CubeGun

CubeGun is a ship-building and combat game where you design battle ships and islands in a cube-based editor, then fight computer-controlled enemies or other players. You place weapons, armor and functional devices on deck cubes, choosing how to balance firepower, protection, speed and weight. Online battles support teams of up to three players per side.

Design your ship

Build ships from deck cubes and equip them with weapons and devices. Ships have limited design points: weapons and devices cost more, while deck cubes cost less. More decks add weight and reduce movement and steering speed, but higher decks extend weapon range and can protect devices behind them. Some weapons become more effective in numbers, and combining weapons is more powerful than scattering them across the ship.

Every device must sit on a deck cube. Decks can have several levels; when all levels beneath a device are destroyed, the device is destroyed too. The engine is the ship’s heart and has more health than other devices. If the deck beneath it is destroyed, the ship crashes. Ship parts and terrain can be destroyed, and collisions can break decks, push ships back and make them rotate.

Weapons and tactics

Each weapon has strengths and weaknesses, so you choose a ship design and battle strategy to counter the enemy. You can use shields to block bullets, mortars or torpedoes to get past shields, and AA-Guns to shoot down torpedoes and mortar ammunition. Armor protects decks and can help you collide with enemy ships, while thrust improves a ship’s movement and steering. Cannons push enemies back, and torpedoes can destroy the deck beneath a device.

The game describes four strategy matchups: high-fire-rate weapons can counter flexible movement; tanks using shields and armor can counter high-fire-rate weapons; low-fire-rate weapons that ignore shields can counter tanks; and flexible ships can dodge slow shots and attack the weak side of low-fire-rate ships.

Weapons and devices

• Minigun: fires quickly with fast bullets, but you must turn your ship to aim.
• Energy Shield: blocks high-speed bullets. It is 5 units wide and 1 unit long, and temporarily stops working and turns red when it takes more damage than it can withstand.
• Torpedo: passes through Energy Shields and is the only weapon that destroys the deck beneath a device.
• AA-Gun: shoots down slow bullets, including torpedoes and mortar ammunition. It has a high fire rate but short range and low damage, and can remove landmines.
• Armor: protects the deck beneath it, withstands several torpedo attacks and can be used in collisions. Armor on a multi-level deck is difficult to destroy.
• Mortar: fires slowly and at low speed over long range. Its shots pass through Energy Shields and armor, deal high damage directly to targets and can damage several nearby targets. It is suited to attacking heavily armored ships, but not flexible ones.
• Thrust: increases movement and steering speed, which are slower on larger ships.
• Cannon: fires slowly but shoots fast bullets that push enemy ships back, including toward hills where they can crash into pieces.
• Interference Robot: temporarily disables the target, including weapons, Energy Shields, Repair Stations or thrust.
• Repair Station: automatically repairs nearby devices, but not itself.
• LandMine: can be thrown and left for an enemy to trigger; an AA-Gun can remove it.
• Magnite: pulls a target closer, useful for ramming it or drawing it toward a minefield.
• Boomerang: attacks an enemy’s back and returns immediately after hitting it, making it effective at close range. It cannot fire again until it returns.
• Deck Cube: supports devices and can form multiple deck levels. Higher decks extend weapon range; destroying every deck level beneath a device destroys that device as well.
• Engine: has more health than other devices, but the ship crashes if the deck beneath it is destroyed.

The weapon matchups include Energy Shields blocking high-speed bullets, missiles passing through Energy Shields, AA-Guns shooting down missiles, torpedoes breaking decks, armor withstanding torpedoes and mortars passing over armor.

Use critical skills

The three most common kinds of device on your ship can use a Critical Skill. Using more devices increases the cooldown, but also makes the skill more powerful. After activation, devices remain in critical mode briefly, with effects that vary by device: some weapons gain attack power or fire faster, thrust gains force, Energy Shields restore and regenerate energy faster, and armor restores health and improves its defense rate. You can combine skills, such as using critical thrust to rush an enemy before activating critical armor to ram it, or combining critical thrust and critical cannon to retreat while pushing away a pursuing enemy.

Game modes

• Single Game: tutorial levels teach the strengths and weaknesses of each weapon and let you practise designing ships to fight enemies. You can challenge bosses when ready. The built-in level and enemy-plan editors let players build their own levels.
• Loot Base: build a military island and attack a randomly selected player’s island. Winning earns their gold; losing can cost you yours. The mode downloads island data over a network but does not require a continuous connection.
• Online Battle: fight other players in real time with teammates, using built-in maps or player-made maps.
• Battle Map: a player-versus-player death match.
• Cooperation Island Map: players fight a computer-controlled enemy island.
• Cooperation Ship Map: players fight computer-controlled enemy ships.

Play as a team

Online battles support up to 3v3. You can coordinate ship designs and roles: combine Repair Stations to heal a teammate’s ship, build a heavily armored tank to cover a long-range attacker, or ram an enemy to stop it escaping while a teammate uses a super skill. Online play also lets you test ship designs and tactics developed in the single-player levels.