CubedRPG

A handcrafted-feeling voxel action RPG in an endless, procedurally generated world. Pick one of eight classes, clear your way from level 1 to 75, dive into dungeons, hunt legendary loot and forge the best gear yourself.

What is CubedRPG?

CubedRPG is a single-player action RPG built on its own voxel engine. It takes the feel of Cube World, the loot chase of Diablo and Path of Exile, and the dungeon puzzles of Zelda, and puts them all in a bright, blocky, low-poly world that goes on forever.

You start in Kingsreach, a big walled market town. Beyond its gates the land rolls out in every direction: meadows and forests, deserts and savanna, jungles and swamps, frozen taiga and tundra, and mountain ranges with snowy peaks. Rivers carve valleys through it, roads run between towns, and every hill you climb shows you somewhere new to go. The further you go from home, the tougher the monsters and the better the loot.

It's a game about the grind, in the good way. Clear packs of monsters and grow stronger level by level. Every so often, a column of light marks a drop that changes your build.

Eight classes, one shared chibi body

Every hero is a chibi adventurer on the same body, so any armour or weapon your class can use looks right on you. Each class plays differently:

• Warrior: sword and shield. Blocks, charges in and holds the line.
• Berserker: huge two-handed weapons, rage and reckless power.
• Paladin: holy magic and heavy armour. Heals, protects and smites the undead.
• Rogue: daggers, stealth, speed and critical hits.
• Ranger: bows, traps and kiting from range.
• Mage: pure arcane spellcasting.
• Elementalist: fire, frost and lightning, with status effects to match.
• Necromancer: curses, souls and an army of the dead.

Every class has seven to nine skills, including an ultimate, plus passives. You put four skills on your action bar, unlock more as you level, and spend skill points to rank them up to 9.

A world with things to find

• Towns full of storybook townsfolk: weaponsmiths, armourers, tailors, jewellers, alchemists, a crafting master and an innkeeper. Shops restock every day and get better as you level. Rest at an inn to heal, and you'll wake up there if you fall.
• Dungeons under old crypts, desert tombs, frozen vaults and overgrown ruins. Find the small key and the boss key, solve the push-block puzzle, and face the dungeon's master at the end for a great chest of loot.
• Goblin camps, bandit hideouts and shrines that heal you and cleanse your ailments.
• Ancient ruins guarded by giants: a stone golem in the drylands, an ancient treant in the forests, and a dragon in the mountains and the cold.

Monsters that fight back

There are more than thirty kinds of creatures, from wolf packs, boars and crabs to zombies, wraiths, imps and mimics disguised as treasure chests. They don't just swing at you:

• Wolves pounce and howl for the pack.
• Spiders pin you down with webs.
• Wraiths drain your life and blink behind you.
• Bosses telegraph their big moves with a red ring on the ground, summon minions and get enraged at low health.

Not everything wants a fight. Boars, crabs and scorpions leave you alone unless you attack them, and wolves only hunt at night. Monsters also keep their distance from each other, so the world isn't one endless brawl.

Loot, loot, loot

• Six rarities: Common, Uncommon, Rare, Epic, Legendary and Mythic, with randomly rolled affixes.
• Legendary effects that change how you play.
• Named uniques that only drop.
• Glowing drops: weapons land on the ground glowing in their rarity's colour, and the rarest send a column of light into the sky you can spot from far away.
• Your gear, your way:
  • Salvage what you don't need into materials.
  • Reforge an item's affixes.
  • Add an enchantment.
  • Sell the rest to a merchant.

Gather and craft

Mining and chopping give you resources: coal, iron and gold ore, crystal, stone, logs, fibre, herbs and mushrooms.

• Craft tools by hand anywhere.
• Smelt ore at a campfire.
• Brew potions at the alchemist's.
• Forge equipment at an anvil. Pick a slot, a quality and a base, and it comes out at least Rare. Crafting is one of the best ways to get top-tier gear.

Levels 1 to 75

The early levels fly by, so you get your class going quickly. The late game is a real grind: every level takes a little longer, monsters hit harder, and you'll be clearing packs, running dungeons and hunting bosses to reach the cap.

A living world

• Time and weather: a full day and night cycle, and weather that changes on its own (rain, snow, thunderstorms with forked lightning, morning mist in the valleys).
• Light: soft shadows, and coloured light from lanterns, lava and glowing crystals.
• Sound: every sound and piece of music is generated by the game itself.
  • Footsteps change with the ground you walk on.
  • Caves echo.
  • Everything goes muffled underwater.
  • The music shifts from a folk tune by day to a gentle nocturne at night, an oud in the desert, bells in the cold and a dark drone underground.

How to play

Getting started

1. Unzip the download anywhere and run VoxelEngine.exe. Windows may warn you that the game isn't signed; click More info, then Run anyway.
2. Create a character. Pick a name and one of the eight classes. You can have several characters and several worlds.
3. You start in Kingsreach with your class's starting gear, a few potions and wooden tools. Walk around and talk to the merchants (G), then head out through a gate.
4. Fight. Point your crosshair at a monster and click to attack. Use your skills (1–4), dodge-roll out of the red rings (tap Shift), and drink a potion (Q / R) when things get hairy.
5. Level up. Open your skills (K) to spend skill points and choose which four skills are on your bar. Open your inventory (E) to equip better gear.
6. Explore further as you get stronger. Monsters get tougher the further you go from Kingsreach, and so does the loot.

Controls

Key	Action
WASD + mouse	Move and look
Space	Jump / swim up / climb out of water at a bank
Left Shift	Hold to sprint · tap to dodge-roll (a moment of invulnerability)
Left mouse	Attack. Hold on a block to mine or chop it; your best tool is used automatically
Right mouse	Raise your shield, or a heavy attack if you have no shield
1 – 4	Class skills
Q / R	Drink the potion in slot 1 / 2
Tab	Lock on to the nearest target
G	Talk, trade, open chests, unlock doors, touch shrines, use crafting stations
E	Inventory and equipment (right-click an item for salvage, reforge, enchant and sell)
B	Crafting
C	Character sheet
K	Skills
V	First- or third-person camera
Ctrl + mouse wheel	Camera distance
Z	Minimap: near / far / hidden
M / N	Sound on or off / music on or off
F9	Save now
Esc	Pause menu and settings

Tips

• Dodge the red rings. A red circle on the ground means a big attack is coming. Get out of it, or roll through it.
• Mind the monster's glow. A monster glowing orange is about to strike.
• Walk over glowing drops. Gear stays on the ground until you step on it. The colour of the glow and the height of the light column tell you how rare it is before you even look.
• Upgrade your pickaxe early. Iron ore needs a stone pickaxe, and gold and crystal need an iron one. Make a stone pickaxe by hand (B), smelt iron at a campfire, and make iron tools at a workbench.
• Rest at an inn. It heals you fully, and it becomes where you wake up if you fall.
• Leave the calm ones be. Boars, crabs, scorpions and orc brutes won't attack unless you do. Hit one, though, and its friends join in.
• Fight above your level. Monsters above your level give bonus experience (up to +50%).
• Shrines heal you and clear bad status effects. Look for the glowing crystals.
• Adjust the settings. The view distance goes up to 24 chunks, and the game is optimised to handle it, with shadow quality, graphics options and volume in the menu.

System requirements

• Windows 10 or 11 (64-bit)
• A graphics card with OpenGL 4.5 (most GPUs from 2015 onward)
• Nothing else to install; the game is self-contained

Early access

CubedRPG is in active development, and this is a playtest build. Expect rough edges, and please tell me about anything that breaks, feels wrong or is confusing. The included README explains where your saves and logs are, and what to send with a bug report. Your feedback shapes where the game goes next.

Tags: action rpg, voxel, open world, procedural generation, loot, dungeon crawler, singleplayer, fantasy, exploration, crafting