If you like puzzle games that don’t force you to hurry with any sort of countdown timers or other forms of impending doom, but don’t slouch in the “taxing your brain" department, then you’ll likely want to check out Cubether from developer Mandigondo. In fact, creating a relaxing experience was the entire inspiration for Mandigondo after a hectic time developing and releasing their first game Theo Space Miner ($1.99) back in August of 2018. The other core tenet of Cubether is that of minimalism and self discovery. To that end, there is no tutorial in the game and instead you’re meant to figure stuff out on your own. However, as scary as that sounds the game does revolve around some easy to understand concepts about moving cubes, and as the developer explains: “Each of the cubes moves in a different way and to get to some platforms you need to use the capabilities of another cube. Two cubes of the same color form a medium cube. Three small cubes form one large that can activate the exit platform. It is not always worth hurrying with merging cubes, because quick merging may not allow you to move other cubes to the right place."
So, a game without a tutorial is a bit of a bold choice, especially in the world of mobile where many players fall on the casual side of the spectrum and expect things to be easily understood within the first few seconds of firing up a new game. It’s crucial to get this right, and in order ...