Qb? or not Cubie?

- Well, the first I knew about this neat little game, is when I saw a message requesting a copy of this game, by the author Andrew Davie, in the message group comp.sys.atari.8bit. I viewed the screen shot he provided, but as I'd didn't have the game in question, I left it at that. Many months later, I saw his follow up post, about how he had found a copy of the game, and needed someone to dump it to PC. Having made a SIO2PC cable, and having run out of things to dump with it, I offered my services to Andrew, and he very kindly sent me a copy of it. Now, as I had never played or seen this game before, I decided to give it a try. 20 minutes later, I was what you call, a 'Qb' addict! Initially when I started the game, I had a mental blank as to what you had to do in it. I lost a good few lives, before it 'clicked'. You have to get the blocks in the lower window to match the upper window. How simple!! I quickly found out, that it was not indeed simple, but a tricky challenge indeed! Guiding the blocks around is a breeze, but make sure you dont go too far away from the other blocks, As you cant jump to another block if it is more than a single square away. Various bonus fruit appear on blocks around you, so be sure to jump on it to collect those points! BUT WATCH OUT! As I got a bit carried away at times and jumped on the 'monsters', that also appear, thinking that they were going to be fruit too. These 'monsters' are a nuisance to say the least! Just as you have the blocks in order, they appear and can move the blocks around, thus ruining your layout!! ARGGHHHH!!! The perfect challenge! I've just found out that if you are in the air, and are about to land on a baddie, you can press the fire button to zap them into the air. I must give this a go... Andrew has done an excellent job at making a game with great gameplay, which gets you coming back for more. He has also done a good job on the graphics, making very simple and smooth graphics, which help make the game what it is! The sounds are okay, and serve their purpose, although a little ditty while you play is missed, It the heat of the game, you dont notice it. The game plays equally well on the Atari 800 4 Windows 2.5c Emulator,as it does on the real Atari. I highly recomend this game to anyone into arcade puzzlers in the line of Q*Bert and the like, you wont be dissapointed. Download a copy below, along with the emulator. I love this game!!! And wish I'd had it back in '84! Email the Author: Andrew Davie Or visit his web site Museum of Soviet Calculators...

Recomended Emulator	Version	Opsys	File Size
Atari Computer Roms	N/A	N/A	26kb
Atari 800 Windows Emulator	2.6a	WIN 9X/NT	141kb

Download here.

30-Apr-99