Cube Life: Island Survival

Development

Mojang's popular sandbox title Minecraft, which saw its first console outing on the Xbox 360 in 2012, was not officially announced for the Wii U until December 2015. Prior to this, Microsoft wholly acquired Mojang in September 2014, and at the time Minecraft was already either available or announced for most major platforms except Nintendo's. Following the acquisition, many gaming news outlets expressed skepticism that Minecraft would arrive on any Nintendo platform, let alone Wii U. However, later that same month, startup developer Nexis Games announced their own sandbox title UCraft for the Wii U. According to Nintendo Life, UCraft is regarded as very similar in both graphical aesthetic and gameplay to Minecraft, and likely "could fulfil a key gap in the market on the Wii U." Due to Nexis Games' poor track record, and following the sketchy development of UCraft, other indie developers decided to follow suit and release their own iterations of Minecraft-inspired titles for Nintendo platforms. One of those developers was Cypronia.

Cypronia announced Cube Life: Island Survival in January 2015 with a release date later that year, promising that the "goal is [to] create the best block building open-world sandbox game for Nintendo platforms." Cypronia emphasized they would continue to update the game throughout 2015 and beyond, improving the game based on consumer feedback via Miiverse, Facebook, Twitter and various online community forums, such as on their official website. Cypronia was keen on distancing Cube Life: Island Survival from being defined as a Minecraft clone.

In May 2015, Cypronia announced the game would be available in both North America and Europe the following month. Cypronia CEO Stefan Pavelka was confident that their title has a lot to offer, claiming, "If we compare the game to competitors, other Wii U games of that genre, we will offer much more fun and greater value, either by means of lower price or by providing more content and features." The game had a promotional discount during launch period.

HD remake

With Cube Life: Island Survival becoming very popular on the Wii U, Cypronia has announced Cube Life: Island Survival HD, an HD remake of Cube Life: Island Survival for the upcoming Nintendo Switch and competitor console PlayStation 4. The game is said to launch in 2017. However, despite being called Cube Life: Island Survival HD, it is simply the original Wii U game, albeit upscaled to high-definition. No other news about the remake has been released.

Reception

Nintendo Life gave the game an 7/10, praising the game's new ideas but criticizing the long load times.