JohnAttridge
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22 Cans talks Curiosity: What's in the Cube and more
22 Cans is Peter Molyneux's latest endeavor -- a smaller indie game company from the creator of titles like Populous, Black and White and Fable that's putting together more experimental games on platforms like iOS. The company's first title is Curiosity, a game/experience that arrived on the App Store a little while ago. And now the developers are doing some interviews talking about how Curiosity is doing, and what's next for 22 Cans going forward. Jack Attridge is up first; he's a game designer at 22 Cans, and he recently talked with 148Apps about how Curiosity has changed during development. Initially, it was very straightforward (and the game is still very simple): Players would just tap away "cublets" off of a gigantic cube, in a sort of massively multiplayer attack of destruction. But the devs found that the game needed even more rewards, so they added in combo bonuses and a clear screen bonus for clearing cubes completely off of the iPhone or iPad's screen. He hints at what's next with the game as well: "There is something that people tapping on the cube are doing, and are already involved in that they are unaware of," says Attridge. "I can't say what that is yet, but in the future...that tapping will have counted for something." We're not sure what that means, but Curiosity has been interesting so far, and odds are it will continue to be so. Over on RockPaperShotgun, Molyneux himself chimes in to say that 22 Cans has been overwhelmed by the reaction to Curiosity, both in terms of its servers being overrun, and Molyneux's own emotional state (at one point in the interview, he reportedly breaks down and cries when considering just what he wants the experiment to mean to the world). 22 Cans has also just launched a Kickstarter for another game, called Project Godus and supposedly based on Populous itself, so Molyneux talks about how he's approaching game design these days. It sounds much more agile and responsive than the big titles he's worked on in the past. Both interviews are definitely worth reading, especially if you've been as fascinated by the experiment behind Curiosity as I am. It'll be interesting to see what happens with the 22 Cans model as it continues forward.
