Nothing exists in a vacuum.

Everything we create, is dependant of its context. And usually, based on previous works. This is specially true in the case of videogames. Shameless cash-in clones aside, pretty few can outright say that they’ve invented a genre. Alexey Pajitnov is one of those few. With Tetris, he created a whole new concept. And of course, while many simply copied (The legal battles over Tetris deserve a movie by themselves, go check it out), others expanded upon the concept, and took sail to explore it in new directions.

Today, I’m not going to talk about tetris, but, rather, those of his numerous offspring that more directly influenced Cubix

Tetris Attack

Clearly my biggest personal influence. I just LOVE this game. In no small part, because it’s the central point of the greatest moment of my gaming career (but that’s a story for another time).

The game is excellence in all accounts. Design, gameplay, art (I think it was a wise decision to change the fairies from Panel de Pon for Yoshi’s pals), and also a myriad of modes. The general look of my game (to the best of my capabilities), its different modes, the general structure, and the combo system, are all inspired by it.

Given its mechanics (Nowadays it would be labelled “the gamer’s Candy Crush”), I’m surprised its concept isn’t more prevalent in today’s mobile scene.

Magical Drop (III)

NeoGeo’s puzzle crown jewel, -with all due respect to the also great puzzle bobble- and probably the best entry in the series (half-assed translation aside), brought us a frantic game, full of great characters, and a good number of game modes as well, specially considering its arcade origins. Its pull and drag mechanic is what inspired Cubix’s way of dealing with those evercoming cubes.

Klax

A game that fell short of its promised status as THE 90’s puzzle (released in ‘89, actually :p ), with a weird art style, and with not-so-obvious mechanical twists that maybe needed where better suited for the console versions rather than the arcade one. Its major innovation came in the form of objective-based levels, as opposed to “survive” or even “do X lines” from Tetris b-mode, made you change your play style constantly, to adapt to the situation. Cubix’s challenge mode is a modern take on that premise, and the one that, along with vs mode, hope will lenghthen the game’s lifespan (and fun).

Zoop

Pretty much the same case as Klax, but some years later. It was marketed as the puzzle killer, but ended up as an undiscovered gem. Probably its looks were too abstract in a time when we were used to seeing cute cartoony characters in almost any puzzle game.

From Zoop, I took the idea of the multiple grid (4! inthe case of Zoop, just 2 in Cubix ), which gives you a constant feeling of tension, since focusing in one grid means leaving the others unattended. Also, the switch mechanic in Zoop bears some resemblances with Cubix as well.

Of course, I could name numerous other puzzle games, some of them pretty obscure (Naname de Magic, anyone? Cachat? Gururin?), but this four are the ones that where the biggest influence while designing Cubix. If you don’t know them, go check them out. Even the flawed ones, they’re worth it.