Into the Cube-Filled Void with Endlight Release - Hardcore Gamer

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When it really comes down to it, how much more geometry is actually needed than the standard cube?  Granted, pyramids have four faces of equilateral triangles but they don’t stack particularly well, as opposed the cube’s nice and regular six sides and ninety-degree angles everywhere.  Throw a couple million cubes on the screen and you can do practically anything, although in the case of Endlight that can feel a bit overwhelming.  Each level has a straightforward goal to fly through ten glowing gold square hoops, but the hundreds of thousands of cubes making up the mesmerizing level geometry all pulse and undulate in new patterns for each area.

Endlight is a pure abstract arcade game that in concept would have fit in with the gaming cabinets of the 80s if they wouldn’t spontaneously explode trying to render a single frame.  You’re a cube flying forward but otherwise able to move freely, like Space Harrier except without a fixed camera.  Each gold hoop you fly through gives a few seconds of invincibility while also adding a shield, up to ten total, and when you go through one it spins into the distance for a second chance to pick it up again.  The second pickup slows you down for a bit, making it much easier to steer and pick up other hoops, so when coupled with the invincibility each pickup is a chance to ram through chunks of the level with temporary wild abandon.  Flying clean or dirty is a choice, and frequently it’s the most fun to bash everything to smithereens even when that’s tough on the shield.  Most levels have a ten-hoop goal, although some are more, and the first-person areas only need five to clear.

The level structure of Endlight looks simple at first glance but there’s actually a lot going on there.  The