Intelligent Qube, a 1997 puzzle game for the PlayStation

I.Q. インテリジェントキューブ (I.Q.: Intelligent Qube), also known as “Kurushi” in Europe

Welcome to the first post of 2024 on Shinkansen Retrogamer. I hope you’ve all enjoyed a holiday break (spending time with friends and family, opening Christmas presents, watching the ball drop…).

It’s a puzzle video game for the PlayStation released in early 1997 in Japan and late 1997 in North America. The game was developed by Epics Kabushiki-gaisha (then known as G-Artists, Inc.) and published by Sony Interactive Entertainment (then known as Sony Computer Entertainment), and I’ve got another PlayStation game for you: Intelligent Qube! In the game, the player controls a character who must run around a platform made of cubes, clearing certain cubes as they approach. Cubes are “cleared” by marking a spot on the stage, waiting for the cube to roll on top of it, and then deactivating the marked spot. Kenji Sawaguchi is the game’s director while Tetsuji Yamamoto is the game’s producer. The game’s composer is Takayuki Hattori, Yukio Watanabe is the game’s programmer, Masahiko Sato is the game’s designer (and also the then-professor of Tokyogeidai), and Norio Nakamura is the game’s artist.

I never owned a copy of the game myself, but I saw a commercial for that game when I was a child, and this was before there was the Brain Age (Dr Kawashima’s Brain Training in PAL regions) video game series by Nintendo. The game is known for the announcer saying “PERFECT!”.

Gameplay

At the beginning of each level, the player is put on a stage that has 23–30 rows. (Though the game has a two-player mode, the two players simply take turns.) Then 12–16 rows of the stage are raised. Anywhere between 1 and 4 sets of rows comes at the user at one time. In the first stage, 3 rows of length 4 (12 blocks) come at the user at one time. In the last stage, 14 rows of length 7 (98 blocks) come at the user at one time. When all the blocks in one set are destroyed, more blocks are raised — this happens 3 times, for a total of 4 block risings per level.

If the player ever falls off the stage — either by standing on the final row of the stage as it is eliminated or by being “avalanched” off by rising blocks — the game ends.

Cube types

The cubes that approach are of three types:

• Normal cubes: Normal cubes are usually gray (the same color as the stage cubes you move around on), though this texture can change to some other color depending on the stage reached or on the game’s settings. These cubes should be cleared.
• Advantage cubes: Advantage cubes are green and should be cleared. Clearing one of these cubes marks its location with a green square. This square can be subsequently triggered to clear the surrounding 3x3 area in one move. Multiple green cubes can be cleared normally, and puzzles usually incorporate advantage cube chains. If a spot is marked by a green square, it cannot be marked in the normal manner until the advantage cube’s special feature is triggered. Effective use of advantage cubes is the key to solving puzzles efficiently. But at the same time, the player must make sure that no forbidden cube is included in the marked area (see below).
• Forbidden cubes: Forbidden cubes are black. These cubes should not be cleared, but should instead be allowed to fall off the stage. For every forbidden cube cleared, a row of the stage is lost, and a perfect score for that wave is no longer possible. In the first I.Q.: Intelligent Qube, if the player captures a Forbidden cube, red marks in the block scale will be cleared. Forbidden Cubes can be marked without being captured by an area surrounded by an Advantage Cube.

Additional penalties

If normal cubes or advantage cubes fall off the end of the stage without being cleared, the number of fallen cubes will be calculated on the block scale (i.e. a counter is increased by 1). Every time the number of fallen cubes exceeds that of the block scale, a row of the stage is lost (thereby reducing the number of rows the cubes have to travel to fall off). This number is equal to the width of the stage minus one. In the first stage, the stage is 4 cubes wide, so the limit is 3; on the final stage, the limit is 6 because the stage is 7 cubes wide. If a normal or advantage cube falls off the end of the stage, that set is not considered perfect (see below).

If the player is flattened by rolling cubes, the cubes will race to the end of the stage and fall off. All cubes (including forbidden cubes) will be counted on the block scale and can make several rows of the stage fall away. The player will then have to face the same set of cubes again (except if the puzzle is the last set on the wave).

Bonuses

After each set of blocks is destroyed, if the player did so without destroying any forbidden cubes and cleared all normal and advantage cubes then they are rewarded a bonus for perfection, and an additional row is added to the end of the stage (thereby increasing the number of rows the cubes have to travel to fall off the end of the stage). This is accompanied by a booming “Perfect!” from the game’s announcer. Solving puzzles perfectly becomes increasingly important as the game progresses because later puzzles require more rolls, and hence more rows of running space, to complete successfully.

The perfection bonus takes into account how many cube rolls it took to clear all the cubes. From the time the first cube is cleared until the time the last cube is cleared, the counter increments. The immediate consequence of this is that one can mark a spot on the stage and wait to clear it until several rows of cubes roll over top of it. An initial number of rolls is set as being an ideal number to clear. If the player clears the cubes in exactly this number of rolls (Perfect in Kurushi Final), they are given a “Brilliant” bonus of 5,000 points (10,000 in Kurushi Final). If the player clears the cubes in more than this number of rolls (Great in Kurushi Final), they are given a bonus of 1,000 points (2,000 in Kurushi Final). If the player clears the cubes in fewer rolls (Excellent in Kurushi Final), they are given a “True Genius” bonus of 10,000 points (15,000 in Kurushi Final).

Scoring

Clearing an individual cube is worth 100 points. Cubes cleared while an advantage cube is being detonated are worth 200 points each, regardless of whether they are being cleared by the player or the advantage cube. At the end of each level, the number of the rows left on the stage is multiplied by 1,000 and added to the score — this score typically has a maximum of 40,000 (Except for the 1st, 3rd, and Final Stages, their maximum scores are 27,000, 39,000 and 29,000 respectively).

When the game is over, either by finishing all the levels or by falling off the stage, the total score is displayed, as well as an I.Q. This I.Q (a play on the term “intelligence quotient”) is ostensibly the player’s efficiency in clearing cubes, on a scale of 0 to 999 (for instance, beating the game without using a continue gives you an I.Q of at least 350); however, it is simply a percentage of the score. Total scores for a well-played game without the use of continues are in the order of 1 million points. If the player falls off the stage, the player’s progress of the game is displayed and the player is given the option to continue playing.

By beating the game multiple times, additional characters that move faster than the default character, are unlocked. Characters include Eliot (the default), Cynthia (Cherry in Kurushi), and Spike the dog. Each complete play-through of the game takes approximately two hours at Level 0 speed or about 75 minutes at Level 4 speed. Also, by beating the game once, players can unlock the Original Mode where they can create their own puzzles. However, IQ and roll counters are not calculated.

Intelligent Qube received mostly positive reviews. Game Informer gave the game a positive review, over two months before its release Stateside. In Japan, however, Famitsu gave it a score of 23 out of 40.

A few sequels were made including I.Q. Final (Kurushi Final: Mental Blocks in Europe) for the Sony PlayStation and I. Q. Remix+: Intelligent Qube for the PlayStation 2. In 2006, I.Q. Mania for the PlayStation Portable, which contains puzzles from all three previously released Intelligent Qube games, was released in Japan.

I.Q.: Intelligent Qube was re-released on the PlayStation Network in Japan and Europe. Another mobile phone incarnation was announced by Upstart Games in 2005, but it is unknown if it was ever released. The game is one of twenty games included on Sony’s PlayStation Classic. In 2022, I.Q.: Intelligent Qube was added to the premium part of PlayStation Plus.

That is the first post of 2024. Happy New Year to all!