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Molyneux's Curiosity cube concludes [Update: Winner's video added]
22 Cans' Curiosity: What's Inside the Cube ended today, revealing a live stream of tweets using the hashtag #whatsinsidethecube to the public. Peter Molyneux noted via Twitter that the last person to chip away at the cube is located in the UK, and was the sole person to see what's actually at the middle of the cube, which is seemingly a link to a video and more than just a collection of tweets. "The winner should have a message on their cube now!!! Asking them to email a special email address, hope they share," Molyneux tweeted. Curiosity launched in November 2012 on the App Store, and had players around the globe chipping away at pixel-like squares on the multi-layered cube to collectively get to its core. We will update as we learn what was really inside the cube, providing the winner decides to share it with the world. Update: The video given to the winner of Curiosity has been shared by Molyneux and 22 Cans, and can be seen above. Update 2: Spoiler alert! The prize for the winner of Curiosity, as outlined in the video by Molyneux himself, is that they "will be the god of all people that are playing Godus. You will intrinsically decide the rules that the game is played by." Godus is a god game in development by 22 Cans, which received over $852,000 in Kickstarter funding for the project in late December 2012. Molyneux added that the winner, a certain Bryan Henderson of Edinburgh, Scotland, will also "share in the success of the product," in that "every time people spend money on Godus, [he] will get a small piece of that pie." Molyneux said he'll reveal details on how the prize will be carried out at a later date.
Molyneux's Godus goes mobile, Mobage with publisher DeNA
Godus, the Kickstarted god game from Peter Molyneux's 22Cans, will be published on mobile devices by DeNA in western territories, Japan and Korea. Godus raised £526,563 ($852,000) with Kickstarter in December, exceeding its goal of $£450,000 ($730,000). It will launch on PC and Mac, alongside mobile devices Android, iPad, iPhone and iPod Touch. Godus will use DeNA's Mobage platform for mobile and social games, joining previous handheld iterations within the No More Heroes, Final Fantasy and Professor Layton franchises, to name a few.
DeNA to publish Godus on iOS
Peter Molyneux's studio 22cans has been working on a Populous followup game called Godus, and the company has just announced a deal for a publisher. DeNA, the Japanese company behind the Mobage social platform, will be publishing Godus on iOS. And the game will also connect up to Mobage in Western companies and in Japan and Korea. DeNA is an interesting choice for Molyneux -- the company is usually known for casual games, and the audience is largely Japanese so far. But DeNA has definitely been looking to expand to the West and seeking well-known developers to do that with, including a game they're working on with former EA designer Ben Cousins. Plus, Molyneux has released Curiosity on iOS already, and that game didn't quite have the reception that he hoped for. So it sounds like this teamup will be good for both sides. Godus is set to arrive, after being previously crowdfunded on Kickstarter, sometime this year.
22Cans speeds up the Curiosity cube
Peter Molyneux's 22Cans studio put out Curiosity on iOS last year, as a sort of a social game-slash-experiment. The idea was that hundreds of thousands of people would be able to download the app, and then use it chip away (by tapping) on a virtual cube, unearthing layer after layer of virtual cubes, with only one person getting the chance to eventually tap on the center. Originally, the project was scheduled to end sometime next year, but that's become too long for 22Cans: The company has decided to update the app down to the last 50 layers. "I think six months is a long time for this to go on," Molyneux has told Wired. "We're on the cusp of it being forgotten about." That's certainly true -- the iOS market moves quickly, and Curiosity never really did catch players' attention the way 22Cans hoped it would. But Molyneux believes that even though the app may have fallen down many players' priority lists, the project is worth following through on. "It is life-changing in any measurable way," he says about the reward hidden at the center of the cube. "I'm telling you, you want this." Interesting. Curiosity has also been playing with monetization, offering in-app purchases to both remove cubes from the game more quickly, and even offering to put them back on for a certain price. But for all of its experimenting, Molyneux says the game has only made "a few tens of thousands" of British pounds. 22Cans is also expected to announce another new title -- the company is currently working on a followup to Populous called Godus, which it ran a successful Kickstarter campaign for, and boosting Curiosity's interest will help them promote the next title after that. So if interest picks up again, it may not be long at all before we finally see these last 50 layers chipped away. And then, we'll all get to finally find out just "what's in the cube."
Assassin's Creed 3 director Jamie Stowe joins 22cans
Assassin's Creed 3 level design director Jamie Stowe recently joined Peter Molyneux's 22Cans studio. Stowe will assume the role of technical director for Godus, the developer's spiritual successor to Populous. Stowe worked at Codemasters as a QA lead and level designer prior to joining Ubisoft Singapore in 2009.22Cans successfully raised £526,563 ($852K) on Kickstarter in December 2012 to fund Godus' development. Molyneux and his crew posted a new video update to 22Cans' Facebook page, which welcomes Stowe to the team.
Godus Kickstarter concludes at £526K
Peter Molyneux's 22cans studio has completed its Kickstarter for Godus with £526,563 ($852K) in funding, from 17,184 backers. The game, which is a spiritual successor to Molyneux's Populous, reached its Kickstarter goal of £450,000 two days ago.If you'd like to check out some prototypes for Godus, 22cans gave an overview earlier this week, following up with a multiplayer video. The game will be out when Molyneux says it's out.
Molyneux's Project Godus reaches Kickstarter goal
Peter Molyneux's studio 22cans has reached its £450,000 ($730K) Kickstarter goal for Godus, a spiritual successor to Molyneux's classic game Populous. The Project Godus Kickstarter reached its goal with a little under two days to go.The studio has been a PR kick the past couple of days, summoning a pair of prototype videos that helped drive donations for the game's final days on the crowdsourcing site. The first gave a basic overview, while this morning's showed off the prototype for Godus' multiplayer.
Molyneux plays, shows off Godus multiplayer
Peter Molyneux sits down and plays some Godus multiplayer in this latest update to the Kickstarter project, which is entering its final two days. If you're a fan of Molyneux's classic game Populous, you'll recognize a lot of the ideas in Godus with prettier packaging. It also ends in the classic "have all your followers kill all the other God's followers" cataclysmic showdown.Project Godus has two days to go before its Kickstarter campaign concludes and it's looking on track -- as of this writing it's at £429,000 -- to hit its £450,000 ($730K) goal.
Godus prototype video released as Molyneux Kickstarter teeters
With three days left to go, and another £80,000 needed to reach its Kickstarter goal, Peter Molyneux's studio 22cans is throwing out a "hail mary" prototype video of Godus.22cans also plans to post a second prototype video sometime today with commentary from Molyneux, detailing Godus features found in and missing from the current prototype video.Project Godus currently has about £389,000 ($630K) in pledges, with a goal of £450,000 ($730K) and three days to go. Per the basic rule of Kickstarter, the project will not receive the pledged funding if it doesn't reach the goal. You can explore more about Godus and Molyneux's move back into indie development in our Super Joystiq Podcast Special.
Molyneux hopes to have Godus prototype available on Friday
Peter Molyneux and his experimental game studio 22 Cans hope to have a prototype of project Godus available tomorrow, December 14, the famed creator tells Ars Technica."I've seen the prototype, I've actually played it... I've got a few changes I'd like to be made, but the progress has been pretty constant, so Friday is going to be the time when we show the rest of the world what the prototype is," Molyneux says.Godus is a reimagining of Molyneux's breakout 1989 god game Populous, and the new prototype should be available for PC and mobile download. Earlier this month, Molyneux told us he hoped to have a prototype out by Christmas."[The prototype] is not the most beautiful piece of computer interaction ever, but you knead it and you touch it and you get the idea that sculpting the landscape is amazing, seeing things react in the landscape is incredible, and it's definitely going to work," Molyneux says.The Godus Kickstarter has seven days to raise £180,000, to reach its goal of £450,000.
22cans' lead game designer talks about Curiosity and moving forward to Godus
Gary Leach is the lead game engineer at 22cans, which you probably know by now is game designer Peter Molyneux's experimental startup aiming to put together 22 different game experiences before actually releasing a full title. So far, 22cans has favored the iOS and Mac platforms with their releases: Curiosity is their first experiment, and it launched on the App Store to both great, well, curiosity, and even some complaints about server outages and bugs. But the game is better now, says Leach. "It's going really well," he told TUAW today. "In some ways we're kicking ourselves for planning it so badly, and we had some big decisions to make on whether we're going to take the thing down or try and poke through this." In the end, however, 22cans decided to update the game -- they released version 2.0 this week, and Leach says "the community feel is still just amazing." At this point, Leach says the game's popularity has essentially leveled out. People come and go, and he says a lot of users will come back occasionally just to see how the game is doing. But there are about as many people leaving the game as arriving, so while the numbers are obviously down from launch, they're steady at the moment. Aside from the technical bugs, Leach says one of the hardest things about the game has been balancing its casual and hardcore audiences. In-app purchased items in the game are sold for hundreds of thousands or even millions of in-app coins, and Leach says that "the range of motivations" to earn that currency "is enormous. These beginner types will come on and earn a few thousand coins and think they've done well. But the hardcore audience, 100,000 coins for them is no work at all. So how do you balance that?" Leach says that's the main crux of the conversations during Curiosity's development, and that "a lot of it came down to who's going to be on middle marker and how much they can earn." Users continue to tap away at the big cube in Curiosity, but 22cans and Leach have moved on to the next experiment, a "re-imagining" of Peter Molyneux's original god game, Populous, called Godus. The team has headed to Kickstarter for funding on this project, and Leach says that's because while Curiosity was the kind of experiment that was meant to say "hey world, we're here," Godus is more involved, and it's "the kind of title that potentially publishers may not have gone for." Not much is known about the game, but it will allow players to warp the geography of a virtual world, as well as oversee virtual citizens living and fighting in various battles together. Currently, 22cans is hard at work on a prototype of the game, and Leach says the prototype is mostly being developed on Mac and iOS (the studio has also announced that the final title will be available on Apple's platforms as well). But the current prototype, according to Leach, is only code "that we are using for our own internal evaluation process. None of this code is going to go into the final product. This is code that's going to get binned." So Godus as a finished project hasn't even started yet. As a developer, Leach says he's very excited to work on it, however. He started "kind of midway through the Curiosity project," and says he "was spending the first few weeks trying to catch up to what we were doing." But Godus, on the other hand, is more his speed. "When we first started talking about Godus, that's when I thought this was the product I was meant to make," Leach says. "I'm doing something here that is going to run beautifully on mobile devices and is going to look as good as a desktop game." Godus' Kickstarter is up and running now, and with about seven days left, 22cans has picked up just under three-fourths of the money it's asking for. But Leach's enthusiasm is still very strong. "There's so many reasons to be excited."
Molyneux has 'hope' for downloadable Godus prototype by Christmas
22 Cans Kickstarter project Godus will hopefully have a downloadable prototype by Christmas, Peter Molyneux told us in a recent interview. The 22 Cans founder, who is painfully aware of his public persona of over-promising over the years, recognizes Kickstarter projects are currently in that same precarious position."I hope by Christmas we have a prototype that people can download and say, 'Actually, you know what, they're already doing good work,'" Molyneux told us. "And this is what needs to happen with Kickstarter and games. The promises... wouldn't it be amusing if I was the one to prove this right? These promises have to result in great games."Godus reaching its Kickstarter funding goal isn't a guarantee. The game (as of this writing) has £193,613 pledged of a £450,000 goal, with 18 days left to go. According to Kickstarter stat tracking site Kicktraq, the game will just make its funding goal if it sustains its average per day pledge total, but backers have been diminishing every day.
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.
Peter Molyneux's 22cans pitching Populous-esque project on Kickstarter, 'Godus'
Peter Molyneux, like so many of you, pines for the glory days of the studio he co-founded over 15 years ago, Bullfrog Productions. His new studio, 22cans, today launched its first initiative aimed at recreating those glory days, with "Godus" -- a Kickstarter project to "recreate the god game." Of course, Molyneux and Bullfrog were partially responsible for the original invention as well, with PC classic Populous. Like with Populous, you'll control a virtual world and its people, building up (or tearing down) their society as you see fit; it seems the "re-invention" bit comes in the form of multiplayer and mobile play. The nascent studio of game industry vets is hoping for a seven to nine month turnaround on the project, post-Kickstarter (should it pass the £450,000 goal, that is), and it's planned for launch on "PC and mobile devices." In the (hilarious) video 22cans included in its Kickstarter, the company revealed that its first title cum social experiment, Curiosity, already has "about 2 million downloads almost," which we'd certainly call a success. The ever self-aware Molyneux also notes in the video that, "I don't want to promise anything, I just want to deliver the glory of the old days in the new format of today's world." Even when he's trying not to promise something, he just can't help himself, eh? See for yourself below the break.
Peter Molyneux looks to crowdfunding for 'Godus' on iOS
The creator of 1989's seminal "God game," Populous, is returning to the genre on iOS with a new title called Godus. Peter Molyneux and his recently formed indie software house 22 Cans announced the game today by launching a Kickstarter campaign to fund its development. iOS gamers will know 22 Cans as the creator of Curiosity, the massively multiplayer collaborative title we picked as our Daily iPhone App on November 6. Godus will deliver "exciting global co-operation, competition, creation and destruction to a whole new generation," according to its developer. In it, you'll work to build a civilization that worships you and lead them into war against other gods and their followers. 22 Cans is looking to raise £450,000 (US$616,953) in order to complete Godus in the next nine months. Some of the Kickstarter rewards available to backers include a piece of titanium jewelry emblazoned with the game's logo and beset with an actual diamond and an all expenses paid trip to E3 2013 as a guest of Molyneux himself. [Via Joystiq]
Molyneux reinventing Populous with 'Godus,' calls on Kickstarter for help
Peter Molyneux's next experiment with his new studio, 22 Cans, is a "reinvention" of his classic god game Populous, fittingly titled Godus. "Project Godus" is now live on Kickstarter, where 22 Cans is asking for £450,000 to develop this rebirth of god games for PC, iOS and Android."Godus blends the power, growth and scope of Populous with the detailed construction and multiplayer excitement of Dungeon Keeper, and the intuitive interface and technical innovation of Black & White," its Kickstarter description reads. It will be multiplayer, probably with up to eight players at a time (though it seems Molyneux would like more). 22 Cans expects Godus will take seven to nine months to develop.This is the second endeavor from 22 Cans, following Curiosity: What's Inside the Cube. Check out the Kickstarter video for Godus below.
