game is only a great game if you can play it all
anybody know how to get the "do lose your head","nature boy" and "ultimate spitter" badges?{you know,like on newgrounds..}
sorry,nevermind I got it.:P
MEDALS:
Ultimate Bully:
At the Indian camp,bully the bear instead of siding with it.
Ultimate Pest:
Open the box of tricks.Now click on Boss a lot of times until you get the medal.
Ultimate Savior:
Now this time side with the bear instead of bullying it.
Ultimate Spitter:
Hey,do you remember that first costume you got by beating the first bandit?Wear it,go in the bar and spit in the yellow box.Click several times if you don't wear the costume.
Nature Boy:
wait until the meter{the one that determines when cuboy "melts"} is low. Now you can talk to any cactus!The cactus should give you a costume.be quick though.NOTE: perhaps the meter has to be low because cuboy would get a mirage because of the heat?
Playboy:
Return the piano guy's lost notes you found in the desert.click on his piano,not the guy himself.
Do lose your head:
Click on cuboy until his head explodes.Click the box of tricks if you want his head back ;)
Nude Boy:
give 5 drinks to the "local drunk" after he gives you the directions.then wear your new "costume",and walk even just one tile.NOTE: "costume" means nothing but your pink underwear.seriously.
Ultimate Winner:
Obviously,finish the game!
i was lolzing the whole time!
I like this game. I'm having problems defeating the two bandits though:(
i cant get cuboy
head to explode plz help
NOTE: If you summon the Legendary Horseman and ask for a spare horse:
You find that his, Dave, is the black one. So Cuboy asks for the other one, the white one...
...but it's made of paper and is only there for decoration.
Then it blows away in the wind.
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