1.all the hints for controls in game should now be appropriate.
2.puzzle mode now has a rule description in game, and you can stay
  on the same level if you failed, but the puzzle is still random.
3.puzzle mode will no longer fail on "missed shots," and can pause
  then leave to main menu now. Usually we have to make cubes in-
  visible when paused to prevent cheating, but considering this
  game is still in alpha testing phase, so we are not adding this.
4.now AI vs AI demo mode has a hint to tell you can pause and quit.
5.added a notice on the main menu to remind players about README.

You can fetch the new versions at the download page

It suddenly comes to me that why there are never “open alpha” kind of things.

We know what alpha, beta versions mean. We know a lot of games like to put on demos before release, and these demos usually are of “beta” quality, with limited game features (locked away or something like that). But at this stage the developer/publisher is probably relying on the demo’s advertising functionality rather than finding out bugs and glitches.

That said, we don’t have that kind of resources to went through well designed in-house QA processes (the only testers are the developing team, which means us, and some friends we get in touch with), and although the game is just half done, we still want to hear what other gamers think about our game design. So here we go — “open alpha”.

CuBeat actually has been in this “half-done” stage for years. It really didn’t change much after we did it for our graduation project. We still have quite a few features that laid still in our Game Design Documentation. The game is just half broken in some aspects. But after the initial release of the demo on 2 of the largest Bulletin Board System(s) in Taiwan (ptt and bahamut’s LittleGames/Chat boards), the responses have been quite helpful to us. And I must say these people are pretty kind and tolerant for a half broken game! :p

We’ve collected some opinions and suggestions from the testers, and we are on our way to make CuBeat better gradually.

Lastly I’d like to quote Andy Schatz’s talk from GDC 2011 (GDC 2010 China as well). Ask players these questions:

1. What do you like about this game?
2. What do you not like about this game?
3. What makes you confused?

These are the most important questions (or the reactions worth paying heavy attention to) during/after a tester’s play-through.

It’s been quite a while since we ever release anything to the public about this game. Phew :p

And now: the official website finally got updated : )

Anyway, we recently uploaded the alpha version of the game, available on Windows, OSX, and even Linux, if you have any problem trying out the alpha demo of CuBeat, please leave your messages here, or post anything you want to say to the issue report page

we’ll start blogging things about the recent development about this game, issues we had and resolved (or still trying to resolve), in English, whenever possible.

Link to the download page

Please do tell us about what you think about this game!