Cube Hop: Isometric Cube Hopping Game

What is Cube Hop?

Cube Hop is a free isometric cube hopping game that runs in your browser. You are Zip, a small round robot on a tower of cubes that hangs in space. Every hop goes diagonally to a neighbouring cube, and every landing changes the colour of that cube's top. Turn every cube to the goal colour and the tower is cleared.

The first tower is gentle. Then embers roll down the slopes, a seeker follows you, cracked cubes drop away a moment after you touch them, and some cubes flip back if you step on them twice.

What makes it its own game is the route. Each fresh cube you paint in a row grows a chain, and the chain multiplies your score up to x8. Step on a finished cube and the chain is gone, so a tower is a small route puzzle you solve while being chased.

Play 24 hand-shaped towers in Stages, climb a tower that never stops growing in Endless, or take on the Daily tower, the same for everyone that day. It works with a keyboard, a mouse or a phone, with no download and no account.

How to play Cube Hop

1. 

   1Press Play to start

   Pick Stages, Endless or Daily, then press Play or hit Enter. The arrows under the mode buttons start from any tower you have reached.

2. 

   2Hop diagonally with the arrows

   Zip moves corner to corner. The cubes you can reach show the arrow key that takes you there. On a phone, use the four big buttons.

3. 

   3Paint every cube top

   Each landing turns a cube's top to the goal colour. The bar at the top counts the cubes still to paint; at zero, the tower is cleared.

4. 

   4Chain fresh cubes for a multiplier

   Keep landing on unpainted cubes and the chain meter fills. Every fourth cube raises the multiplier, up to x8. Stepping back onto a finished cube empties it.

5. 

   5Ride a lift pad to shake a Seeker

   The one-eyed Seeker follows you one hop at a time. Hop onto a lift pad when it is close: the pad flies you to the top and the Seeker tumbles off after you for 500 points.

6. 

   6Read the special cubes

   Two dots mean a cube needs two landings. A ring means it flips back one shade if you land on it once finished. On the late towers every cube has both. Cracked cubes fall a moment after you land, then grow back.

7. 

   7Climb the endless tower

   In Endless and Daily the tower grows upward for ever while the floor rises from below. Paint whole rows to push the floor back.

The rules in full

1. Press Play or hit Enter. Choose Stages, Endless or Daily on the same panel first if you like.
2. Zip hops diagonally. On a keyboard, Up is up-right, Right is down-right, Down is down-left and Left is up-left, and the cubes you can reach show the matching arrow.
3. On a phone, use the four arrow buttons, tap beside Zip, or swipe diagonally. With a mouse, click a cube next to you.
4. Each landing paints the cube's top. The bar at the top shows the starting colour, the goal colour and how many cubes are left.
5. Paint every cube to the goal colour to clear the tower and collect the clear bonus.
6. Painting cubes one after another builds a chain. Every fourth cube raises the multiplier by one, up to x8.
7. Landing on a finished cube breaks the chain and sets the multiplier back to x1. So does losing a life.
8. You cannot hop off the tower: an edge just bumps you back. Cracked cubes fall a moment after you land on them.
9. A lift pad floating beside the tower carries you back up it. Hop onto one when a Seeker is close and it follows you off the edge.
10. You have three lives. Touching an Ember, a Seeker or a Sentry costs one, and so does standing on a cracked cube when it falls.

Cube Hop tips and strategy

• Look at the whole tower before your first hop. A zigzag that sweeps each row from side to side usually paints everything without crossing your own trail.
• The cube you start on is not painted until you land on it again. Plan a route that passes back over it.
• Embers only roll downhill. Wait a beat and let one pass, or step out of its lane; never race it to the bottom.
• A Seeker hops on its own clock, slower than you early on and quicker later. Lead it down one side, then take a lift pad when it is within three hops.
• Cross a cracked cube without stopping: one hop on and one hop off is safe.
• Grab the Freeze snowflake and then hunt: every frozen chaser you touch is smashed for 100 points.
• A Mop is harmless and worth 300 points. Catch it early, before it wipes the cubes you have finished.
• In Endless, finish a whole row before you move up. A sealed row pays 30 times your multiplier and pushes the rising floor back.

Cube Hop rules in full

A tower is a stack of cubes seen from a corner, so each cube touches up to four others: two above and two below. Zip hops along those diagonals; there is no jumping straight up, down or sideways.

Every landing paints the top of the cube you land on. Early cubes need one landing. From tower 6 some towers need two per cube: the first gives a middle shade and the second the goal colour.

The tower is cleared the moment every cube shows the goal colour, and your score and lives carry to the next one.

You cannot fall off the side: hopping at empty space bumps you back onto your cube, so mistakes come from chasers and routes, not a slip of the thumb.

Controls on keyboard, mouse and phone

Keyboard: the arrow keys are mapped to the four diagonals, with Up as up-right, Right as down-right, Down as down-left and Left as up-left. If it feels turned around, press Rotate arrows in How to play to shift every arrow a quarter turn.

You can also use Q, E, A and D, the number pad corners, or Home, Page Up, End and Page Down. P or Esc pauses, M mutes, and R restarts after a run.

Phone and tablet: four large diagonal buttons sit at the bottom of the screen, or in the corners when the phone is on its side. You can also tap beside Zip or swipe diagonally.

Mouse: click any cube next to Zip. The cube under the pointer is outlined when it can be reached.

Chains, multipliers and scoring

A painting landing scores 10 points times the multiplier, which starts at x1 and goes up by one for every four cubes in your chain, so a chain of 28 reaches the x8 cap.

Clearing a tower pays 200 points plus 50 per tower number, 100 for each unused lift pad, and a route bonus of 20 times your longest chain on that tower.

Clear a tower without breaking the chain once for a perfect route bonus of 500 plus 100 per tower number. Hopping alone, only towers 3, 4, 8, 13, 17, 18, 22 and 24 allow it; a lift pad ride does not break a chain.

Extras: 50 for any power-up, 100 for smashing a frozen chaser, 250 when a Seeker drops with a cracked cube, 300 for catching a Mop and 500 for luring a Seeker off the tower with a lift pad.

The chasers: Ember, Seeker, Sentry and Mop

Each chaser is announced by a pulsing diamond on its landing cube about a second ahead, so nothing hits you without warning.

Embers drop onto the upper cubes and roll downhill at random until they fall off the bottom. Seekers are violet one-eyed saucers that hover towards you, one hop at a time. Sentries pace up and down a single diagonal and never leave it.

The Mop cannot hurt you, but every cube it lands on loses a shade of paint. Catch it and it is gone.

After a hit you get back up on the same cube, or the nearest safe one, with two seconds of safety, and the Embers, Seekers and Mops are cleared.

Special cubes, lift pads and power-ups

Cracked cubes shake and fall a little over a second after you land on them. They grow back around seven seconds later and keep their paint.

Ringed cubes flip. Land on one after it is finished and it drops back one shade, so it has to be painted again.

Lift pads float beside the edge of a tower. Each works once and does not break your chain. In Stages it carries you to the top cube; in Endless, several rows up.

Power-ups stay on a cube for about nine seconds. Freeze stops every chaser for five seconds. Shield takes one hit for you. Splash paints the four cubes around it. In Endless, a Heart gives back a life, up to five.

Three modes: Stages, Endless and Daily

Stages is 24 towers in eleven shapes: Pyramid, Diamond, Hourglass, Twin Peaks, Crater, Ramp, Zigzag, Crossroads, Pine, Spire and Archway. New rules arrive every few towers, you gain a life on reaching towers 6, 11, 16 and 21, and you can start from any tower you have reached.

Endless is one tower, up to five cubes wide, that keeps growing above you while the floor eats it from below. Each new row is worth 5 points, a new zone starts every 30 rows, and the floor rises faster the higher you get.

Daily is an endless climb built from the date, so everyone gets the same tower. Your best score of the day is kept, and you can share it.

Strategy for beginners and high scores

New to it? Ignore the multiplier for a few towers. Learn the four diagonals and watch how each chaser moves.

Then plan routes: sweep the tower row by row and keep a lift pad in reserve as an exit. For big scores the chain is everything, since a landing at x8 is worth eight at x1. On two-landing towers a second landing still counts as painting, so walking back over half-painted cubes keeps the chain alive.

About the genre and this version

Hopping around a pyramid of cubes in isometric view, changing their colours while creatures chase you, has been an arcade staple since the early 1980s.

Cube Hop builds a new game on that idea: its own robot hero and chasers, towers in eleven shapes, safe edges, a chain multiplier, an endless climb and a daily tower. The art is drawn and the sound synthesized by the game itself.

Cube Hop FAQ