Dev Reveals Secrets Behind New "3D" Platformer for the ZX Spectrum

Summary

Image: GoginAs you may or may not already know, last week saw the start of YRGB 2025, a retro game development competition for the ZX Spectrum computer scheduled to last between August 7th to August 20th. As a result, we've recently seen a large increase in the number of homebrew releases for the classic machine, with exciting titles like Manu & Kit's Asymmetry and Miguelito's Escape from the Twilight Castle, becoming available to play and download for free. One game, in particular, however, seems to have generated a lot more conversation than most, with social media being awash with praise and, in some cases, disbelief at what the developer had managed to pull off. We're talking, of course, about Cubix — the new ZX Spectrum game from the homebrew developer Gogin — which its creator is boldly calling "the first-ever 3D platformer" for the popular '80s computer, due to its impressive Fez-like "rotating" levels. Cubix is probably best described as a puzzle platformer and takes place across six large towers. It sees players taking control of Bix — a small square-shaped creature — who must find a talisman broken by the evil lord of Chaos, Hexatron. Manoeuvring Bix around the map, players will travel across a 2D plane, collecting new abilities to help them progress, with the map rotating once you get to the edge of the screen. Speaking about how he came up with the initial idea, Gogin told Time Extension over Twitter/X, "The idea itself came to me two years ago, after I first played Fez on the PC. At that point, I already had a couple of projects in the works, but the idea seemed very fresh to me. I thought it would be nice to try to implement something similar on the ZX Spectrum. Not necessarily a clone of Fez, but something close to it. "I had never tried anything like this before, but I gained some experience with fast graphics rendering when I made the game called Nothing in 2021. The main question was: could the ZX Spectrum handle it or not?" According to Gogin, whi...