Cubes Lite

Cubes Lite is the free version of Manta Research’s kickass Cubes game. It’s a 3D puzzle that looks like a giant Rubik’s Cube and you can swipe in all directions to turn the cube any way you want as you double-tap your way to achieving the target score set for each level. Tap once to select blocks, tap again to get rid of them. You must tap groups of at least two adjacent or stacked cubes of the same color, and when you tap them out of existence gravity will let the cubes above fall into place.

This game is really amazing. The gameplay is a little like JawBreaker except JawBreaker is boring and Cubes is fun and addictive. Novices will be tempted to tap any combination of two or three like-colored cubes, but well-seasoned pros know that the fun (and big scores) comes in hitting major combos where you’re tapping a large number of cubes all at once.

In the drawbacks department, the cube can be a little hard to move in the direction you want it to, but I think that’s just a matter of practice. Even if it rotates up when you wanted it to rotate left, you can still get there in your own sweet time – you’re not being timed or anything.

Cubes Lite includes three levels where the full version of the game costs $.99 and includes unlimited levels and increasing difficulty plus a Quick Play mode. As with any game, if there’s a free trial version you should definitely play it to (a) make sure it lives up to your expectations and (b) show app developers that offering “lite” versions for free is a good practice that you support. Once you conquer the three levels provided in Cubes Lite, though, you’re gonna want more.

The App Store page for the full version of Cubes states that $.99 is “limited time promotional pricing”. Whether or not that’s actually true (and I have a feeling it is), $.99 is a very small price to pay for an awesome puzzle game like this one.