Video Game / Cube World

Design by Mason1204.

Cube World is a voxel-based game created by Picroma. Said to be inspired by Minecraft, Monster Hunter, The Legend of Zelda, and more, the game is an action-RPG sandbox that takes place in an entirely procedurally generated world. The alpha version was released in 2013 and had remained so for six years until September 2019 where the game's official launch date was revealed to be September 30th and launching on Steam. Those who owned the game on Picroma gotten Steam keys to access the beta, which launched on September 23rd.

Not to be confused with the toy series Cube World by Radica Games of Mattel.

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Tropes:

• Action Pet: Any character can tame pets with the right food item. Pets will aid them in battle, and some can be mounted.
• Always Night: The deadlands and dark forest biomes will always have a night sky no matter the time of day.
• Anti-Frustration Feature:
  • When playing in a fresh multiplayer session, all players will start very far away from each other. You can use a town's eagle to fly to your friends and it won't cost you any gold.
  • Because you'll be getting gear from every zone you visit and all gear (except those marked with a "+") become weak when crossing into into a new region, your collection of gear can become quite huge. All gear are sorted by regions they were found in and can be scrolled by region for easy gear swapping whenever you need to adapt to a region.
  • In regions where possessions are happening, anyone can be possessed, which includes NPCs in towns. Should you slay an NPC that's linked to a function like changing your class or selling items, leaving the town and returning or letting time pass will spawn a new one so you aren't screwed. This also applies for occasions when a monster wanders into town and attacks the citizens.
  • When you die, a gravestone is placed on the map so you can easily find your way back to where you were before you died.
  • When you use a town's flight eagle, it'll dump you off once you reach your destination high in the air. You'll be given a hang glider temporarily to make a safe landing, even if you didn't find one in the current region.
• Arbitrary Equipment Restriction: All gear are locked to the region they are found in. If you found a ton of gear in one biome and move to another biome, all of the gear found from the first biome will have their stats reduced to a bare minimum. This is done to prevent players from steamrolling everything as they explore since enemy stats doesn't scale with yours, but there's nothing in the game that gives any explanation to why it happens. If you are lucky, you can find "plus gear" (gear with a "+" in the name) whose stats don't decrease when you go to different regions. However, plus gear have a finite range and its stats will decrease if you venture out too far.
• Artistic License – Physics: It's entirely possible to sail your boat up a river no matter how steep the incline is.
• BFS: The Greatsword weapon for Warriors is usually bigger than the character that wields it. Longswords for Rogues can also be longer than a person.
• Bunnies for Cuteness: Bunnies randomly spawn and can be tamed as pets or be killed for XP, though they will fight back if you attack them.
• Cap: Averted and played straight at the same time in alpha. You can level up indefinitely without any restriction. However, your Power level will never go above 100, though the stat only determines what kind of equipment you can wield. Player count is limited to 4 people, but it's subjected to change once the game goes out of the alpha state.
• Can't Catch Up: In alpha, pets don't receive XP from quests, and die often enough, that you are likely to out level your pet very quickly.
• Colour-Coded for Your Convenience: Blue health bars mean Friendly mobs, Green means Neutral (will attack if attacked), and Red means Hostile. For mob names, Whites are much weaker than you, Blues are around your level, and Oranges are slightly above your level. Intense Red means the mob is much stronger than you. Dungeons are also colored on the world map in a similar manner. Gear is also colored in the same way to denote their strength.
  • A mob name colored in purple signifies that it's a boss character and will drop platinum coins when defeated.
• Combo: There is a hit counter above your HP and MP, and increasing the counter will allow you to ignore some of your opponent's defense, allowing you to do more damage. The hit count resets when you miss an attack (for multi-hit attacks, only 1 hit has to be done to keep the combo going).
• The Computer Is a Cheating Bastard:
  • Currently, all enemies can see and home in on you even in pitch darkness and chase you without rest, no matter how fast you escape. Enemies with staves and boomerangs are particularly guilty, as their attacks follow their aim, which unless you break line of sight is always pointed at you. And these attacks last longer than the few invincibility frames you get from dodging.
  • Enemies don't take damage from traps or large falls, yet you do. Enemies also have unlimited stamina, so they can climb walls without tiring.
  • Boss enemies have access to the Fire Mage's fireball skill, which is powerful enough to either kill you quickly or stun you if you survive. Even if the boss enemy is something that shouldn't be able to cast a spell (bats, crabs, slimes, etc.), they'll still do it when low on health.
• Continuing is Painful: While you lose nothing for dying, getting killed will cause all enemies to regain their health to full. This also applies in multiplayer if everyone is killed at the same time.
• Convection, Schmonvection: Lava won't harm you as long as you don't fall in!
• Cut and Paste Environments: All the dungeons, while not having the same exact layouts from each other, generally have the same design: linear hallways, large rooms for swarms of enemies or a boss, side rooms with minor treasure that are blocked off by doors/force fields that require special items to pass through, water pits, deep its, pools of lava, and the dungeon's artifact. The alpha version averted the trope by having the layouts randomized and added more flair to the dungeons like spiked traps.
• Cute Kittens: Like bunnies, cats appear in the game and can be tamed as a pet or be slaughtered for XP. Cats also fight back when attacked.
• Death Is a Slap on the Wrist: Dying means you respawn at a respawn point relatively near to your location, without losing anything.
  • Also played straight with your pets, which is a very good thing since it would be incredibly annoying to lose pets forever due to death. A pet that dies will respawn a few seconds later.
• Dem Bones: Skeletons are common in deadland zones and usually show up as a part of the Unholy Pact clan. Skeletons are also a playable race and there are friendly skeletons in towns and in the field as random adventurers. There are also skeleton versions of horses.
• Demonic Possession: If you see an enemy or NPC that has "Possessed" in their name, that means there's a portal somewhere in the region spawning demons that will possess people. Possessed characters are stronger than their normal counterparts. The possession can even extend to NPCs within towns, which has them attack you on sight. Destroying the portal that the demons spawn from will break the possession over the whole region.
• Diminishing Returns for Balance: During alpha, skills have no point cap so you can put as much as you want in one, but the increases get smaller and smaller.
• Doppelgänger Attack: Some bosses have the ability to summon clones of themselves, which have a lot less health but still hit relatively hard. Others can summon clones of you.
• Double Unlock: To craft the stronger and better gear, you have to find a crafting book and then gather the materials needed to craft said equipment.
• Dungeon Crawling: The alpha version had castles, pyramids, palaces, and other similar structures that were filled with spike traps, enemies, confusing hallways, boss enemies, and treasures. The Steam version cuts down on the confusing paths by making them more linear with the branching paths leading to extra loot.
• Early Game Hell:
  • Very much so in the alpha. Early on, most things you can kill give only 1 EXP out of the 50 you need, and anything harder either destroys you or killing them takes so long you would have been better off finding 1 EXP monsters to kill. At higher levels (starting at around level 5), the increase in EXP gain from monsters you can kill is faster than the increase in EXP you need for a level up, and you are also able to take down bosses for boatloads of EXP.
  • Traveling is also painful in the start due to your lack of access to mobility upgrades like the hang glider and boat as well as not finding any Shrines of Life yet, which act as fast travel.
  • In the beta, it was possible for a new character to be spawned in an area with enemies that had very high power levels. It was also possible to be unable to find a village after traveling for hours. A patch rectified the problem by having new characters spawn near a village.
  • You have nothing but a weapon on you when starting as a new character. Gear is hard to come by due to shops selling them at high prices and crafting requiring lots of materials you don't have. You'll also likely run into enemies whose strength greatly outclasses yours.
• Everything Dissolves: All entities and objects that are killed/destroyed collapse into tiny blocks before fading out.
• Exposed to the Elements: Downplayed. While the frost biomes don't affect your characters for the most part, jumping into the water will apply a slowing effect which greatly hampers your movement speed.
• Giant Mook: Some bosses are regular enemies made larger.
• Grimy Water: All the water in a dark woods biome are green and poisons you if you go in it.
• Guide Dang It!: While most of the game itself is pretty easy to figure out, figuring out what types of food that can tame specifica animals is not.
• Heal It with Water: Water Mages can heal themselves and their allies by aiming their magic at themselves or their party. Enemy Water Mages can also do the same.
• Healing Potion: Comes in two flavors, which are Life Potions and Cactus Potions. Life Potions need a Heartflower and a Water Flask to be created while Cactus Potions require a Prickly Pear and a Glass Flask, which is a good alternative to the Life Potion if you don't have water nearby. Both potions recover a good chunk of HP and can restore a lot more once you can make stronger versions.
• Heroic Fantasy: While the game does show troubles like witches petrifying a whole town, gnomes being captured and stuffed into a stew pot, and an empire invading certain areas, the world is mostly static and is made for the players to explore. The player can also help the people who are in trouble and get rewarded for it. Magic does exist, but it doesn't extend to anything beyond the playable Mage class that utilizes spells to attack with.
• Hollywood Darkness: Completely averted. Midnights and deep caves are pitch black, and your default lamp only shines a small radius around you. Better lamps do shine brighter, though. Having multiple players using their lanterns at the same time can also make your surroundings much brighter.
• Hyperactive Metabolism: Subverted. Eating food restores HP in a matter of seconds, but your character is forced to stay still to eat and eating leaves you open to enemy attacks. Drinking potions is the same way, except you can run around as you drink.
• I'm a Humanitarian: Some side quests will have you saving a Gnome or a similar race that's been thrown into a pot filled with stew and presumably becoming a meal to their captors. Said captors can sometimes be a human(oid) like Witches.
• In-Universe Game Clock: Time in Cube World passes at 6 seconds for every second passed in real time. The game world's time goes 10 times faster while you sleep. You can also talk to innkeepers in towns to automatically reset time to 7:00 am if it's between 6 pm and 6 am.
• Item Crafting: The player can learn to craft basic equipment suited for their class and better food/potions when they level up, and crafting is done in towns while cooking is done in campfires in the wilderness. Potions can be made any time, but empty flasks have to be filled with water by entering the crafting tab while standing in water. Formulas can also be found in item shops or as loot drops, though you can't learn a formula for an equipment not for your class, or too high powered.
• Item Get!: Getting a key item like the boat will have your character hold it above their heads ala Zelda.
• Killer Rabbit: Early on, squirrels and raccoons will rip your face off if you get too close to them. Period.
• Knockback: Certain abilities can push enemies away from you, which is extremely handy if you can push enemies off a cliff. Powerful attacks can also knock enemies down and leave them dazed, though they can do the same thing to you.
• Lava Pit: Lava can be found within dungeons, serving as a minor obstacle that you have to platform across. Lava also shows up within volcanoes, but there can also be the rare lava pool just sitting out in middle of a field.
• Lethal Lava Land: The fire fields biome is basically a volcanic zone where the sky is a fiery red and lava is everywhere. The biome is also home to many demonic creatures and fire based animals. Despite the obviously extremely hot environment, villages exist along with plants and trees that should have burned up.
• Level-Up Fill-Up: In the alpha version, leveling up fully restores your HP.
• Loads and Loads of Races: The playable races consists of humans, orcs, dwarves, elves, lizards, and even skeletons. There's also more races that are exclusive to NPCs like gnomes, witches, jesters, and insectoids.
• Magic Music: Comes in several flavors: the Sky Whistle, when used at a bird statue, summons several birds that carry you to a floating sanctuary that has loot inside. The Mystic Harp is used to open orange doors that hold loot. The Spirit Bell makes you invisible so you can walk through grates and it also makes it easier to see in dark places.
• Massive Race Selection: 8 playable races to choose from so far, with a further 9 NPC races and plans from Wollay to add more in future updates.
• Life Drain: Warriors have a small chance of getting a buff that lets them absorb HP from enemies on every hit.
• Mecha: The Steel Empire will sometimes sic one on you if you destroy the support machines of a Mana Pump. Both the robot and the pilot are counted as separate enemies.
• Mercy Invincibility: Averted. You can easily get ganked by multiple enemies and die very quickly.
• Money Spider: Subverted in the alpha, only hostile adventurers or ogres can drop money when killed, though normal monsters sometimes do drop weapons and armor, and possibly in the form of leftovers that have to be identified in town. The release version has all enemies drop money and boss characters will drop a lot of it.
• Multiplayer Difficulty Spike: Enemies gain more HP if there are multiple players in the vicinity and it rises higher if more people are present.
• Not Quite Flight: The Hang Glider item lets you glide in the air and slows your fall speed, but you'll lose stamina if you maintain your gliding. Crashing too hard into the ground or a wall will leave you dazed.
• Our Vampires Are Different: Vampires show up as enemies and attack with swords. They can also use an attack that can poison you as well as flying around you to make it harder for them to be hit.
• Our Werewolves Are Different: Werewolves can show up in the deadlands and they attack with rapid punches.
• Power Up Mount: There are several animals you can ride for faster travel after taming them, ranging from the obvious (horses) to the weirdly cool (crocodiles).
• Procedural Generation: In the alpha, the entire world is procedurally generated using a seed input when the world is first created. The final product uses a finite single map, but it's so large that exploring all of it is all but impossible.
• Purely Aesthetic Race/Gender: There's a handful of races to pick from as well as playing as male or female, but they don't affect your stats in any way.
• Random Drop: Enemies will sometimes drop gear, glass bottles, food, and pet bait.
• Regenerating Health: Your pets recover HP over time when they're not under attack, which is quite helpful since you don't have to worry about using your healing items on your pets.
• Respawning Enemies: Enemies in the field will eventually respawn after some time has passed while enemies inside dungeons do not respawn until the time reaches midnight. Enemies also respawn if you relaunch a world.
• Respawn Point: There are angel statues around the world, and when you die, you randomly respawn in one close to it, though usually not the closest one to prevent hostiles from Spawn Camping you.
• Resting Recovery: You can sleep in inns in towns or sleeping mats in campfires in the wilderness, which will heal your HP up while making time pass quicker.
• Scenery Porn: The randomly generated world has the potential for quite a beautiful landscape.◊
  • Can cross into Scenery Gorn when exploring a Hell biome.
• Schizo Tech: The game is set in a fantasy setting with magic and swords, some fantastical biomes, simple villages, and travel being in the form of boats and hang gliders. The Steel Empire mixes it up by having airships and machines that affect the region's mana. While some of them do ride giant mechs to attack you with, the soldiers themselves use the same class system as the player.
• Scratch Damage: Subverted. You can, in fact, do 0 damage if your opponent severely outclasses you, though creating a high hit-combo will allow your attacks to ignore some armor and do a little damage, eventually. Likewise, if your defenses are high, weak enemies can't harm you, but they'll eventually start damaging you if their combos build up.
• Shifting Sand Land: Desert biomes generally have nothing but sand and hills as far as you can see. Pyramids are also found in the deserts.
• Shoot the Medic First: All humanoid enemies have the ability to heal through potions or healing spells, so your best bet is to either take them out quickly or use a powerful attack to stun them, interrupting their healing.
  • Hostile water mages are high priority targets especially in crowds because they can heal allies. The presence of multiple water mage enemies can make it extremely difficult, if not impossible, to kill off hostile melee fighters due to the constant healing.
• Spin Attack: Warriors have this as their second skill, ogres are able to do this, and some bosses get this attack in two variations: a spin that lasts a long time but the boss stays still, and one where the boss spins and tries to rush and crash into you.
• Soft Water: You will negate all fall damage if you fall in a pool of water deep enough to submerge you.
• Super Drowning Skills: You can only swim underwater for about a handful of seconds before you start drowning.
• Super Not-Drowning Skills: In the alpha version, drowning didn't exist.
• Taken for Granite: Sometimes there will be a town whose residents are petrified. Defeating a Witch related to the petrification will free everyone from her spell.
• There Are No Bedsheets: Not only that, your character sleeps facing down, with his/her weaponry still on his/her back. Word of God says it's because people in Cube World are unable to close their eyes.
• Twenty Four Hour Weaponry: Everyone sleeps with their gear on.
• Threatening Shark: The ocean biomes have dangerous sharks that will make quick work of you if you're not strong enough to take one on. There's also boss versions of sharks, which are bigger and purple.
• Unnecessary Combat Roll: All classes can perform a rolling dodge, which makes you immune to all attacks during its animation. Enemies can also perform a roll, even ones that logically shouldn't be able to do one like crabs and and buffaloes.
• Video Game Cruelty Potential: Peaceful adventurers or townspeople you can't normally attack? You can totally lure an ogre into their path, or for a more hands-on approach, lay down a bunch of bombs which can hurt them.
  • You can also attack animals that are just minding their business (crows, cows, pigs, horses, etc.), but doing so leads into...
• Video Game Cruelty Punishment: Attacking neutral animals (health bar in green) will provoke them into attacking you.
• Video Game Perversity Potential: You can add up to 32 cubes onto each weapon to upgrade them while customizing their look. No prizes for guessing what people have come up with.
• Virtual Paper Doll: Any piece of armor equipped will appear on the player character.
• Welcome to Corneria: NPCs usually have only one line and will talk about the most mundane things, though some do sometimes give helpful information, like what pet food tames which pet.
• Wide-Open Sandbox: The world can potentially be explored forever.

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