In this hectic world we live in, many times work and appointments must come before the fun and joys in our lives, including that of getting to play videogames whenever we want. Gone are the days when we could fire up a game of our choice and spend hours toiling away – now we seem to game in stolen moments here and there. With that in mind, perhaps it is no wonder that casual games have become such a popular gaming choice (especially with women who make up the vast majority of casual game players), as casual games allow us to either jump in and get those quick fixes of gaming bliss or either play them for as long as we want when we do have the time. In honor of the casual game, we'll be bringing you a new Casual Game of the Week every Monday to help you find that fix you might be needing in your life, and this week we have: TubeTwist: Quantum-Flux Edition

TubeTwist isn’t a perfect game, but it does a great job of showing what’s possible when you step out of the bounds of normal casual games and strive for something more, not just with gameplay, but graphics, presentation, and storytelling too.

TubeTwist is still far from having a Half-Life type story, but it still strives for a little something more than most casual games out there. You play as a young student, enrolling in a science teacher’s class, who is working with a certain type of element which could lead to a whole new type of energy. With the professor’s help, you construct her experiment, only for the elements to react, power up too much, and suddenly a vortex is being created right in front of you, and the next thing you know your professor is missing. Could she have been sucked through the portal? By copying her experiements you hope to find your teacher, but you’ll have to travel through time to find her. The cool thing about TubeTwist is watching this opening and knowing you’re in for something different. Instead of the game merely telling you what’s going on or simply flashing static imagery, you’re actually in a living breathing 3D world, watching as this swirling vortex comes into being, and you actually seeing from your first person perspective yourself passing out. The graphics are a bit crude when compared to Xbox 360 games, for example, but when looking at most PC casual games, wow does Tube Twist blow them out of the water.

The goal of each experiment is to transfer the different colored elements into their correct tubing so that the energy may be stored properly, and then once your machine reaches 100% capacity, you’re then able to move on to the next time, which has even more difficult puzzles and new tube pieces. The challenge comes in figuring out how to get colored balls from point A to point B, given the fact that you have so many pieces at your disposal, and every one of them will not necessarily be used. The game will give you so many pieces per experiment, and if you play the level exactly like they want, you’ll probably use every piece. In the early levels the pieces stick out, crying for you to place them here or there. In later levels, however, it’s much more up to you and trying things out to see if they work. For example, it’s entirely possible to shoot a ball across a gap and not go through a long tunnel, and still be able to get it to its final destination. When you can solve an experiement by unconvential methods, such as having the balls bounce off items instead of using the tubes exactly, it feels really amazing. Though you start with only straight tubes and elbow tubes, you slowly build a menagerie of complicated glass, including tubes with boost arrows, intersections, trampolines, long spiraling ramps and many, many more.

The challenge of each experiement is simply figuring them out, as there aren’t any additional challenges in the way, such as a constantly counting down timer to light a fire under your butt and get you moving. No, if you want to take an hour to figure out an experiement, well you go ahead and you take an hour. The game also doesn’t penalize you for experimentation, since having an element explode isn’t certain doom, it’s just one minor misstep on your way to finding your teacher. As you place the pipes, you can check what would happen if you started the machine now, and you can then see how the balls would slide and bounce around, and then you can make any new calculations you need to complete the level.

The controls of TubeTwist are pretty good, as the entire game can be controlled with only your mouse. The only control problem stems from the fact that the pieces don’t necessarily place themselves in the proper position each time, which means you’ll have to manually rotate them or flip arrows around, which is accomplished by clicking on the proper item on the edge of the tube’s square; since the images are at the very edge, it’s often hard to click them. Beyond that nag, it’s easy to scroll in and out of the level, pan to the left or right…you name it.

Graphically the game looks pretty darn good, which is mostly due to the semi-3D tubes and balls that exist in these open-area labs; there is a bit of jagginess when you look at the objects individually instead of as a whole, but they are still mighty impressive, and a big step up from the usual hand-drawn images that accompany most casual games. The game also has some pretty good effects as well, mostly coming from the vortex and the explosion of color that happens when a ball doesn’t properly make it to its container. The game even does replays of levels once you’ve figured them out, following the last ball to make it into its container, giving you these really tight and up-close shots. The game sounds good too, ranging from those explosions to the clinking of balls smacking up against the tubes you place, and there is even a little voicework that sounds decent for the time it is there.

TubeTwist: Quantum Flux Edition is a great game, but one that won’t necessarily be for everyone. If you hate nothing more than constant trial and error, you’ll be frustrated and bored with the game from the very opening momets, because besides getting harder and adding in new pieces, the gameplay remains relatively the same from beginning to end. If you want a casual game that’s outside the norm and brings something new to the table in terms of both gameplay, graphics, and presentation, then TubeTwist: Quantum Flux Edition deserves a moment of your time.

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