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Q.U.B.E. moves 12K copies in first four days, recouping full Indie Fund investment
Beyond being a game we're quite fond of, Q.U.B.E. is also profitable as of right now. Well, okay, a little bit before now, as the folks who funded the project -- the major league indies who comprise the "Indie Fund" -- have already recouped their expenses, according to a recent blog post at their official site. "We are happy to announce that Q.U.B.E., the first Indie Fund-ed game to market, took only four days on Steam to generate enough revenue for Toxic Games to repay the full investment amount of $90k," the post reads. The project was originally supposed to cost just $42K, but the eventual budget ballooned to $90K, paid out in several big chunks. Thankfully, that investment paid off with 12K sold copies since the game launched last week. The post also notes that Toxic Games is already discussing the possibility of moving Q.U.B.E. "beyond PC," though it's unclear whether that just means "to OS X" or to somewhere even more enticing (XBLA/PSN, perhaps?). We've asked Toxic Games for more info, naturally.
Q.U.B.E. review: Questionable Understanding of Block Extrusion
If someone had told me I'd be spending a peaceful night this week in a stark white room playing with bright blocks, I'd have run before they could wrap the straightjacket around my shoulders and throw me into the back of a windowless van. Instead, I spent a few hours positioning primary-colored cubes around a vast test chamber from the comfort of my own home -- with full mobility of all my extremities -- and I enjoyed my time immensely. Toxic Games' Q.U.B.E. (Quick Understanding of Block Extrusion) joins other puzzlers as the crossword of the plugged-in generation, stimulating spatial, physics and reasoning skills in a direct way that shooters can't touch (or shoot).
Q.U.B.E. enters our space December 16
Toxic Games will be the first to get an Indie Fund-backed game out, when its abstract first-person puzzle game Q.U.B.E. is released on December 16. It'll be available for PC on Steam, Desura, and Playism for $14.99. A Mac version will follow "shortly after PC." Q.U.B.E. asks players to navigate a series of puzzles by manipulating colored cubes they find in the environment, all with their own unique properties. You may have played it at our last Joystiq meetup! It was the one with the cubes.
Indie Fund assists with Monaco, Qube, and Shadow Physics
One year in, the Indie Fund is currently providing money for the development of three games. Nathan Vella, Ron Carmel, and Kellee Santiago of the Indie Fund – all established indies themselves – and fundees Andy Schatz (Monaco), Steve Swink (Shadow Physics), and Daniel Da Rocha (Qube) gathered in a panel to discuss the successes and failures of the alternate funding method, which is designed to "put itself out of business as soon as possible," as Vella put it, to promote self-sufficient indies.
