Cube World is an open world role-playing video game by Picroma for Microsoft Windows. Wolfram von Funck began developing the game in June 2011, and was later joined by his wife Sarah von Funck. An early alpha version of the game was released on July 2, 2013. The game has not received any updates since July 2013, and became unavailable for purchase in July 2015. A lack of communication by the developer about the game's current development has fueled speculation about its future.
Gameplay
In Cube World, the player explores a massive procedurally generated "voxel-like" world. This world contains randomly generated dungeons, including underground caverns and over-world castles, as well as separate biomes including grasslands, snowlands, deserts, and oceans. Players can use items such as hang gliders and boats to traverse the world more quickly.
Players can create multiple characters, with character creation, which involves the player first choosing a race and sex then customizing the look of the character. The player then chooses one of four classes: warrior, rogue, ranger, or mage. The world is populated with monsters and creatures which can be killed for experience, which results in stronger statistics and abilities and allows players to choose specializations which best suit their in-game aims. These specialization choices include warriors being able to choose between focusing on damage or defensive abilities, or mages focusing on damage or healing abilities. Players can also tame animals, such as sheep or turtles, which fight alongside them, or, in some cases, can be ridden by them to travel more quickly.
Crafting is also a part of the game; it allows players to create food, potions, weapons, and armor, as well as add voxels to their existing weapons block by block in order to create aesthetically unique weapons.
Development
Wolfram von Funck announced he had begun development of Cube World in June 2011, describing it as a "3D Voxel-Based game with a focus on exploration and RPG elements," citing games such as The Legend of Zelda, Secret of Mana, and World of Warcraft as inspiration. Wolfram was later joined by his wife Sarah von Funck, who contributes the game's sprites and assists in implementing new content.
In January 2012, it was reported that Minecraft creators Mojang had hired Wolfram to help support him in developing Cube World; however, it was later stated that this was not the case. In July 2014, the developers previewed a new questing system for the game, which will focus on the player's exploration.
Funck has used his Twitter to preview some of the more important developments made during this silent period, periodically posting videos and snapshots highlighting new features implemented into his development edition of the game. His most recent post, posted in January 2019, previews gems as a possible gameplay mechanic.
Early alpha release
When Cube World became available for purchase as an alpha stage game on July 2, 2013, developer Wolfram von Funck announced that he was temporarily disabling user registrations and their shop due to the high load on their servers. Though he initially assumed that the problem was the volume of players wishing to purchase the game, Wolfram later discovered that the downtime was due to a distributed denial-of-service attack on their servers, stating that "It seems that someone is trying to systematically damage us and our business... The attackers obviously want to prevent us from selling our game." The game's developers admitted to being overwhelmed by the attack, saying, "Being just a small team (my wife and me), we didn't expect such things".
Following the initial release, Cube World has received only one update. After three months of no other updates or contact from the developers many players began to become concerned about further development of the game. In October 2013, Wolfram confirmed that the game was still being worked on, and that a new update was "coming along nicely". This update was previewed in July 2014, but has not yet been released.
In July 2015, after a year of silence from the developer, gaming blog Kotaku reported that Wolfram was still working on the game. Regarding the lack of information on the development of the game, Wolfram was quoted as saying: "I’m not posting ‘hey, we’re still here’ because that’s beyond all question - Cube World is my passion project and I will work on it until it’s finished.”
Updates from the developers have been scattered since then, with brief periods of heavy activity, and the game has not received any public updates since July 2013.
