2001 · First-person shooter · Shooter

Cube

Cube is a freeware 3D first-person shooter game. It can be played both in multiplayer and singleplayer mode. It allows the player to edit maps in-engine in full 3D, this means it is possible to fly around the map, point and drag to raise/lower blocks, create slopes etc. Multiple online players can even edit a map simultaneously.

Released: 2001
Platforms: Windows cross-platform macOS
Genres: First-person shooter Shooter
Developers: —
Publishers: —
Modes: Multiplayer Single-player
Perspective: First person
Themes: Action Science fiction
Engine: Cube Engine
Country: Netherlands

About

Cube is a free and open-source first-person shooter video game. It is often mistaken with its engine (zlib-licensed), the Cube Engine. The engine and game were developed by Wouter van Oortmerssen.

It runs on a variety of operating systems, including Microsoft Windows, Linux, FreeBSD, OS X, AmigaOS 4, AROS, iPhone, Wii and Pocket PC devices with 3D acceleration such as Dell Axim x50v. It uses OpenGL and SDL. Cube has both single-player and multiplayer gameplay. The game contains a built-in level editor.

Keywords

post-apocalyptic
open-source
freeware
non-humanoid protagonist

Media

The articlegameplay, story, development, reception

Gameplay

As of the August 2005 release, there were 37 single player maps and 65 deathmatch maps, for a total of 102 maps.

Multiplayer uses a networked game code and a thick client/thin server model.

Development

The Cube engine was designed as an outdoor engine, that is, it was designed for maps that are outdoors rather than Doom and Quake, which are optimized for indoors. It utilizes a pseudo-3D world model similar to the Doom engine, based on a 2D height map. This imposes some limitations (e.g. no rooms above rooms), but does permit slopes and 3D props, which in turn can be used to make up for most limitations, for example, to create bridges with a passage below.

The engine is based on a zero-precompilation philosophy – all map data is interpreted dynamically, with no need to recalculate such as shadowmaps or BSP data. This makes realtime in-game map editing feasible. Cube supports multi-user, realtime map editing.

Reception

Cube was reviewed positively by LinuxDevCenter in 2002 and awarded with the "Happypenguin Award" for "Best Free 3D Action Game" by The Linux Game Tome in 2003. In 2005 in an O'Reilly article on "Open Source Mac Gaming" Cube was recommended. MacUpdate rated the game's latest release 4.5 stars out of 5. Cube was downloaded between 2004 and May 2017 alone from SourceForge.net 2.7 million times.