Cubes: Overview

Maltese studio Hacksaw Gaming, once best known for scratch cards, returns with another entry in its Pocketz Series designed for quick sessions. Following the style seen in Om Nom, Cubes is a minimalist’s delight, combining pared-back visuals with straightforward but engaging mechanics. The end result feels genuinely different; it won’t be for everyone, yet it can hit the spot for certain players or particular moods.

First impressions might make you do a double take. Imagine a Tetris/Rubik’s Cube mash-up that somehow worked, and you’re close. A 5×5 grid of plain, coloured squares sits in front of a muted cuboid backdrop that occasionally flashes white.

Matching the clean look is a mellow tribal rhythm that’s easy on the ears. Shut your eyes and it’s not hard to picture a dreadlocked street performer playing for coins, lightly tapping away on a Bali steel pan.

Pressing spin sets the grid moving, though “spin” isn’t quite the right word. Rather than reels or tumbling symbols, the 25 blocks hop upward and drop back down in a new arrangement. When 5 or more same-coloured symbols connect vertically or horizontally, extra squares are added, growing the grid to 7×7.

If that initial cluster expands, or fresh wins appear, the sequence continues, increasing the grid up to a maximum of 11×11. The chain keeps going until no new clusters form and no winning groups expand, at which point the win is totalled and paid. That is, unless a specific set of clusters appears and activates free spins – covered in the features section.

Available on all devices with stakes from 20 p/c up to $/€100 per spin, , and built with mobile play in mind, the game uses a medium volatility model and a default RTP of 96.35%. The theoretical hit rate is a fairly high 31.94%, though it didn’t consistently feel that way. In testing, long stretches of uneventful spins could pass before anything notable landed. At least the soundtrack helps those quieter moments go down smoothly.

Symbol design is as simple as it comes. There are six square types in green, yellow, red, light blue, purple, and dark blue. Notably, every colour pays the same: from 0.10x for a 5-square cluster up to 40x for clusters of 25+. That’s the full symbol set—no wilds, no scatters. Still, a few features add extra substance to the block-shuffling action; it isn’t just cubes being rearranged.

Cubes: Features

To keep things from feeling too plain, there are three features to watch for: the Middle Multiplier, Free Spins, and the Colour Blast! (their emphasis, not ours). In the base game, each spin places an ‘X’ on the centre cube. If that cube is included in a winning cluster, the X flips to reveal a multiplier that boosts the win. The number of cubes in the win increases the multiplier by 1, up to a maximum of x22.

Free spins begin when you land a set number of differently coloured clusters. Each time a new colour cluster appears, one letter in the word CUBES above the grid lights up. Light the entire word and you receive 10 free spins plus a random colour. All wins in that chosen colour become sticky for the duration of the free spins feature. During free spins, the grid size is also sticky, meaning it won’t reset between spins.

The last feature is the Colour Blast, and it can only occur in free spins. If you manage to build a cluster of 70 cubes during the free spin mode, you instantly receive 2,500 times the bet.

Cubes: Verdict

It’s fair to say Hacksaw Gaming has moved well beyond its “scratch card guys” label. Cubes again shows the team’s talent for creating slots that are simply enjoyable to play. It isn’t a big, bombastic release with a must-see hook, but it does have a pull. As with other Hacksaw titles, there’s an x-factor that makes “just one more spin” feel easy to justify. Like Tetris, there’s a satisfying buzz in getting shapes to fall into neat patterns—especially when those patterns pay.

That said, we’re not talking about enormous payouts when they do. At its peak, Cubes can deliver up to 3,167 times the bet. So, not life-changing money, but potentially enough for players who appreciate the quirky mechanics and the math model.

Colour Blast is a fun addition—if you can actually reach the free spins. In testing, getting there felt close to a Herculean effort. If you’re hunting for truly massive top-end potential, you may want to check out Hacksaw’s fixed jackpot slot The Haunted Circus for possible multi-million Euro wins.

Overall, Cubes feels like a very current game built for the smartphone era. It’s straightforward, breezy, and still capable of producing the occasional solid hit. Clearly, it’s not one of those huge, high volatility, high ceiling slots you set out to conquer. But that’s not the goal here, nor for the series. Cubes is easy to imagine players loading up on their phones to pass the time with – which is essentially the Pocketz Series in a nutshell.