''Cube Quest'' is a

shoot 'em up Shoot 'em ups (also known as shmups or STGs) are a Video game genre, subgenre of action games. There is no consensus as to which design elements compose a shoot 'em up; some restrict the definition to games featuring spacecraft and certain typ ...

arcade laserdisc game by American company Simutrek released in 1983. It was primarily designed and programmed by Paul Allen Newell, who previously wrote some

Atari 2600 The Atari 2600 is a home video game console developed and produced by Atari, Inc. Released in September 1977 as the Atari Video Computer System (Atari VCS), it popularized microprocessor-based hardware and games stored on swappable ROM cartridg ...

games. It was introduced at Tokyo's

Amusement Machine Show The Japan Amusement Expo (JAEPO) is an annual trade fair for amusement arcade products, such as arcade games, redemption games, amusement rides, vending machines, and change machines. The event is hosted one weekend per year in the Greater Tokyo ...

(AM Show) in September 1983 and then the AMOA show the following month, before releasing in North America in December 1983. It combines

real-time Real-time, realtime, or real time may refer to: Computing * Real-time computing, hardware and software systems subject to a specified time constraint * Real-time clock, a computer clock that keeps track of the current time * Real-time Control Syst ...

3D polygon graphics with

laserdisc LaserDisc (LD) is a home video format and the first commercial optical disc storage medium. It was developed by Philips, Pioneer Corporation, Pioneer, and the movie studio MCA Inc., MCA. The format was initially marketed in the United State ...

-streamed, animated backgrounds, making it the first

arcade video game An arcade video game is an arcade game that takes player input from its controls, processes it through electrical or computerized components, and displays output to an electronic monitor or similar display. All arcade video games are coin-oper ...

to use real-time

3D computer graphics 3D computer graphics, sometimes called Computer-generated imagery, CGI, 3D-CGI or three-dimensional Computer-generated imagery, computer graphics, are graphics that use a three-dimensional representation of geometric data (often Cartesian coor ...

. At around the same time,

pre-rendered Pre-rendering is the process in which video footage is not rendered in real-time by the hardware that is outputting or playing back the video. Instead, the video is a recording of footage that was previously rendered on different equipment (typ ...

3D computer graphics were used in

Funai is a Japanese consumer electronics company headquartered in Daitō, Osaka. Currently, it is in liquidation. Apart from producing its own branded electronic products, it was also an OEM providing assembled televisions and video players/recor ...

's arcade laserdisc game ''Interstellar'', introduced at the same AM Show in September 1983. ''Cube Quest'' was nevertheless the first game to use real-time 3D computer graphics, predating

Atari Atari () is a brand name that has been owned by several entities since its inception in 1972. It is currently owned by French holding company Atari SA (formerly Infogrames) and its focus is on "video games, consumer hardware, licensing and bl ...

's ''

I, Robot ''I, Robot'' is a fixup collection of science fiction short stories by American writer Isaac Asimov. The stories originally appeared in the American magazines '' Super Science Stories'' and ''Astounding Science Fiction'' between 1940 and 1950 ...

'' (1984).

Gameplay

left, A game in progress The objective of the game is to guide a spaceship through the Cubic World to reach the Treasure of Mytha located at the opposite extreme of the player's origin. Each cube edge leads to one of 54 uniquely themed corridors where a wave of enemies must be dispatched in a tube shooter style gameplay sequence. Destroy the Dewellers of the Dark, up to 1000 points, maneuver the spaceship to avoid the obstacle and destroy the Guardian Cubes, up to 5000 points. Finally, after reaching the Treasure of Mytha, receive a reward befitting the Master of the Cube Quest. After that, the game starts over again.

Development

The game's developer Simutrek was founded by former

and

Exidy Exidy, Inc. was an American developer and manufacturer of coin-operated electro-mechanical and video games which operated from 1973 to 1999. They manufactured many notable titles including '' Death Race'' (1976), ''Circus'' (1978), '' Star Fire' ...

executive Noah Anglin. Paul Allen Newell was responsible for the design and programming. The laserdisc backgrounds were produced by

Robert Abel and Associates Robert Abel and Associates (RA&A) was an American pioneering production company specializing in television commercials made with computer graphics. Founded by Robert Abel and Con Pederson in 1971, RA&A was especially known for their art direction ...

Ken Nordine Ken Nordine (April 13, 1920 – February 16, 2019) was an American voice-over and recording artist, best known for his series of Word Jazz, word jazz albums. His deep, resonant voice has also been featured in many advertising, commercial advertis ...

(uncredited) voiced the introductory narration. The game was planned to be released for the

Vectrex The Vectrex is a vector display-based home video game console, the only one ever designed and released for the home market, that was developed by Smith Engineering and manufactured and sold by General Consumer Electronics. It was first released ...

, but was cancelled when the console went off the market. Paul Allen Newell was influenced by the

computer animation Computer animation is the process used for digitally generating Film, moving images. The more general term computer-generated imagery (CGI) encompasses both still images and moving images, while computer animation refers to moving images. Virtu ...

s of John Whitney and Jim Blinn, and early 1980s arcade games such as ''

Pac-Man ''Pac-Man,'' originally called in Japan, is a 1980 maze video game developed and published by Namco for arcades. In North America, the game was released by Midway Manufacturing as part of its licensing agreement with Namco America. The pla ...

'', '' Tempest'', ''

Centipede Centipedes (from Neo-Latin , "hundred", and Latin , "foot") are predatory arthropods belonging to the class Chilopoda (Ancient Greek , ''kheilos'', "lip", and Neo-Latin suffix , "foot", describing the forcipules) of the subphylum Myriapoda, ...

'' and '' Defender''. The game's CGI backgrounds were later used in '' Beyond the Mind's Eye''.

Reception and legacy

The game received mixed reviews upon release, with praise for its graphics but criticism over its gameplay. Upon its AM Show debut, the game "was deemed highly complicated for a mainstream electronic diversion" according to ''

Cash Box ''Cashbox'', also known as ''Cash Box'', is an American music industry trade magazine, originally published weekly from July 1942 to November 1996. Ten years after its dissolution, it was revived and continues as ''Cashbox Magazine'', an online ...

'' magazine. Upon its AMOA debut, the game was called "visually stunning" but "hallucinogenic" and " neo-psychedelic" by ''Cash Box''. In ''Computer Games'' magazine, Ben Gold and

Eugene Jarvis Eugene Peyton Jarvis is an American game designer and video game programmer, known for producing pinball machines for Williams Electronics and video games for Atari. Most notable among his works are the seminal arcade video games '' Defender'' ...

praised the graphics, but Jarvis criticized the gameplay, calling it "a poor version of '' Tempest''."

Possible connection to ''Polybius'' urban legend

Various researchers, such as Patrick Kellogg, believe that ''Cube Quest'' may have been an inspiration for the ''Polybius'' urban legend, due to many similarities between the game and the legend. ''Polybius'' is frequently described as a ''Tempest''-like shoot-em-up with surreal, often harmful visuals that was frequently visited by "

men in black In popular culture and UFO conspiracy theories, men in black (MIB) are government agents dressed in dark suits, who question, interrogate, harass, and threaten unidentified flying object (UFO) witnesses to keep them silent about what they have ...

" before suddenly disappearing forever. ''Cube Quest'', meanwhile, is a ''Tempest''-like game with then-advanced visuals that, due to the unreliable nature of LaserDisc-based video games, was frequently visited for maintenance and often vanished from arcades after a short period of time. The name of ''Polybius'' supposed creator, "Sinneslöchen", even bears a passing resemblance to ''Cube Quests developer Simutrek.

References

External links