Summary
The Cube Is Not Enough review – a slick, cerebral puzzler that almost justifies the price of admission
The elevator pitch is irresistible: “Portal, but the portal gun is a Rubik-style cube that rewrites the rules of physics every time you twist it.” Sold, right? Indie studio Paradoxical Pixels has been teasing The Cube Is Not Enough for three years, dropping cryptic ARG cubes in other games and letting Twitch streamers literally melt a real-life steel cube with blowtorches to reveal the release date. The marketing stunt was peak 2024, but now that the game is finally on Steam, the only question that matters is whether the 25-dollar asking price buys you a satisfying evening of “just one more test chamber” or another forgettable physics toy that lands in the ever-growing pile of “I’ll finish it someday” Steam library clutter. After rolling credits at the 8-hour mark and sinking another four into the post-game “Impossible” chambers, I can say this: The Cube Is Not Enough is razor-sharp while it lasts, gorgeous to look at, and occasionally so clever that I stood up and slow-clapped an empty room. It’s also short, has one of the most abrupt endings in recent memory, and currently ships without a level editor—something its community is already screaming for. Add it all up and you get an 8.3 out of 10: a brilliant bite-sized experience that would feel right at home on a handheld during a long flight, but not quite the next Portal-sized obsession we’ve been waiting for.
Story – less is less, until it isn’t
You wake up in a gleaming white cell. A Siri-like voice calling itself “The Auditor” informs you that you are Test Subject 427 and that your “mandated entertainment period” has begun. The only tool at your disposal is a weighty chrome cube covered in glowing glyphs. Early voice lines drip with that familiar GLaDOS-style passive aggression, so much so that I braced for yet another “evil AI roasts you for 6 hours” romp. Mercifully, the writers pivot hard at the halfway mark. Each solved chamber twists the cube, and the world literally folds in on itself—walls become floors, gravity tilts 90°, and the voice’s tone shifts from smug to nervous. By the finale you’re not escaping the facility; you’re escaping the game’s own internal logic. I won’t spoil the last twenty minutes, but the ending screen is just a command prompt that types “logout” and then closes the application. I actually shouted “That’s IT?” at my monitor. It’s bold, borderline obnoxious, and weirdly unforgettable. Lore hounds are already datamining audio logs that reference “Iteration 3.0,” so expect sequel bait.
Gameplay – twist to win
The cube has six faces, each mapped to a world state: gravity direction, time speed, object mass, friction, polarity, and “phase” (think clipping through walls). Rotate the top face 90° clockwise and gravity re-orients to that direction. Spin the bottom face and time slows to 50%. The genius is that every manipulation is physicalized—you literally hold the cube in front of you with the mouse, grab a face with left-click, and swipe to rotate. The haptic feedback on the DualSense is so good I caught myself absent-mindedly turning the controller like an actual cube during a loading screen. Chambers start simple: move box to pressure plate, exit door opens. By world 3 you’re chaining twists mid-air, redirecting lasers through portals you opened by shifting polarity, then rewinding time to ride the same elevator twice. The difficulty curve is almost perfectly pitched; I never hit a wall for more than 12 minutes, yet solutions always felt earned. My only gripe is that the final suite of puzzles introduces a seventh “quantum” face that randomizes one of the other rules. It’s clever on paper, but in practice it turns the last level into a frantic dice roll. I eventually solved it by savescumming the way you’d crit-farm in an RPG. A optional “ deterministic mode” patch is already on the experimental branch.
Graphics and presentation – ray-traced reflections that will melt your RTX 3060
The Cube Is Not Enough runs on Unreal Engine 5.3 and makes obscene use of nanite and lumen. Floors are so reflective you can shave in them, and every time the world re-orients the environment fractures into kaleidoscopic shards that bounce light like a disco ball. Art director Mia Chen cites Bauhaus and M.C. Escher as influences, and it shows: clean lines, primary colors, zero texture clutter. On an RTX 4070 at 1440p I hovered between 70–90 fps with DLSS quality; switch to balanced and you’re in the 110s. The Steam Deck manages 60 fps at medium settings, though fan noise ramps up to “jet engine” during the later light-bending sequences. One standout moment: halfway through the game you drop the cube down an elevator shaft and the camera follows it in a single unbroken take for 42 seconds of pure ray-traced glory. My capture software recorded the scene at 9.8 GB/s bitrate. Yes, it’s that pretty.
Performance and bugs – one patch away from pristine
Version 1.02 (day-one patch) squashed the infamous “cube disappears through floor” soft-lock and fixed the ultrawide cutscene stretch. I still saw one crash when alt-tabbing during a loading screen, and the “quantum” face occasionally fails to seed the correct rule set, forcing a chapter restart. Developers say hotfix 1.03 is “imminent.” Cloud saves work flawlessly across Steam Deck and desktop. No Denuvo, zero micro-transactions, no always-online nonsense. Refreshing.
Soundtrack and audio – lo-fi beats to test subjects to
The score is a glitchy, downtempo affair that morphs in real time as you twist the cube. Kick drums stutter when you slow time; hi-hats pan left-right when gravity flips. It’s subtle, but once you notice it you’ll purposely spam rotations just to hear the filter sweep. Voice acting is top-tier—especially “The Auditor” whose British clipped delivery slides into raw panic by the end. Subtitles are available in 14 languages; the French dub somehow makes the AI sound even more condescending, which is a feat.
Length and replay value – over too soon, but the post-game hurts so good
My first run clocked in at 7h 48m according to the in-game timer. A separate “Impossible” campaign—unlocked after the credits—re-mixes every chamber with stricter twist limits and hidden collectible glyphs. I’ve cleared 12 of the 20 maps and already died 312 times. Speedrunners are finishing the base game in 28 minutes using sequence-breaking gravity launches, and leaderboards are integrated directly into the main menu. There’s also a daily twist challenge that seeds the same cube layout for everyone, Twitch-style. Still, at $24.99 some players will balk at the runtime. Compare that to Viewfinder or Cocoon, two recent puzzle hits that offer roughly the same length for five bucks less. The difference is production polish: every animation, every UI transition, every snarky quip feels like it cost actual money. Whether that premium is worth it depends on how highly you value aesthetic gloss.
Price and value proposition – wait for a sale or dive in now?
If you subscribe to the “dollar-per-hour” school of thought, The Cube Is Not Enough is a hard sell at full price. I prefer the “memorable experience per dollar” metric, and on that front the game scores. I’ll forget plenty of 40-hour open-world checklist simulators, but I’ll remember rage-quitting the quantum level at 2 a.m. and finally solving it while on a Discord call with friends who burst into applause. That moment alone justified the price for me. That said, we’re two weeks from the Steam Summer Sale; a 15–20% discount feels inevitable. If you’re on the fence, wishlist it and grab it on sale. Puzzle fiends who mainline Portal mods for breakfast should hit “buy” immediately.
Verdict – a gleaming, truncated triumph
The Cube Is Not Enough is the rare puzzle game that trusts its mechanics so completely it never once pauses to explain itself with intrusive text boxes. It’s confident, stylish, and—until the final randomness spike—immaculately tuned. The biggest compliment I can give is that I immediately started a new save file to hunt the secret endings, something I haven’t done since The Witness. If Paradoxical Pixels can deliver a level editor or DLC expansion before year’s end, this could become the next staple in the puzzle speedrunning circuit. Until then, consider it a stellar weekend fling rather than a lifelong obsession. Cube aficionados, your brain is begging for a twist.
Review Score
8.5/10
