As much as we may want to imagine games being handcrafted by woodland elves and tree sprites, that’s not really how it happens. It takes years and years of effort to get a game playable on systems like the NVIDIA SHIELD Android TV. Q.U.B.E.: Director’s Cut was first shown as a student demo years ago and is only now coming to NVIDIA SHIELD Android TV. The game’s unique, clever approach to first-person puzzles makes one wonder what clever people were able to pack boxes and boxes full of challenge into Q.U.B.E.
From the original dev team to the writer, artist, and actors who beefed up this special edition of the game, get to know the folks behind one of SHIELD’s most brain-teasing releases…
The founders of Toxic Games – When Daniel Da Rocha, Dave Hall, and Jonathan Savery started working on the game that would become Q.U.B.E., they’d had no previous programing experience, but that didn’t stop them. After showing the demo for the student project in 2009, the three newly-minted developers attracted the attention of investors at Indie Fund, and they’ve been working on Q.U.B.E. ever since. From those humble beginnings, Da Rocha, Hall, and Savery have been flexing their creative muscles on the Unreal Engine 3 to make their outer space adventure bigger than ever. And they finally did that by launching Director’s Cut on SHIELD.
Rob Yescombe – Toxic Games built the world that the puzzling gameplay and box manipulation lives in, but when it came time to add story to the Director’s Cut, they turned to Mr. Yescombe. The UK-based scriptwriter is on the rise, having worked on recent hits Crysis 3 and Alien: Isolation, as well as buzzworthy upcoming titles The Division and Rime. Yescombe’s script for Q.U.B.E.: Director’s Cut is impressive with just how much drama he’s able to add to the structure of an existing game. Via dialogue alone, he builds an entire world beyond the square walls of the game, telling a mature tale of fear, loneliness, and hope. And there are a few clever critiques of overdone gaming tropes thrown in for good measure.
Rachel Robinson and Rupert Evans – The script may be brilliant, but it depends on Rachel and Rupert to make it come alive as Commander Nowak and Nine-One-Nine, respectively. In an age of full body scans and facial capture, the two actors squeeze so much drama into Q.U.B.E.: Director’s Cut with just their voices, often talking to the player as they try to sort out the many challenges. Rachel and Rupert take you on an emotional ride, and if you recognize their voices, that isn’t surprising. Rachel is best known for playing Fang in the Final Fantasy XIII games, while Evans made his name as the co-star in the first Hellboy film, and numerous TV series.
Jon McCoy – Toxic Games aimed high for the poster of Q.U.B.E.: Director’s Cut. Jon McCoy may not be a household name (yet!), but he’s one of the most accomplished concept artists in modern cinema. He’s worked on Avengers: Age of Ultron, Edge of Tomorrow, X-Men: Days of Future Past, and World War Z, and his poster for Q.U.B.E. brings a sense of big screen wonder to the title. Makes you wish he’d take on more game work, no?
Now that you know the people that built the daring puzzle game, you should be able to grab your SHIELD controller and enjoy it even more when it hits the NVIDIA SHIELD Android TV. You can download Q.U.B.E.: Director’s Cut from Google Play for $9.99.
