Qbik

Genre: Puzzle-Platformer

Players: 1

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Review:

Qbik is a Puzzle-Platformer released on PC in 2017 and ported to Nintendo Switch in 2018. In this game, players control a blue square block with an eye as it tries to move through each of the game’s levels, devouring all yellow blocks.

The presentation here is simple and a bit bland, featuring 2D pixel art visuals with a simple style and not a lot of color, backed by a dour soundtrack that gives this game a depressing atmosphere. I suppose this presentation works, but it’s not doing the game any favors.

The gameplay itself is built on a simple premise that your character and the yellow blocks are both affected by gravity, and you must use your knowledge of this to plan your path through the level accordingly. You cannot jump or climb back up, so you have to be careful not to back yourself in a corner or leave blocks in places where you can’t reach them.

Because of this, even though the game’s controls are simple, the puzzles in this game can be quite devious, making you think through the proper order to do things in. This complexity starts to ramp up as the game introduces different type of blocks that work in various ways to both help and hinder you in the game’s levels.

I should note that Qbik also includes its own level builder, which is great… except there’s no way to share levels with others, which seems like a huge missed opportunity.

Overall, I found Qbik to be a decent but simple Puzzle game, but one that repeatedly makes missteps that keep it from being something better. The presentation makes it hard to get enthusiastic about this game, and the lack of any ability to share custom levels really limits the potential for community this game could have had. As a result, Qbik is still a game that Puzzle fans may want to try, but it’s not anything I would consider essential.

tl;dr – Qbik is a Puzzle-Platformer where players control a blue square looking to eat all of the yellow squares in each level. The gameplay here is simple but challenging, but the depressing presentation and the lack of any ability to share custom levels really limits the appeal of this game. Puzzle fans may still enjoy it, but most players will find other entries in the genre far more enticing.

Grade: C+

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