No, not the rover...

November 7, 2012 1:20 AM

"Curiosity – what’s inside the cube" is the first experiment out of Peter Molyneux-headed game studio 22cans. "Something amazing is hidden in the cube but only one player will be fortunate to discover what it is." You can get crackin' at the cube for free from the iTunes App store or Google Play.

The virtual cube is constructed of hundreds of millions of "cubelets". Everyone is working off of the same cube and the initial black outer face has been nearly completely chipped away in just the first day revealing the next face: green. (Chipping on which cannot begin until all black cubelets are cleared.) The game is soothing, in a way. Strike the cubes in a consistent, but quick way, without misses, and watch as you build a multiplier. Accrue coins so that you can "rent" larger pick axes to clear more cubelets.

It looks like we're a long way from the center, though presumably it will accelerate as the cube gets smaller and more people attain larger pick-axes. Their servers are getting crushed right now, though, so it may take even longer.

posted by disillusioned (85 comments total)

Molyneux is the master of gaming PR, that's for sure.
posted by Foci for Analysis at 1:27 AM on November 7, 2012 [3 favorites]

Is it Milo? It's Milo isn't it
posted by East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94 at 1:35 AM on November 7, 2012 [1 favorite]

COW CLICKER II: THE CLICK AND THE DEAD
posted by DoctorFedora at 1:40 AM on November 7, 2012 [15 favorites]

Weird, when I checked yesterday it said it wasn't compatible with my Galaxy S3, but it is now so I guess they updated it.
posted by EndsOfInvention at 1:44 AM on November 7, 2012

I am the 163,914th player apparently.
posted by EndsOfInvention at 1:45 AM on November 7, 2012

The next layer of the cube is green. Exciting!
posted by EndsOfInvention at 1:48 AM on November 7, 2012 [1 favorite]

At the center of the cube is a long list of promises of things you'll be able to do with the next cube.
posted by Silentgoldfish at 1:59 AM on November 7, 2012 [33 favorites]

"Game".
posted by brokkr at 2:03 AM on November 7, 2012 [2 favorites]

Inevitable.
posted by A Thousand Baited Hooks at 2:15 AM on November 7, 2012

Tumblr blog of things people have drawn on the cube (spoilers: it's mostly dicks).
posted by fight or flight at 2:17 AM on November 7, 2012 [4 favorites]

Ha. 'Made in Guildford'.
posted by pipeski at 2:23 AM on November 7, 2012

Obligatory Oglaf (SFW).
posted by daniel_charms at 2:26 AM on November 7, 2012 [1 favorite]

Video of the Gameplay for those (like me) who can't be bothered installing the game itself: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JVNBEuO-GwE. It looks pretty boring. tap tap tap

In the descriptions I had assumed that players would be able to "tunnel" in to locate this "amazing secret" - but no, it seems that it has to be peeled like an onion in layer after tedious layer.
posted by mary8nne at 2:34 AM on November 7, 2012

From the gameplay video, it looks like hunting for that one last remaining pixel on the layer will be "fun". And despite the concept of the game being so simple, the possibilities for griefing seem to be endless.
posted by daniel_charms at 3:11 AM on November 7, 2012

WIRED: How a Videogame God Inspired a Twitter Doppelgänger — and Resurrected His Career

There was at least one person who seemed to understand his frustration. In the summer of 2011, Microsoft’s PR department alerted Molyneux to @PeterMolydeux, a satirical Twitter feed that parodied his public persona. At first Molyneux found the feed annoying; @PeterMolydeux was a pathetic character. His shtick was to spout overheated, ridiculous game ideas that could never get made. One tweet described a Kinect game that required players to cry before they could pass through a gate. Another posited a racing game in which you controlled the road instead of the cars. But over time Molyneux found himself drawn to his online impersonator. The ideas were silly, yes, but they were also oddly compelling. It was clear that whoever was coming up with these concepts had to be awfully clever:

Online sidescrolling co-op 8 player game where each person controls a leg of an octopus. Each leg can attach guns which the player can fire.

War game where at the end you walk through a graveyard looking at each and every headstone of those you killed followed with 1 minute of silence.

3D adventure game where you have amnesia and wake up in a gigantic museum where every room is devoted to a year of your life.

posted by the man of twists and turns at 3:19 AM on November 7, 2012 [12 favorites]

From that video: "Wow, it'll take me a while to do it. It's a really, really hard game."

Note to future archaeologists: Please don't lump me in with the rest of the idiots I'm trapped in time with.
posted by DU at 4:20 AM on November 7, 2012 [3 favorites]

DREAMSPANGLE
posted by Ennis Tennyone at 4:36 AM on November 7, 2012

sounds interesting and also incredibly boring.
posted by zombieApoc at 5:00 AM on November 7, 2012

Is it a cat? With a bowl of poison?
posted by Thorzdad at 5:00 AM on November 7, 2012 [1 favorite]

Pick-axes, chopping pixels... pretty obviously inspired by Minecraft. But there doesn't seem to be much else to the game. Seems much closer to Cow Clicker - except Cow Clicker had a sense of humor.

Borrowing a single gameplay element from a popular game does not magically create a great game. It's as though you tell someone you'll take them to Paris, and then you hand them a plastic Eiffel Tower trinket. And expect to be complimented. (And then, bizarrely, journalists line up to write breathlessly about your innovative talents.)
posted by mark7570 at 5:10 AM on November 7, 2012

Molyneux is the master of gaming PR, that's for sure.

I think he and Will Wright have an ongoing contest to see who can overpromise and underdeliver the most.
posted by Dr-Baa at 5:20 AM on November 7, 2012

It's like interactively watching paint dry.
posted by chavenet at 5:25 AM on November 7, 2012

I believe I still owe Molyneux a punch to the gut for the abject horror that was Black and White. That game was absolutely horrible - and yet he was involved in Syndicate and Dungeon Keeper. Black and White was so bad I've refused to play anymore of his games. So far I've been quite happy with my decision.
posted by combinatorial explosion at 5:40 AM on November 7, 2012

Previously.
posted by gilrain at 5:43 AM on November 7, 2012

Only Peter "the next Fable will be awesome; I promise" Molyneux could claim that a game about tapping on a cube was going to be "life-challengingly" amazing.

There are no words.
posted by fifthrider at 5:57 AM on November 7, 2012

Who will be the lucky sperm?
posted by whuppy at 5:58 AM on November 7, 2012 [5 favorites]

After watching the video, this is actually really cool.
posted by postcommunism at 6:04 AM on November 7, 2012

I like the idea of the secret being found by one person. Life-changing? I find that hard to believe unless it's a few million dollars or something obvious. Maybe it will just be Peter asking "have you accepted Jesus Christ as your lord and savior?"
posted by melt away at 6:36 AM on November 7, 2012 [1 favorite]

Yeah, I have a hard time imagining what could be on the inside. A trip to space would fit what is advertised.

But it's probably just a visit from U2 or something.
posted by painquale at 6:39 AM on November 7, 2012

Man, there are some bored-ass people in the world.
posted by adamdschneider at 6:42 AM on November 7, 2012

Be sure to drink your Ovaltine
posted by kokaku at 6:48 AM on November 7, 2012 [5 favorites]

What's inside the Cube? IMO, something to do with charity. Even better, some kind of ludicrous moral choice that Molyneux loves doing, like:

a) Keep £100k
b) Give £200k to charity

It would be a great way of annoying all the haters (of whom I count myself) .
posted by adrianhon at 6:49 AM on November 7, 2012 [1 favorite]

Surely someone should be able to crack this? Have the game register some ungodly number of clicks per second?
posted by leotrotsky at 6:59 AM on November 7, 2012

They've surely got safeguards on the serverside against anything like that, leotrotsky. Even if you were to reverse-engineer / crack their (presumably secure) protocol, or the game client itself, it'd be trivial for them to have implemented a per-client rate throttle in the server code.
posted by phl at 7:05 AM on November 7, 2012

Having this idiotic cow-clicker solved manually just seems an affront to human ingenuity.
posted by leotrotsky at 7:11 AM on November 7, 2012 [1 favorite]

In games like these it's NEVER anything interesting hidden in the box. The game master ALWAYS thinks he's clever for having gotten a bunch of people excited over nothing.
posted by clarknova at 7:22 AM on November 7, 2012

On the subway today, a man came up to me to start a conversation. He made small talk, a lonely man talking about the weather and other things. I tried to be pleasant and accommodating, but my head hurt from his banality. I almost didn't notice it had happened, but I suddenly threw up all over him. He was not pleased, and I couldn't stop laughing.
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 7:30 AM on November 7, 2012 [4 favorites]

Another posited a racing game in which you controlled the road instead of the cars.

Someone actually made this one for a 48-hour game jam. It's quite fun to play. You Are The Road.
posted by metaphorever at 7:44 AM on November 7, 2012 [1 favorite]

This looks interesting to me, like chipping away at the cube might end up being a strangely satisfying experience, a cheap and easy zen-like way to pass a few minutes of downtime during one of the stressfull days I've been having lately.

But goddamn if all I get isn't a message that reads "error accessing server" every time I try to load the thing. Not exactly the phone equivalent of popping packing bubbles that I'd hoped for. I'll give it a shot tomorrow - maybe their servers won't be as slammed then. Or, more likely, they'll be even more slammed as interest spreads across social media sites and the like. At that point I will give up and delete the app from my phone even though I have plenty of room for it. Then I'll be left with no choice but to find another outlet for my stress and I can't see it being anything that doesn't involve crudely made high explosives.
posted by item at 7:49 AM on November 7, 2012 [1 favorite]

And underneath green...RED!

I have no idea why i am tapping.
posted by inturnaround at 8:02 AM on November 7, 2012 [2 favorites]

It's like that theory that Tetris is fun because it's "tidying up".
posted by EndsOfInvention at 8:11 AM on November 7, 2012

This game has been somewhat anticipated by gaming nerds. Is it a brilliant criticism of Zynga's Farmville-style mindless games? A cynical sell-out to free to play mechanics? A clever Molyneux interpretation of the current trend of letting people pay to upgrade? Ian Bogost (the Cow Clicker genius) had a good take on Curiosity in June 2012.

I can't connect to the actual server and the looping voice patch noise it makes while "Joining" is really irritating. But from the reviews, did Molyneux remove any real money trade from the game?

I really want to win and not tell anyone what's inside.
posted by Nelson at 8:36 AM on November 7, 2012

From the gameplay video, it looks like you just mindlessly tap away at the surface of the cube and get rewarded randomly with points. Is there more to it than that? How is that supposed to be fun or interesting?
posted by qxntpqbbbqxl at 8:45 AM on November 7, 2012

anyone else getting flashbacks from the 90's? the money tree thing? click on the leaves to play?
posted by th3ph17 at 9:25 AM on November 7, 2012

some kind of ludicrous moral choice that Molyneux loves doing, like:

a) Keep £100k
b) Give £200k to charity

Surely this is correct. I can just see Molyneux thinking, "It will change that person's life! Either they get a huge amount of money and guilt that even more could have gone to charity, or they make a huge donation to charity while knowing for the rest of their life they could have had all that money!"

And like all his games, it will be more fun imagining the player in that situation than actually being the player in that situation.
posted by straight at 9:56 AM on November 7, 2012 [2 favorites]

How is that supposed to be fun or interesting?

Only 1 person gets in. Bide your time.
posted by mrgrimm at 10:09 AM on November 7, 2012

I believe the prize is a chocolate factory.
posted by urbanwhaleshark at 10:12 AM on November 7, 2012 [1 favorite]

I'm confused: how is he making money from this game?
posted by ennui.bz at 11:33 AM on November 7, 2012

It A) enhances his personal brand and B) serves as a sort of beta test for other projects he has in the works. This is said to be the first of 22 experiments.
posted by inturnaround at 11:37 AM on November 7, 2012

I'm confused: how is he making money from this game?

When I posted about this a few months ago the plan was to sell bigger chisels as DLC, all the way up to thousands and thousands of dollars. I haven't checked out the game yet or seen mention of this bit in the press, is that no longer the case?
posted by yellowbinder at 11:59 AM on November 7, 2012

When I posted about this a few months ago the plan was to sell bigger chisels as DLC, all the way up to thousands and thousands of dollars. I haven't checked out the game yet or seen mention of this bit in the press, is that no longer the case?

They appear to have changed that. You can only "buy" stuff with the in-game currency you get from removing blocks.
posted by ymgve at 12:00 PM on November 7, 2012

They should release a griefing tool where you can repave.
posted by zippy at 12:47 PM on November 7, 2012 [6 favorites]

This reminds me somewhat of Barthelme's balloon.
posted by cobra libre at 12:50 PM on November 7, 2012

This 4 star review on Google Play cracked me up for some reason:

Stuck Up Android users should try harder
yes this is a challenge, and yes, this isnt a game, this is an experiment, the weak wont last long, but the strong have the will to see whats inside this cube. you'll know who you are within the first 2 mins of playing this, this will seperate the men from mice, and the patient from the impatient. this came from the crazy mind of peter molyneux. so whats in this cube? tap your way through to find out...thats if... if you can

I'm not sure why it tickles me so much. Maybe it's the idea of being a "Stuck Up Android user" when I'm really just a "Cheap Ass Android User" and/or "Broke Ass Android User."
posted by MCMikeNamara at 1:11 PM on November 7, 2012

Only 1 person gets in. Bide your time.

Whoever gets the main prize will almost certainly have bought the diamond pickax, which means they've saved up for 3 billion coins, which means they've played consistently for weeks.

In the rules, it says that the cube contains a link to a video. If you get it, it's up to you whether you want to share it.

Just a video. It's almost certainly a rickroll.
posted by painquale at 1:12 PM on November 7, 2012 [2 favorites]

Video eh? If I were Peter, I would make it a link to this.
posted by adamdschneider at 1:19 PM on November 7, 2012 [1 favorite]

It's a valiant attempt at making the world's crappiest game, but it would be even crappier if it were just 2d.
posted by Joe in Australia at 1:49 PM on November 7, 2012

There are some interesting mechanics that reveal themselves. If you can keep perfect tapping (without a miss) at a good pace, you build a multiplier. So instead of 1 coin per cubelet, that multiplies. But it also multiplies your "screen clear" bonus. If you clear all the cubelets for a given screen, any zoom level and any number of cubes, you get a large (10x usually) bonus. That can be multiplied.

After a few minutes you start to try to devise other strategies. Muscle memory, using two hands (especially on a tablet), but then other people mass-pick out from under you and you run the risk of losing your multiplier. Not a huge deal, since the multiplier is 5 and 5 again, continuing, every step. (So five straight cubelets = 2x, 10 = 3x, 15 = 4x, etc.) but still frustrating, so you slow down if you notice someone in your area, but you still have to move quick—you only have about two seconds before the multiplier clears. (You'll know it's cleared because you get a little bonus when that happens.

So my strategy has been to do a lot of clever screen clears, but in an area where I can quickly move to more cubelets. I think I hit 14x. It's an interesting mechanic and the "game" or "fun" of it is more, for me, trying to build up a multiplier, trying to devise physical strategies to increase speed and accuracy while reducing fatigue, and hoping I don't get burned by someone who picks out from under me.
posted by disillusioned at 3:44 PM on November 7, 2012

qxntpqbbbqxl: From the gameplay video, it looks like you just mindlessly tap away at the surface of the cube and get rewarded randomly with points. Is there more to it than that? How is that supposed to be fun or interesting?

To answer your first question: In fact there is no "randomly" about it. It probably looks that way because it only throws a number on the main part of the screen at the end of a run, and that looks random if you don't know the rules (which are explained in the game's info screen). You've got a multiplier that builds up as you keep on deleting stuff. If you tap on a spot that doesn't have anything deletable at the moment (only the outermost layer of the cube can be deleted), or go too long without deleting anything, the multiplier resets -- and at that moment, the game tells you how many points you earned. You also get a bonus for clearing the last cubelet on your screen. The significance of the points, by the way, is that they're redeemable for stuff to let you clear the cubelets faster.

So there is some actual game mechanics in there, but it's still fairly minimal. So I guess I still need to answer your other question. It seems to me that the appeal of the game is mainly based on cooperating on a massive task. That's a big part of the appeal of MMOs. And it's accompanied here by the same appeal as popping bubblewrap.
posted by baf at 4:09 PM on November 7, 2012

I tried it, because I was curious. Jesus, its horrific.

I swore off MMOs because I have an addictive-type personality, and I start out enjoying them, get addicted, and then a few months pass and I realise I no longer enjoy the game, but I'm addicted. Then I hate the game, but I'm still addicted. Finally the hate reaches its apex and I am able to quit.

Curiosity managed to get me through that arc in 10 minutes flat.

Please, anyone who is addicted to this game - put it down, go outdoors and pick up litter from the streets. Its exactly the same globally massively multiplayer co-operative experience, and it also features cleaning up, but it actually benefits humanity.
posted by Joh at 4:15 PM on November 7, 2012 [1 favorite]

Have you tried this?
posted by zippy at 4:42 PM on November 7, 2012 [1 favorite]

Something's wrong I think. I start the game, but the cube's solid green--no evidence of other players. When I touch the arrow the info button is ghosted out and does nothing. Attempting to log in with Facebook (which I was hesitant to do) only gets me a white screen.
posted by sourwookie at 5:51 PM on November 7, 2012 [1 favorite]

Its exactly the same globally massively multiplayer co-operative experience

The last time I got together with a bunch of strangers to remove boxes, they called it looting.
posted by zippy at 6:20 PM on November 7, 2012

If it's a severed head I'm going to be very upset.
posted by brevator at 7:08 PM on November 7, 2012 [1 favorite]

The process of designing the prize:

1) cut a hole in the box ...
posted by zippy at 11:03 PM on November 7, 2012 [5 favorites]

Something's wrong I think. I start the game, but the cube's solid green--no evidence of other players.

I had a few goes yesterday as it went from dark brown to green. Weirdly (or perhaps unsurprisingly) today it seems like almost everyone has given up - I've made a small corner of the cube red but there's barely any evidence of anyone else on there. Not sure if it's a connection problem or what.
posted by EndsOfInvention at 5:42 AM on November 8, 2012

I am enjoying it--it's more like popping bubblewrap than anything.

But the placement of the facebook and info screen buttons is annoying; it's hard to avoid hitting them.

And twice I've lost many thousands of coins for no particular reason, meaning it's really hard to save up for anything.

Many fewer people are on today. At this rate, I think it will be a while before we get to the red level. Lots of green to chip at.
posted by Admiral Haddock at 7:12 AM on November 8, 2012

Popping bubble wrap is a really good analogy, which helps me to make sense of why I've found the game rather oddly soothing.

And it's fun to watch for outbursts of creativity beyond the dongs that seem to be SOP for player-created content. One person has used the cube to tap out a marriage proposal!

The FB button is extremely annoying indeed as tapping near it also freezes your game and fails to hit the cubelet, while at least the info pop-up still destroys the cubelet if it does break your chain.

The disappearing coin bug is the worst of all, but gladly they're working on a fix that should be released today.

Finally, here's more on the aforementioned Peter Molyneaux Game Jam.
posted by KatlaDragon at 7:31 AM on November 8, 2012

Whoever gets the main prize will almost certainly have bought the diamond pickax

I think you assume too much. Whoever's standing right behind the fellow or gal with the diamond pickax could always slide gangnam style right behind their legs and voila. Don't say I didn't warn you.

it's fun to watch for outbursts of creativity beyond the dongs that seem to be SOP for player-created content.

It was fun playing pixel pushing for a while, but anything I tried to draw was soon overwhelmed by the horde.
posted by mrgrimm at 8:35 AM on November 8, 2012

I was gonna scoff at those complaining about the FB button, but then, aw man, Facebook button just wiped out 50,000 coins. :\
posted by mrgrimm at 9:06 AM on November 8, 2012

Man, I would not even think about logging on to this without the disappearing coin bug being fixes. How much testing do you have to not do to let something like that slip by?
posted by adamdschneider at 9:21 AM on November 8, 2012

One whole side of the cube *just* turned almost fully red. there's gonna be a race to finish that side ...
posted by mrgrimm at 9:32 AM on November 8, 2012

There are some interesting mechanics that reveal themselves. If you can keep perfect tapping (without a miss) at a good pace, you build a multiplier. So instead of 1 coin per cubelet, that multiplies. But it also multiplies your "screen clear" bonus. If you clear all the cubelets for a given screen, any zoom level and any number of cubes, you get a large (10x usually) bonus. That can be multiplied.

Here's what I've learned so far.

The multipliers for combinations seems to be incremental, i.e. the 11th cubelet clicked spawns the 2x multiplier, click another 13, and you get 3x, another 16 and you get 4x, another 20 and you get 5x etc. but it's not totally by the next multiplier, because 9x was way up in the 90-100 range.

Anyway, clearing screens is much more valuable than combinations. Clicking 100s of times in a row will eventually get you a combo score of 5,000-10,000x, but simply clearing a screen with less than that many cubes will get you 20,000+ coins. I've gotten 50,000+ for clearing some screens.

it also multiplies your "screen clear" bonus

I'm not entirely sure that's true. I've found it's more valuable to clear large screens with lots of squares than to clear the screen with a high multiplier. It does augment the bonus, but I haven't figured out how much.

Regardless, clearing screens is much more valuable than combinations.

Also, none of the chisels available seem to be worth anything (aside from perhaps the 1 billion coin one ...) at 30% of the cost, the silver chisel (9 squares) is a better value than the diamond (25 squares).

What else while we wait for the green layer to fall ...?
posted by mrgrimm at 11:27 AM on November 8, 2012

Katla, thanks for the update--I'm glad to hear there's a fix coming!

I agree, the upgrades don't do much. I've done the lowest two, but I haven't gotten up to the hammers due to the disappearing coin glitch.

I also agree that the screen clearing bonuses are the way to go. I don't have the patience for all the testing, but at the very least, you get ten coins per cube you have removed since repositioning the screen when you get the all clear. So if you find a screen with one cube on it, removing that cube gets you 10 coins. If you clear ten cubes, reposition the screen, and then clear one cube, you get 10 coins. This is what makes those buttons for FB and the menu so annoying--you could clear hundreds of cubes and then need to move the screen to get one cube under the FB button, and you only get a 10 coin clear screen bonus.

If you look at the stats, it's a staggering number of cubes to clear. I think the first two layer have somewhere between 150-200 million cubes. Obviously, the numbers will get smaller when we get to interior layers, but man--how long will this be going on?
posted by Admiral Haddock at 12:01 PM on November 8, 2012

how long will this be going on?

well, about this time yesterday there were 82 million cubelets on the current level. Now there are 27 million. There have been 173 million cubelets destroyed since it started. As long as people keep tapping, it shouldn't take that long ...

obv. the rub here is the # of layers - my guess is the obvious 22. that would put it finished sometime in early December.
posted by mrgrimm at 12:25 PM on November 8, 2012

I was able to earn roughly a million gold using the Steel Chisel, so it at least has the potential to pay for itself. Better players might be able to earn some profit on top of that, so that could be the key to getting the 3 billion for the diamond chisel.

I think the Screen Clear bonus awards you ten times the sum of all the points you've earned since repositioning the screen. The neat bit that implies is that even if you misclick and lose your
multiplier, finishing the screen will let you "cash in" the higher value cubes you tapped.

I suspect that when the user count dwindles and people lose interest we will see the devs reduce the price of the more powerful items (perhaps tweaking their timers as well) and unlock the remaining items, which could turn out to be toys for fun and/or insanely powerful items.
posted by Several Unnamed Sources at 4:14 AM on November 9, 2012

So what's up? I logged in today to see the green layer gone, but it looks like there's been no change in a day ... also the Stats call gets me a 500 error ... server issues?
posted by mrgrimm at 9:25 AM on November 9, 2012

The stats call would give me a 500 error for the longest time, until I finally got it to work once last night. I'm surprised the green layer got taken out; it seemed like slow going with only 1 face cleared. I wonder if it either appeared less active than it was either globally or because I wasn't hard-exiting and reentering the game. Maybe someone got the 3 billion chisel and resolved to do some good work with it.
posted by Several Unnamed Sources at 6:52 PM on November 9, 2012

Soon after I posted that ^^^, the green layer completely disappeared and the red/photo layer came up. I haven't checked back since ...

I was thinking, though. It sort of has to be a sham, right? How can they possibly gauge the exact level of activity to let users through within an appropriate timelines. Either it's too small, and it gets cracked too early, or it's too big, and everyone gives up.

My suspicion is that the number of layers is a variable, and that the end comes whenever the designers want it to. /cynic
posted by mrgrimm at 8:39 AM on November 13, 2012

I'm pretty sure that the apparently untouched layer issue described above was just a symptom of the server issues they've been experiencing over the past few days. This happened to me at one point but then later the cube updated and registered all the cubelets that were removed. At this point the server issues have been resolved and the disappearing coin issue is next on their list, from what I've read.

A few interesting links about the team's experiences so far:

Unexpected curiosity cripples Molyneux app

Curiosity now accepting donations to make the experience 'truly wonderful'

Molyneux admits "it's not good enough" but don't you dare lose faith in Curiosity

Peter Molyneux: Life During And After Curiosity

My favorite excerpt, from the last link:

Every time a surface gets cleared then willy drawers come in and their willies are getting bigger and they’re getting more realistic and they’re starting to spurt DNA all over the cube and stuff like that.

You can find all sorts of amazing creations on Curiosity's surface.It’s funny, but what’s amazing then is how everyone else either comes and changes the willy, make it bigger or turn it into something else like the face of a dog or they’ll blot it out. And it’s such a temporal art form; it’s like a big white wall in a city that allows people to put their own stamp on it. It is incredible to see all that happen.

What I thought would happen is people would start to respect people’s hard work. So, someone today, within the last hour, drew a charming little football pitch and then other people started adding little players, someone added in a stadium, one put a little Wembley sign up. It was incredibly co-operative art and there’s nothing that’s been like this.


posted by KatlaDragon at 6:01 AM on November 14, 2012

He's never heard of Minecraft.
posted by Nelson at 7:36 AM on November 14, 2012

"It's amazing how creative people are in turning willies into something else."

That's what he said.
posted by mrgrimm at 7:40 AM on November 14, 2012

MetaFilter: their willies are getting bigger and they’re getting more realistic and they’re starting to spurt DNA all over
posted by adamdschneider at 8:05 AM on November 14, 2012

“I mean, the number of willies on the cube is enormous,” he tells us. “That’s something we didn’t think to count in the analytics."

Seriously? Anyone with half a passing knowledge of the Internet could have predicted this. Nice analytics, guys.
posted by painquale at 1:40 PM on November 15, 2012

There have been some interesting developments in the past couple of weeks, so here's a quick link roundup for anybody who's still following this story:

Curiosity Uncovered: We discover what's in the cube (liveblog)

What's in the cube? Oh look, it's a big advertisement for the Kickstarter for Peter Molyneux's new God game, GODUS!

Peter Molyneux's (weepy) interview with Rock Paper Shotgun: On Curiosity’s Failings, GODUS

Developer Diary #1: Designing GODUS with Peter & Jack (YouTube)

Ever Curious About Curiosity: An Interview With 22Can’s Jack Attridge
posted by KatlaDragon at 8:59 AM on November 27, 2012