Q*Bert's Qubes(Arcade) FAQ version 1.0.0
copyright 2003 by Andrew Schultz [email protected]

Please do not reproduce this FAQ for profit without my permission. It
required a good deal of effort, and I do not look to profit off my work.
However, if you ask me nicely, mentioning my name and this specific
game, I will hopefully be un-lazy enough to reply to you.

   ** AD SPACE **

My home page:
http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/Exhibit/2762

================================

           OUTLINE

 1. INTRODUCTION

   1-1. ABOUT THE GAME

   1-2. FAQ TERMINOLOGY

 2. BASICS

   2-1. CONTROLS

   2-2. SCORING

 3. STRATEGY

   3-1. MONSTERS

   3-2. GROUP THEORY

   3-3. DEFINING OUR CUBE GROUP

   3-4. APPLICATIONS

 4. LEVEL 1

   4-1. LEVEL 1-1

   4-2. LEVEL 1-2

   4-3. LEVEL 1-3/1-4

   4-4. LEVEL 1 BONUS ROUND

 5. LEVEL 2

   5-1. LEVEL 2-1

   5-2. LEVEL 2-2

   5-3. LEVEL 2-3/2-4

   5-4. LEVEL 2 BONUS ROUND

 6. LEVEL 3

   6-1. LEVEL 3-1

   6-2. LEVEL 3-2

   6-3. LEVEL 3-3/3-4

   6-4. LEVEL 3 BONUS ROUND

 7. LEVEL 4

 8. LEVEL 5

 9. LEVEL 6 AND BEYOND

 10. INTERESTING SIDE GAMES

 11. VERSIONS/CREDITS

================================

 1. INTRODUCTION

   1-1. ABOUT THE GAME

 Q*Bert's Qubes is an interesting variant on Q*Bert--well, for puzzle
junkies anyway. In the latter, you had to guide an orange ball with feet
and a nose around a pyramid to turn the squares all one color(jumping on
a square could change it.) Balls would drop down it and the purple one
would turn into a snake but Q*Bert could also could use discs to the
side to jump and catch the snake off guard. Later purple uglies would
crawl up the sides or Sam and Slick, tiny green fellows, would bounce
down and mess Q*Bert's work up. It did get a little repetitive even
after you had to cover the pyramid twice and, later, if you stepped on a
square the correct color, it turned back.

 Q*Bert's Qubes is a bit different. Your movement is still diagonal,
and there's no 'fire' button, but now you step on a tilted 5x5 grid of
cubes. Whichever way you jump off the cube rotates it that way. The
cubes start out relatively monochrome, so you can align them quickly,
but shortly thereafter they get a different color for each face, and
it's all very confusing. The usual assortment of baddies is here, but
there are some interesting strategies that are by no means clear.
Hopefully this FAQ will straighten out some of it although it's also
partially a net to see if anyone else is playing and thinking about this
game. It's not for everyone but if you're a Math Person you'll really
enjoy this game. I took it as an opportunity to use(relatively
practically) some of the group theory I'd been taught in college. And I
think we all always look for ways to make a game harder beyond more
monsters and enemies, etc.

   1-2. FAQ TERMINOLOGY

 I'm going to abbreviate how Q*Bert moves sometimes.

NW   NE  UL   UR
 \ /      \ /
  X        X
 / \      / \
SW   SE  DL   DR

 Also I'll refer to FRONT, FORWARD, BACK, BOTTOM, LEFT AND RIGHT as the
possible cube sides.

    +-------+
   /       /|
  / TOP   / |
 /       /R |
/       / I |
+-------+  G |
|       |  H +
|       |  T/
| FRONT |  /
|       | /
|       |/
+-------+

 Back, left and bottom are the opposite side of front, right and top
respectively.

 Bottom edges are marked as follows:

   o
  o o
 o o o
o o o o
+ o o o +
+ o o +
 + o +
  + +
   +

 The horizontal row is defined as such:

   o
  o o
 o o o
o o o o
+ + + + +
o o o o
 o o o
  o o
   o

 The vertical row is defined as such:

   +
  o o
 o + o
o o o o
o o + o o
o o o o
 o + o
  o o
   +

 2. BASICS

   2-1. CONTROLS

 Just a joystick(move any direction to toggle where to start the game)
but on MAME it you need to tilt the keyboard 45 degrees clockwise for it
to make sense.

 One thing you should be aware of is that Q*Bert can use his final jump
OFF THE STRUCTURE to ensure a win. He can also run into a bad guy for a
win. However one thing that catches me is that, on death, Q*Bert appears
where he was going to land. Unless he falls off the pyramid--then he
goes to the top.

   2-2. SCORING

--5 points every time you turn over a cube
--100 points for grabbing a turtle, which also slows things down
--100 points for getting any other green thing(balls freeze the game a
bit)
--100 points for turning a cube and getting it right(in addition to the
5)
--0 points for getting a monster to disappear or if Sam/Slick rotates a
cube to the right orientation
--100 for first cube set right in bonus wave, up to 2500 for a total of
32500
--End of level bonus: 200 for each cube turned right from level 1 round
1 to level 2 round 1.
--+25 per cube from then on.
--500 points for getting the hatched creature to jump off the edge

--50000 bonus for starting at 2-1 but you only get one extra guy
--100000 bonus for starting at 2-1 but you only get one extra guy
--150000 bonus for starting at 2-1 but you only get one extra guy
--200000 bonus for starting at 2-1 but you only get one extra guy
[the key here is, start later, spend less time i.e. more money in a
smaller time, bust the high score list]

Without bonus, extra guys at 10000 + 20000x. Otherwise it's 10000+ init.
bonus + 20000x. The game doesn't store past six extra men.

Bonus time to start each level: ??

There are also some dip switches.

 3. STRATEGY

 Note first of all that the levels are randomly generated so there's no
step by step instructions. That would put a dent in the thinking side of
the game, anyway. The blocks you play with aren't randomized but the
directions they face are.

   3-1. MONSTERS

 All monsters follow a path of diagonal moves down the structure. They
fall off and are replaced by other monsters.

 First of all there is the purple ball that drops down and goes to one
of the bottom edges. It's not quite as cool as Coily and tougher to
track while falling. You can't be sure fully clear when it stops as it
can keep sliding down the diagonal bottom rows, although it can break
out pretty quickly, especially if it makes it to the very bottom. It
turns into the weird creature that runs after Q*Bert. It seems that if
you goad it close and it jumps, you have a chance it will drop off and
the purple ball will have to come back. I haven't been able to establish
anything--perhaps it has to do with finished cubes.

 The snake jumps to the left and towards you if you're above/below it
and down and towards you if you're to the left/right. This gets in the
way of if you feel there's a chase and will give unpleasant surprises.
Also if monsters pause for a second it may mean two quick jumps in the
near future, so be prepared.

 A general good avoidance strategy is to stand below a monster and see
which way it goes and react--away if lethal, toward if not. You can
often catch up to a monster from behind.

 Green turtles slow down the other monsters for a while. They appear at
the beginning of a level.

 Green balls seem to appear around 2-1 and cause everything else to
freeze. You can't pick up any monsters--friendly or no--and can still
fall off the structure, but you can also run through a lot of them. If a
monster is dissolving and you change its square's color, it will still
dissolve. However, if you jump on a square with a lethal monster and the
green ball, you will die.

 Then there are the other monsters that are mini Q*Berts(rats appear on
earlier levels, but there's no functional difference.) They dissolve
into squares if they drop on squares of the same color. This occurs even
if the cube is clear--for instance the game 'remembers' that, if your
goal was to get a red on top, and you did, then a red monster will
dissolve there.

 There's some problem I seemed to see with the monster coloring. The
brown doesn't quite seem to match, but the brown monsters are more
discernible from the yellow than the respective faces.

 Sam and Slick, green guys, disrupt your hard work by moving a cube as
you do once they're off. You can undo their work, NOT by retreading
their paths, but by leaving the cube from the opposite direction they
arrived in. Thankfully if they mess up one of your done cubes(and they
do undo cubes you've 'solved') it's only one jump to get back. They can
also cause happy accidents by turning a cube over right, which gets you
no points except for an end of level bonus. Their antics generally push
you further down so that you can run up and pick them off--it becomes
impractical to try to solve the upper edges once they appear. And they
can reappear several times--and quickly--in later levels.

   3-2. GROUP THEORY

 Group theory is an advanced area of mathematics, but don't let that
scare you and go over your head. I just want to introduce the terms.

A set G with operation * from G to G is a group if and only if

1. there is an e in G such that for all x in G, ex = x
2. for each x in G there is a y in G such that xy = e
3. (x*y)*z = x*(y*z) for all x, y and z in G. (This allows x^5 i.e.
exponential notation)

 What we claim is that the cube and all its possible rotations form a
group. Let's call A a forward rotation(Q*Bert moving NE/SW) and B a
sideways rotation(Q*Bert moving NW/SE.) The claim is that A and B
generate the cube group and we'll get into that next. By the way, first
observe that A^4=B^4=e, i.e. that e is no rotation at all.

   3-3. DEFINING OUR CUBE GROUP

 There are twenty-four different elements of the group(i.e. cube
positions) to be in. This is seen because, given a cube with different
colors on each side, one is top. There are six possibilities there and
then four possibilities for the face in front as the top face is
connected to four other faces.

 Call face 1 the top face and face 2 the front. Then to get face 1 on
top with all other faces in front we could use:

A*B*A^-1   = ABA^-1   = BA^3B^-1
A*B^2*A^-1 = AB^2A^-1 = BA^2B^-1
A*B^3*A^-1 = AB^3A^-1 = BAB^-1
A*A^-1     = AA^-1    = BB^-1    = e

 To get face 1 on bottom:

A^2    = BA^2B
ABA    = BA^3B
AB^2A  = B^2
AB^3A  = BAB

 To get face 1 on the front:

A
AB
AB^2
AB^3

 To get face 1 on the back:

A^-1
A^-1B
A^-1B^2
A^-1B^3

 To get face 1 on the right:

B
BA
BA^2
BA^3

 To get face 1 on the left:

B^-1
B^-1A
B^-1A^2
B^-1A^3

 Some of these(i.e. where you can't see face 1) aren't as impractical
as you'd think. You will get to remember which colors are on opposite
sides of which, and that is a big help. But it also shows you need no
more than four moves off any one cube to get it into place--UNLESS the
cube is on an edge. Not always easy to figure out on the spur of the
moment though.

 With a cube on an edge you may need an extra few moves as you can only
use A/B and not A^-1/B^-1 but you can be clever about the order you use
them in. And you have the additional barriers of bad guys running into
you more easily.

   3-4. APPLICATIONS

 I find the easiest strategy to use through all this is as follows:

1. Get either the front or the right face to be the right color.
2. Bounce SE/NW back and forth if it's the right face that's right, but
bounce NW/SE back and forth for the front face. Either way it'll take no
more than three tries.

 However there are other things to notice such that if serially
rotating SE/NW doesn't do the trick then you can usually rotate the
other axis once and try again. Also if a green guy changes a cube you
fixed, retrace his path in the opposite direction.

 3-5. GENERAL STRATEGIES AND INTERESTING POINTS

 It's possible to get 21 cubes turned before winning. You do this as
follows:

    +          +
   + o        + o
  o + +      + + +
 + + + +    o + + +
+ + + o +  + + o + +
 + o + +    + + + o
  + + +      + + +
   + +        o +
    o          +

 Next 'o' covered solves the level. Note the second case covers round 2
as well. But interestingly in the first round you can't achieve the
maximum. For round 1 you can get 18 maximum as you can only have one of
each pair before getting a row:

   +
  1 2
 + 3 +
1 4 5 2
+ 6 + 6 +
7 5 4 8
 + 3 +
  7 8
   +  (pick off 1-5 in the square and then get the 7/8 on the bottom to
get 17 w/o a row)



 On later levels, stuff will come in the following patterns: turtle,
snake ball, Sam, and Slick. If you get the snake to fall then the ball
will pop up again near the top.

 Since monsters drop down randomly it stands to reason that cubes on
the very edge will stay the way they are even if Sam and Slick are
bouncing around. Also if can clear out the top square and you're
fortunate enough to get a green ball later on, you might be able to
clear out one side quickly to finish a level off.

 The best cubes to get right away are the ones in the corners. They are
the ones that restrict your movement the most, as for instance if you
have the situation below:


 +--+      +--+
/  /|     /1 /|
+--+ |    +--+ |
|  |2| -> |  |2|
|1 | +    |  | +
|  |/     |  |/
+--+      +--+

 Three jumps(SW) will be required instead of one(NE.) Unless it's the
last cube. There's a bit of a counterpoint here--you COULD get away with
doing it last--but these cubes are less likely to be turned by Sam/Slick
and getting all three in the corners will allow for many different
possible rows. And having just the right setup is an outside chance.

 Note that if you have to move off a cube but want to keep its
orientation when you get back, you can try the following: NW/SE/SE/NW or
NE/SW/SW/NE.

 4. LEVEL 1

   The object is to get one row of five. Many of these levels need only
take seconds once you see a pattern. When I first started to play the
game I found I solved them by accident. But things get much tougher, and
there's a good reward for nailing things down and doing it right.

   The cube you will be rotating here looks as follows when it is
pulled apart:

     Y
     |
 P - P - P - P
     |
     Y

   It only has three orientations(ignoring symmetry.) These correspond
to a yellow square on each visible face. It is always possible to
convert to the desired orientation with no more than two moves. First
note that purple always shows up in two squares, yellow one, no matter
which direction the cube faces. Then note with yellow on top you can go
SW or SE to the other two. To move yellow from the side to the front,
just go SE and then SW--or vice versa--on the cube.

   4-1. LEVEL 1-1

 Here you'll note that a good chunk of what you need to do is done for
you. On all level X round 1 you have the following setup:

   +
  o o
 + o +
o o o o
+ o + o +
o o o o
 + o +
  o o
   +

 You can probably do this in five or fewer moves. Just go down the left
and if need be duck SE/NW before heading SW. Repeat for the next non-
clear boxk

 Later on you can just head right for the rows and take stuff out too.

   4-2. LEVEL 1-2

 Again, a lot is done for you, but still you have to be careful.

   +
  o o
 o o o
o o o o
+ o o o +
o o o o
 o o o
  o o
   +

   4-3. LEVEL 1-3/1-4

 Nothing is covered here; still you can, once you're good, tip the top
square so it becomes clear and then work your way down. The first enemy
dropped seems to occur on the left so you may want to take that into
account as you run through. But if there are a bunch of cubes with
yellow on top and in a row you might want to go through them to get
things over quickly.

   4-4. LEVEL 1 BONUS ROUND

 It's worth it to have a few seconds' spare time for this bonus level.
With 25 seconds it should be a snap. With 15 you have to be perfect. I
don't think they'll put yellow on top for any goal in this bonus round
so you will need to divide cubes into two categories: one-movers and
two-movers. And get in a rhythm and tap accordingly.

 If the yellow is on the side/front it's a two-mover: NE/SE or NW/SW
 If it's on top it's a one-mover: NE or NW will solve it. Note that
still NE=SW and NW=SE as far as results go.

 I usually get very close to 15 seconds through here, but if done right
it's 35000 points i.e. almost two extra lives, so why not try for the
big points?

 5. LEVEL 2

 This is the first structure you'll have to face. I actually didn't
find it so easy. But what you need to remember is that any one corner
has at leasty one yellow and one purple touching.

   P
   |
Y - Y - Y - P
   |
   P

 If you have:

  +--+
 /Y /|
/  / |
+--+P +
|P | /
|  |/
+--+

 ...and you needed purple on top, you could go NE. Then you'd know a
yellow was in front and you would then go NW once or twice. You can't be
sure; there may have been a purple on the back or left to start. But
once you get the right color on top it's much better--you may have to
bounce back and forth a bit but be sure to do so along the axis that has
two right colors originally. Even if the color switches it will switch
back. The object is to have the right color in top/back/bottom or
top/left/bottom. So you'll want to line the colors up and then rotate
them mercilessly.

   5-1. LEVEL 2-1

 Again, there is time to wipe out the right side if you act quickly.

   5-2. LEVEL 2-2

 You may have to duck out of the way a bit here and go to the bottom to
take care of business.

   5-3. LEVEL 2-3/2-4

 A new cube appears here--although it's three colors now I find it less
tricky than the first two stages. There are only six possibilities here
and now although A^2=e and B^2=e(i.e. 2 moves in any direction bring you
where you started) it's a lot easier to determine how to get through
things just by visual inspection.

   Y
   |
P - B - P - B
   |
   Y

 First note all three colors must be displayed at once. That having
been said you should note that there can be what seems to be a mirror
image of the cube if you rotate it either way. But it is also easy to
get one color into position on the front or side and then just rotate
the cube another way.

   5-4. LEVEL 2 BONUS ROUND

 My time is down to 30 seconds here. Basically you have to think a bit
in advance. You can note if the right color is in the front--then you
can just push NW/SE and know you can move on. If you have the right
color on the side, push NE/SW. However if this is not the case then one
of the three faces must still be the side color. You can go either SE or
NE/SE to get it in place, then NE. Repeat this semantic. If you can look
ahead that is so much the better. I can get my time down to 30 seconds
or so. But I haven't internalized everything.

 6. LEVEL 3

 Here you get to see the first cube with 24 different colors. I find
the trick here is to get a bottom edge, second-bottom edge, or, if it
seems particularly convenient, the middle one. The bottom may require
bouncing around and leaving your objective for a bit but if you keep the
green guys out of the picture you should be OK.

   L
   |
R - Y - B - D
   |
   P

R = red/pink
L = light blue
B = dark blue
Y = yellow
P = purple
B = brown

   6-1. LEVEL 3-1

 Here you might just want to clear out the center horizontal row since
it's the quickest--or the vertical column. You can probably get the
square just below easily(quick group of SE/NW then NE/SW moves or vice
versa) and do the same for the one two below.

   6-2. LEVEL 3-2

 Now only the corners are complete, but still with some care you can
just wait for the green ball, change the side or front to what it should
be, and bounce back and forth until it's all working. Here's where I
start to gravitate towards the edge. You'll probably want to proceed
from left to right although you should decide early whether an edge row
or a center row would be best.

   6-3. LEVEL 3-3/3-4

 Here Sam and Slick start to come into play. Here is where you'll want
to stay near the bottom edges because when you try to clear a bottom
edge, you have to make sure Sam and Slick don't mess things up.

   6-4. LEVEL 3 BONUS ROUND

 All subsequent bonus rounds will be the same. Here you'd better hope
you have some extra time or you won't get far. It's important to
recognize which colors are opposite which so that you can get one of the
front/right in place right away, then just move the other around.

 7. LEVEL 4

 If you're clever enough to get to level 4 from level 1 you're
certainly clever enough to figure out the basic level structure. Here
you may want to clean out the two southwest-most rows. Just guard them
against any green guys dropping down but first be sure to get the
turtle, mess around a bit, then get the green ball. It will buy valuable
time.

 For the first level you may even be able to get away with the
horizontal("diagonal") row--perhaps even for the second.

 8. LEVEL 5

 Here with three rows to cover you'll want to use the crossovers
whenever you can find them. You'll want to take care of the bottom rows
and then depending on which is easier go for a second-bottom or the
horizontal one. Watch for Sam/Slick going to the edge and if you are
close but everything is too amuck you may even want to consider killing
yourself off. Note that you get at least 13*500=6500 for completing a
level so it's better than floundering around and going backwards. You'll
probably need to fake the purple beast out, too.

 9. LEVEL 6 AND BEYOND

 Level 6 is just like level 3 except that if you bounce FROM a clear
cube it will turn back to something you have to change. Which is as
annoying as it sounds. Your best bet is to get three cubes in the
horizontal row. That is because once the corner cubes are done you can
jump either way from the horizontal-row cubes. If you can get this done
even with infinite lives you're pretty sharp. That goes double for
What's Beyond.

 Level 7 would require two in a row(from memory) and so either you need
to clear a bottom row and then the horizontal one. As I see it, you may
have trouble with the final two cubes in a row. What you'll need to do
is get one aligned so the front is right and one aligned so the right
side is right. Assume you're on the bottom left row. Then:

  +---+
 /   /|
/   / |
+---+  |
|   |! +
|   | /
|   |/
+---+

        +---+
       /   /|
      /   / |
     +---+  |
     |   |  +
     |!  | /
     |   |/
     +---+

 The sides with ! are right. What you can do is loop
around(NE/SE/SW/NW) until the bottom right is OK. Then you can bounce
back and forth on the UL one(NE/SW) until it is clear. That's a slash-
and-burn way to take care of a diagonal row--up until then you can just
use normal tactics but it is tricky to get the final cube aligned just
right so you can bounce off it away from the row.



 **** end of FAQ proper ****

================================

 11. VERSIONS

1.0.0: sent to GameFAQs 7/1/2003 functionally complete. I still probably
need to flesh out strategy details or HOW you learn to get intuition.
Any helpers?

 12. CREDITS

--mame.net for allowing me to cheat(freeze enemies, learn strategies)
--Thanks to bloomer, daremo, falsehead, RetroFreak, Snow Dragon, etc.
and others I like to talk to on AIM. I needed moral support--this one
was an abstract doozy. Thanks to HCSSiM for making me feel un-guilty
about using math for this sort of thing.

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