Cube & Star: An Arbitrary Love

About

Cube & Star: An Arbitrary Love is a surreal open-world exploration game that explores the creation of life and the pointlessness of existence. Players can choose from different views, such as Spindle, Perspective, or Data, to navigate the bizarre, colorful world. The game encourages players to spread color and joy, interact with strange creatures, and ultimately reunite the Ancient Cube and Star. This game is not for the faint of heart and offers a unique, mind-bending experience.

Genres & Tags

Play Modes

Single-Player Play through the game's story or campaign solo

Cube & Star: An Arbitrary Love screenshot

61%

Audience ScoreBased on 110 reviews

humor1 positive mentions

grinding10 negative mentions

The game offers a unique and relaxing experience, allowing players to unwind while exploring a colorful world.
The visuals and music create a charming atmosphere that many players find enjoyable.
There is a sense of satisfaction in spreading color and discovering hidden elements within the game.

Gameplay is repetitive and lacks clear objectives, leading to boredom for many players.
The controls can be frustrating, with slow movement and limited interaction options.
Many achievements are broken or overly grindy, making completion feel tedious and unrewarding.

gameplay
27 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
11%
78%
11%
The gameplay is characterized by a lack of engaging mechanics, with players primarily rolling a box around to collect shapes and spread color in an open world, leading to a repetitive and tedious experience. While some appreciate the minimalist approach and relaxing nature of the game, many find the absence of clear objectives and meaningful interactions disappointing, resulting in a sense of aimlessness and boredom. Overall, the gameplay is seen as simplistic and lacking depth, with a significant number of players expressing frustration over its mechanics and the absence of a save feature.
- “The core mechanics are painting the world with color and collecting items.”
- “While the gameplay so far has never diverged from 'roll around, color, collect, talk', I don't think it needs to; it's a testament to the philosophy that simplicity is key and sometimes overthought in the game design process isn't required.”
- “In addition to the world being a clever mechanic, it also lends a hand to the relaxing nature of the game and imparts a sense of ownership as no two worlds will be the same, and you can feel proud of your coloring as you traverse your world.”
- “You'll be quitting the game before you know what to do and discover the game mechanics.”
- “I don't mind having not much of an objective when playing a game, but close-to-none is a bit too much, especially when the playability is not on the table and the gameplay is so repetitive.”
- “I haven't mentioned a single thing about the gameplay because there is none - you hold arrow keys to roll a box around and pick up potentially tens of thousands of certain kinds of shapes while you bump into other shapes, and get cryptic and sometimes condescending messages on the topic of life shoved into your face, which even when I tried to read them I couldn't because sometimes the text faded too fast.”
music
12 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
25%
50%
25%
The music in the game is generally described as tranquil and charming, enhancing the relaxing and zen-like atmosphere. While some players appreciate its calming qualities, others find it repetitive and wish for more variety. Overall, the music contributes positively to the game's aesthetic, making it a notable aspect for many players.
- “Seeing color spread around the map as a kind of diary of my travels, hearing the music change with the day/night cycle, meeting the cute little bee-cubes; all were simple pleasures.”
- “It's actually one of my favorites, and I love just chilling out and listening to music while I play.”
- “I don't usually play games with the sound on, but the music is very charming, and I find myself turning up the volume for this game.”
- “I suppose I would have had to play the game longer for its purpose/goals to reveal themselves, but the gameplay itself was tedious, and the music was extremely repetitive and quickly got on my nerves.”
- “The unnecessary collectible joke gets tedious after five seconds and you'll probably wish there was more than one music track, but otherwise this is a little gem.”
- “There is no options menu, the game forgets your music settings and always launches with music 'on'.”
story
11 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
27%
45%
27%
The game's story is often criticized for being minimalistic and difficult to uncover, with players needing to search extensively for narrative elements that feel disjointed and lacking depth. While some appreciate the exploration and the occasional intriguing backstory, many feel that the overall narrative is insufficient and fails to engage players meaningfully. The experience is described as more focused on aesthetics and gameplay rather than a coherent or compelling storyline.
- “It's minimalistic aesthetic serves well the feeling of exploration, and the occasional bits of story you receive from journal pieces and conversations are tantalizing enough to entice you to find them all and piece together the entirety of the narrative.”
- “I adore this game and I can hardly explain why; the color, music, and totally minimalist gameplay create an experience that can perhaps only be described as 'fun', pure, simple 'fun' untethered by our expectations of a plot or any discernible end goal.”
- “If this game has a story, then you're gonna have to dig relentlessly for it.”
- “If this game has a story, then you're going to have to dig relentlessly for it.”
- “Story seems like a barebones excuse to send you walking around in circles, coloring the landscape.”
- “There is no real story besides random lines.”
grinding
10 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
100%
Overall, players find the grinding aspect of the game to be tedious and often pointless, with many describing it as overly repetitive and lacking clear goals. While some appreciate the initial charm, the prolonged grind for achievements and collectibles leads to frustration and a sense of boredom, causing many to abandon the game early. Despite its potential, the grinding experience detracts significantly from the overall enjoyment.
- “It's just another decent game ruined by the most annoying and grindy achievements possible.”
- “It is the very definition of grinding, only with no real goal in sight.”
- “I suppose I would have had to play the game longer for its purpose/goals to reveal themselves, but the gameplay itself was tedious, and the music was extremely repetitive and quickly got on my nerves.”
graphics
9 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
33%
33%
33%
The graphics of the game are described as colorful and minimalistic, contributing to an aesthetically pleasing experience that enhances exploration. However, the lack of graphics settings and various bugs detract from the overall presentation, leading to frustration among players. While some appreciate the abstract visuals and humor, others feel that the graphics cannot compensate for the game's repetitive nature and limited content.
- “Cube&Star is colorful, minimalistic, smart, darkly and subtly funny (the Nietzschean quips from the various geometric creatures make me alternate between wanting to laugh or cry), and aesthetically exquisite.”
- “This game is an awesome world/peaceful game, it has great graphics and good music.”
- “Its minimalistic aesthetic serves well the feeling of exploration, and the occasional bits of story you receive from journal pieces and conversations are tantalizing enough to entice you to find them all and piece together the entirety of the narrative.”
- “Narrative is indirect and vague, lots of grind, game is just too geographically large and full of procedural generation landscape to really care.”
- “Evocative statements and abstract graphics cannot make up for the fact that there is simply little to do, and what there is is so drawn out you would need to grind for hours and hours just to see it.”
- “There is no options menu, the game forgets your music settings and always launches with music 'on', I found three different bugs, experienced one crash, and most importantly lost some of my interface because I can't change the graphics settings (because there are no graphics settings) and the HUD icons fall off the right side of my screen.”
stability
6 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
100%
The stability of the game has been widely criticized, with players reporting various bugs and glitches that can disrupt gameplay, particularly with collectibles and achievements. While some issues can be resolved with a quick restart, certain features, like the decoding puzzle, are notably problematic and can lead to confusion. Overall, the game's stability appears to be a significant concern for many users.
- “Seems to be buggy from playing and reading the forums; some achievements may not be possible.”
- “The only downside in my experience so far is that the decoding puzzle is buggy--basically, don't assign a letter unless you're very sure that's the one you want, because it might mess up and undo your changes and leave you in a confused mess.”
- “You can create whatever piece of interactive experience to express the pointlessness of existence, but for buggy, ill-considered, and insurmountable achievements one should simply rot in hell.”
humor
1 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
100%
The humor in Cube&star is characterized as colorful and minimalistic, featuring darkly subtle Nietzschean quips from geometric creatures that evoke a mix of laughter and introspection, all while being aesthetically pleasing.
- “Cube&star is colorful, minimalistic, smart, and darkly funny. The Nietzschean quips from the various geometric creatures make me alternate between wanting to laugh or cry, and the game is aesthetically exquisite.”