To get some more information on tomorrow's announcement of the Rubik's World title for Wii and DS, which will be published in the fall by The Game Factory, we conducted two separate interviews. We spoke first with the game's Dutch developers: Two Tribes managing director Martijn Reuvers, and the company's creative director Collin van Ginkel, who also serves as lead designer on Rubik's World. We also spoke with with David Hedley-Jones, senior vice president for the Rubik brand at Seven Towns, which owns the Rubik's Cube IP. Here's what they had to say:

Whose idea was it to make a Rubik's Cube game?

David Hedley-Jones, senior vice president for the Rubik brand at Seven Towns, credits The Game Factory with the original vision for this licensed videogame. "Game Factory approached us," he says. "They were obviously aware that there's a whole new craze going on about Rubik, which has been building over the last four or five years, reaching a critical mass last year in 2007 and carrying on this year as well. It's a great time to get involved with a brand and an iconic image that's appealing to a whole new young generation."

I want to know more about the game, but this Rubik's Cube revival is interesting. Did Seven Towns drive that, or did it happen more organically?

"It was fairly organic, to be honest," says Hedley-Jones, citing the slew of programs at the turn of the century that looked back at significant pop culture events, many of which devoted time to the Rubik's Cube. He also points to the independent World Cube Association, which bills itself as an organization which "governs competitions for all puzzles labeled as Rubik puzzles, and all other puzzles that are played by twisting the sides, so-called 'twisty puzzles'." He adds: "It's also been featured a lot in movies and advertising in particular over the last five or six years, which obviously creates a great brand awareness."

Advertising? You mean like that Playstation 3 launch commercial?

Absolutely. "They came to us and asked us if they could use the Cube in their advert," says Hedley-Jones. And in a wonderfully recursive example of life imitating art imitating life, Game Factory publicist Damien Sarrazin told us that when his company and developer Two Tribes went to pitch the Rubik's World concept to Seven Towns, one of the pieces of video they showed was that very same PS3 ad. "The commercial with the PS3, where you see actually the Cube being deconstructed, is the ancillary idea of our game concept," Sarrazin says.

I'd like to hear from the developers now, thank you very much. Are they Rubik's Cube experts?

The two gentlemen we spoke with were not, but others at Two tribes are. "I didn't have much experience solving it, but I did have one," says Two tribes creative director Collin van Ginkel. "But some of the other guys here are really good-they can solve it in under a minute. As for Two Tribes managing director Martijn Reuvers, he says, "I'm very good at scrambling cubes. That is one of my top skills."

Okay, let's talk about the game. Am I just going to be manipulating a virtual Rubik's Cube with my Wiimote or my DS stylus?

Uh, no. "The challenge for us was, how do you make Rubik's Cube fun on a game console," says van Ginkel, who adds that every member of the staff was given a Rubik's Cube as part of the creative process. "There's even a Japanese Rubik's Cube game, but it's basically a Brain Training clone which lets you solve Rubik's Cube puzzles and gives you IQ Points for it. We looked at that and said, 'No, this is not how you do it.' So we looked at the Rubik's cube, and what we saw was not just a puzzle, but a world of possibilities. That's why it's called Rubik's Cube World. We basically take apart the Rubik's Cube-which consists of 27 separate cubes-and we make those little cubes the stars of the game."

Sounds good, but I want to know more about the gameplay.

The Wii and DS versions of Rubik's World share the same overall concept, but the gameplay is platform-specific. "It's a highly stylized world in which the Cubies-the small parts of the Rubik's Cube, which are 2-D on the DS and 3-D on the Wii-live," says van Ginkel.

Their world, he explains, lacks color, so it's your job to help them colorize their monochromatic environments by "answering" the questions posed to you by the Cubies. "They will ask you a question like, 'Hey, what does a tree look like in the real world?' and then you can use one of the in-game activities to construct a tree made out of the Cubie shapes. Then, all of a sudden in the environment, there will be a forest made from the trees that you built." The more you play the game, more Cubies begin to inhabit the world, and the word itself becomes brighter and more colorful.

Anything particularly interesting about the DS version?

The stylus will be the main form of input. But you'll be able to create your own tunes for use in the game: victory jingles, game over jingles, and the like. You can also record sounds using the microphone and incorporate those into Rubik's World.

What are the controls like on the Wii version?

You can play the game with just the remote, but by incorporating the nunchuk, you get finer positional control. "We mostly use the pointer," says van Ginkel. "There are some motion controls, but it's not going to be a game like Wii Sports where you move all over the place with the Wii remote. Because, of course, the Rubik's Cube is a puzzle game, and all the other games we have in Rubik's World are of the puzzle genre, mostly."

Is online multiplayer too much to hope for on the Wii?

Sadly, there's no online play here, though you'll be able to exchange scores and screenshots with friends via WiiConnect24. But when you're all gathered around the same TV, certain games on the Wii version will let up to 4 people play simultaneously, building together and even creating tunes together. For other games, one person completes the activity while others can point stuff out on screen using their Wiimotes.

Fine, fine: no online multiplayer. Any other cool features I should know about?

"We'll be using the photos from the Photo Channel when you're solving a Rubik's Cube, so that you get a customized version of your Rubik's Cube," says van Ginkel. "Which should probably make it easier for you to solve it, because you have an image to construct instead of colors."

Can you send that photo puzzle to your friends?

"We hadn't thought of it, but it's a good idea," says Reuvers. "I will write that down. I'm not sure if that's even possible to just share those photos." After some cross talk about what kind of data could be sent via Wi-Fi Connection versus WiiConnect24, Reuvers added: "Let's just say that it's 'pending further technical investigation.' "

No problem. Just make sure our check is in the mail. Two final questions: is there anything in the game that pertains to the actual Rubik's Cube itself? Any plans to bundle an actual Rubik's Cube with the game when it ships in the fall?

"We incorporated all kinds of tutorials so that the player gets tips and hints on how to solve an actual Rubik's Cube," says Reuvers." On the bundling question, the general sentiment was that Nintendo packaging guidelines would probably not allow such an option, but it could emerge down the road as a promotion with a specific retailer.