Kubix

One click on a square brick and you already know this is one of those games where you have to read the manual, otherwise you won't have a clue what's going on. Kubix is a puzzle from the nineties built on adding and subtracting — not easy on the brain, but easy on the mouse.

The point is to arrange colored cubes on the playfield so that their sum matches the numbers given along the edges of the board. It's a cross between number sudoku and puzzle fiddling. You play against the clock or without a timer, depending on the difficulty. The levels come one after another, each bigger and more complicated. The logic is accessible — you want to reach a number, so you pick cubes accordingly, with two ones making a two and so on.

The graphics are minimalist — single-colored cubes, digits, the playfield. Everything is big and legible, which is exactly what you need in a puzzle. The sound is modest, rather monotonous. The controls are flawless — you drag the cubes with the mouse, and there's nothing to fault. The game lets you look at it without any needless extras, but also without any personality.

Kubix is the kind of game you play for an evening, solve maybe eight levels, and then everything starts swimming in front of your eyes. It's not Tetris, where your adrenaline would climb. It's more deep thinking, and without the pressure of a clock you sometimes feel like you're sitting a school test. Today probably nobody would make it this way — the web has thousands of such puzzles with animations, sound effects and social leaderboards.

If you want to play it, it's a game for a short while. It's not a classic that would keep chasing you, but it's not a failed calculator either. Toss it in when you want to switch your brain off and yet keep it busy. It's here more for the history — a survivor from a time when every puzzle was transparently simple and was never meant to bore you.