curiosity-whats-inside-the-cube
Latest
Peter Molyneux talks royalties and offline play for Godus
Bryan Henderson, the winner of Peter Molyneux's Curiosity experiment, will be receiving a "financially worthwhile" percentage of the game's profits when he takes on the (temporary) role of god of gods in Godus, Molyneux recently told Rock, Paper, Shotgun. "The first game that I did, I think I got less than 5 percent royalties from it," Molyneux said. "I'm not saying he has 5 percent royalties. But it's more than a percent." Godus will be available to play offline. Molyneux told RPS that if he were to say the game was always online, "this red dot would appear on my forehead and I'd be sniped to death." Molyneux cautioned, however, that playing offline removes the game's most "charming" features, like syncing with a villager's social feed. "My wife tweets and it comes up in the world," Molyneux explained. "It's a stupid feature. It's just a piece of text. But you end up ... caring for your little people, because they love you so much." Early access for Godus will be available on Steam on September 13, with an iPad version due at the end of October, and an Android version two weeks after that.
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.
Curiosity's end may coincide with new Xbox reveal
Curiosity: What's Inside the Cube is now officially down to its last 50 layers. Even Peter Molyneux is impatient for 22Cans' bizarre iOS experiment to end, telling Polygon: "Enough's enough, for crying out loud." The game, which is about tapping to remove dots from a cube to reveal the "life-changing" secret within, features a countdown timer running toward the projected end of the experiment, when one person will clear the final layer. "I thought six months was about the length of time that Curiosity should go on before it closed, and this is almost exactly the six month anniversary of the end of Curiosity," Molyneux told GameSpot. "Bizarrely, as part of that controversy, is that the end of the cube – the last layer of the cube – might well be, I mean probably if you look at our analysis of probability, the same day that the next Xbox is announced. Which would be a bizarre twist of fate." The next Xbox is due to be revealed May 21. Or a bizarre twist of Pete? Regarding the coincidence, he told GameSpot, "There's an interesting opportunity, possibly, for me to ... well, I can't say any more than that. There may be some words from me around that time. I'm not saying any more." Confirmed: The next Xbox will come in a box made of billions of tiny cubes. Along with today's news, 22Cans released the above video, which features visual proof that people like Curiosity at least enough to scrawl dirty words into the cube.
22 Cans apologizes for Curiosity's popularity, working on fixes
The last 48 hours have been tough for Peter Molyneux's new outfit, 22 Cans. After launching Curiosity: What's Inside the Cube? earlier this week on iOS and Android, the servers were overloaded by the sheer numbers of players participating. There is also another significant bug that seems to be erasing player coins, which are used for in-game boosts.The video update above was made by 22 Cans designer Jack Attridge, wherein he tours the office and asks a bunch of employees what they're doing about the problems. The team looks to be working to resolve these issues but, in response to the server overloads, 22 Cans has also opened a PayPal page for donations – you know, in case you really want to know what's inside that cube.
Curiosity team squares off against connectivity problems
22Cans is at work fixing connectivity issues with Curiosity: What's Inside The Cube. If your experience with the networked cube-tapping game is limited to error messages, it should be addressed soon. "I now understand what's going on," Peter Molyneux tweeted. "Basically we and our server are overwhelmed by the number of people trying out the experiment." His team is working on an update.As of writing, users who have successfully connected have cleared the first layer of "cubelets" off of two faces of the cube. After the first layer is completely cleared, players will begin clearing ... an unknown number of additional layers in an effort to find a secret in the center of the cube.
PSA: Molyneux's 'Curiosity - What's Inside the Cube?' now on iOS, if you're curious
Peter Molyneux and 22 Cans' Curiosity - What's Inside the Cube? is now available for free on the App Store. The first of the studio's 22 "experiments" was due on Android tomorrow, but Molyneux tweeted this morning 22 Cans is now trying to push it out today.So how does the game work? Quite simply, actually. Curiosity revolves around, surprise surprise, a giant cube. You can rotate the cube to get access to all six sides, and then zoom in and out as you please. The aim is to get to what's inside the cube, and that's done by tapping away at its sides to shatter its outer layers of 'cubelets,' one cubelet by one. Each tap alters the state of the cube on the game's servers - meaning in theory the cube appears the same to everyone at the same time. Of course, latency plays its part.Tapping squares earns you coins, with multipliers added when you build up a run of taps. You can also earn coins by getting friends to play the game. Coins can be used to purchase square-smashing add-ons, like a diamond chisel or a bomb. We tried out the firecracker, which manically breaks the cubelets around it in a quick little spiral.As for what's actually inside the cube, that is now public knowledge. And it is - drumroll please - a video link, which actually explains what's really inside the cube. So what's actually in the video? It could be instructions for how to find the secret treasures of Xanadu, or maybe all of Molyneux's hopes and dreams somehow condensed into five seconds of footage. Whatever it is, it'll be up to that one winner to decide whether to keep the link private or show it to the world. Of course, the winner could just link to some other vid and we'd never know.
'Curiosity: What's Inside The Cube?' reveals all on iOS, Android November 7
Peter Molyneux's 22 Cans will satiate your Curiosity on November 7, releasing the game for free on Android and iOS. 22 Cans confirmed the Android release details to us, noting Curiosity: What's Inside The Cube? (to give it its full title) launches at 0.22AM Pacific (3.22 AM ET, 8.22AM British). Molyneux then tweeted Curiosity is arriving on the App Store the same day.Curiosity is the first game from Molyneux's new outfit, and the first he'll have released since leaving Microsoft and Lionhead. Although, Molyneux is referring to Curiosity and his next 21 projects as experiments, before 22 Cans finally makes its one and only game proper. Whatever you want to call it, Curiosity is supposedly going to change someone's life forever.So no, Molyneux hasn't really changed.
22 Cans will make one game and only one, after all those other games
22 Cans, Peter Molyneux's development studio, is "only going to make one game and that's it," Molyneux tells VG24/7.Of course, this game will come after the 22 "experiments" Molyneux's team is working on now, the first of which is Curiosity: What's inside the Cube, a million-player game that ends with one person discovering the life-changing secret inside a big cube."But everything that we do, every thought that we have, every moment of a day, is all working towards this full game," Molyneux says. "22 Cans is only going to make one game and that's it. You just release that single experience then you refine it and adapt it like – and don't think of this in any way other than an analogy – when a TV company makes a soap opera."Considering Curiosity was announced in June and has since undergone a delay, name change and beta (and is expected to launch on iOS any day now), we can look forward to 22 Cans' actual, singular game in about seven years.
What's inside Molyneux's Curiosity cube? Not a dead cat or Half-Life 3
Peter Molyneux is narrowing the answer to the question posed by 22 Cans' first experimental game, Curiostiy: What's Inside the Cube? It's not a huge pile of money, a dead cat, a sports car or Half-Life 3, Molyneux says. However, whatever's inside there will "change your life forever."Maybe Molyneux is toying with us. Maybe the cube is harboring two huge piles of dead sports cars and a copy of Black Mesa Source. The answer was right in front of us the entire time, and the knowledge of purposeful human deception will change anyone's life, at least for a little bit.Curiosity is undergoing Apple certification now.
Molyneux's Curiosity submitted to Apple
Curiosity: What's Inside the Cube, the first experimental iOS game from Peter Molyneux's 22Cans, has been submitted to Apple for certification. Apple will then carefully inspect the cube, determining the relative safety of its sharp edges and pointed corners. They will open the cube to determine if its contents are potentially harmful to any users.Once the cube and its included secrets pass muster with Apple, the audience will be able to begin chipping away at the mysterious solid.
Molyneux seeks Curiosity beta testers
Peter Molyneux is curious about whether his new game works, and so he's opening a beta test for Curiosity: What's Inside the Cube. Anyone interested in trying the first of 22Cans' experimental games, and with "a spare hour at about 16:00 GMT Tuesday-Friday," can apply for the beta on Facebook.Curiosity is due sometime this month, following a delay caused by Molyneux's interest in avoiding confusion between his game and the Mars robot.
Molyneux's follow-up to Curiosity is 'Cooperation'
Curiosity, the first project from Peter Molyneux's neux company, 22 Cans, isn't even out the door yet and already the fabled designer is talking up the studio's second project. The next game from 22 Cans is currently called Cooperation, Molyneux told Polygon. Curiosity will see iPhone gamers slowly working to discover the secret at the heart of a mysterious cube. Meanwhile, Molyneux said that Cooperation will be "very, very different."Proving that he has not yet lost his great gift for hyperbole, Molyneux went on to say, "If you think of [Curiosity] being the biggest mystery posted to the digital world, Cooperation is the biggest cooperative effort the world has ever known." The game (seemingly despite its title) will be competitive and may have something to do with tug of war. Presumably, it will also be the 8th Wonder of the World.
Molyneux's Curiosity now subtitled 'What's Inside the Cube'
Peter Molyneux confirmed the new title for his next project, formerly known as Curiosity, this afternoon. Earlier this week, Molyneux revealed that the name would have to be changed in order to keep it from colliding with the massive internet presence of NASA's identically named Mars rover. The new name – again, supposedly chosen to help distinguish the game – is Curiosity: What's Inside the Cube, according to a tweet from Molyneux. (Well, actually, the tweet reads "Curiosity:Whats inside the cube," but we're erring on the side of proper punctuation and capitalization.)Perhaps throwing a reference to Peter Molydeux, his Twitter doppelganger, Molyneux noted in a following tweet that he's unhappy about the choice, saying that he voted for "Cube of Duty."
