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43 CommentsCuriosity winner weighs in on 'life changing' prize and the perks of being a god
By Megan Farokhmanesh on May 26, 2013 05.26.13
Edinburgh, Scotland resident Bryan Henderson started playing Peter Molyneux's social media experiment, Curiosity: What's Inside the Cube?, an hour before its end. Now, the 18-year-old gets to be a digital god. Curiosity, a free mobile game from 22Cans, challenged players to slowly tap away layers on a gigantic cube. The goal was for one person to break through, revealing a secret prize that Molyneux promised would be "life changing." Five million downloads and six months later, Henderson scratched through the final layer. "It took a really long time for it to sink in, the fact that I had won, along with finding out about Godus and my involvement in it," Henderson told Polygon. "Seeing my name across the Internet has blown my mind, and I think it's still sinking in." In a previously...
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74 CommentsCuriosity: What’s Inside the Cube? ends, makes one UK player a 'god'
By Megan Farokhmanesh on May 26, 2013 05.26.13
Peter Molyneux's social experiment, Curiosity: What's Inside the Cube? came to a close this afternoon at the hands of an unknown player. Molyneux announced the game's end via his Twitter, confirming that the winner was located in the UK. The player has not yet been identified. Just before Curiosity's finish, Molyneux tweeted that a record number of people had joined the game for its final layers. "I [want] to thank everyone, even the haters for taking part in Curiosity," Molyneux tweeted. "It's been a magical journey, thank you one and all." Curiosity launched as a free title for iOS and Android devices in November 2012. The game was both a massive team effort and competition; players tapped away at a mammoth cube in an effort to be the first to reach the center. Its contents are a...
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1 CommentJohn Needham appointed studio head of Fable developer Lionhead
By Dave Tach on Apr 23, 2013 04.23.13
John Needham, former CEO of Cryptic Studios and Gazillion Entertainment, has been appointed studio head of Fable developer Lionhead Studios, according to a recent posting on the developer's website. As CEO, Needham oversaw development studios that have created games like City of Heroes and Star Trek Online (Cryptic) and Marvel Heroes (Gazillion). Lionhead's post touts his experience with massively multiplayer online role-playing games, free-to-play titles as well as PC and mobile games. "This is a historic time in our industry and I'm excited, and honored, to be joining Lionhead and Microsoft Studios," Needham said. "Our vision is focused on building innovative gaming services and AAA experiences at Lionhead, and the rest of Microsoft Studios, which take advantage of Microsoft's...
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35 CommentsCuriosity update lets players pay to add or remove cube pieces
By Samit Sarkar on Apr 19, 2013 04.19.13
The most recent update to Curiosity: What's Inside the Cube? includes sets of competing in-app purchases that add a new twist to developer 22Cans' ongoing social experiment. Players now have the option to pay to remove cubelets (cube pieces), the action that is Curiosity's overall goal, but they also can pay to add cubelets. A purchase of $0.99 adds 10,000 cubelets, while the option to remove the same number of cubelets also costs $0.99. The game also lets players know how many cubes have been added and removed with the in-app purchases. "We don't know quite what will happen," said 22Cans in a statement inside the game. "Curiosity may very well rapidly degrade to reveal its innermost secret or maybe the effects of automatically removing cubelets will be neutralized by players keen to...
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26 CommentsCuriosity besieged by hackers, but the secret remains safe
By Brian Crecente on Dec 28, 2012 12.28.12
The secret at the center of Peter Molyneux's experimental tapping game Curiosity isn't really the secret. It's the secret to the secret. In November, Molyneux's newly minted development studio 22Cans launched its first Android and iOS game, a sort of interactive thought experiment that asked the world's gamers to work together to peck away at the layers of a giant virtual cube floating in a white room online. To remove a layer of the cube, players have to tap away the roughly 100 million cubelets that make up the six sides of the cube. Under that layer, another layer. So far the nearly 3.5 million players have managed to work their way through 129 layers, totaling almost 11 billion taps. Molyneux won't say how many layers the cube has before the center is reached. And that is the...
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4 CommentsGODUS backers will help 're-create' the entire God Game genre, says Molyneux
By Emily Gera on Nov 22, 2012 11.22.12
GODUS' Kickstarter campaign will allow the public to take part in the re-invention of a genre that has gone off track, 22Cans developer Peter Molyneux told RPS. According to Molyneux, the God Game genre made popular with the release of titles such as Populous in the 1990s is now defined by simple social gaming titles. The launch of GODUS' Kickstarter campaign will become a medium for players to become involved in taking the genre back to its original roots. "To my mind, the god game genre is now defined by titles like CityVille," said Molyneux. "It was always supposed to be more than that. It was supposed to be far, far more than that. Why not take that challenge on? I feel like Populous created me, I didn't create Populous. Why not use Kickstarter as a medium of involving people in...
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3 CommentsMolyneux hints at six new features headed to Curiosity next week
By Emily Gera on Nov 21, 2012 11.21.12
Curiosity, the ongoing game experiment by Peter Molyneux-led 22 Cans studio, will receive "six big new features" as soon as next week, Molyneux told CVG. While the developer did not detail what these updates would include, he stated the "have been designed by looking at how people interact with Curiosity." The features have been in development since last week and are currently in prototype. "We are not ready to say what these are," said Molyneux, "but I will give you a clue: 'Badgers.'" Last night 22 Cans increased its server count by 14 in order to fix issues with player connectivity. In the process the team was forced to disable a system that prevented coin stores from being reset when playing the title on a different device. While the connectivity issues have been corrected,...
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5 Comments22Cans improves server connectivity for Curiosity, still working on coin loss issue
By Alexa Ray Corriea on Nov 20, 2012 11.20.12
22Cans has increased server count by 14 times for Curiosity - what's inside the cube? to correct players' connectivity issues, but in the process had to disable a system that prevented coin stores from being reset when playing on different devices, according to an update to the developer's website. The new servers have corrected the connection issues, but logging into the game on Facebook, updating or installing the application on any device wipes players' coin stores to zero. "We deeply regret and apologize for the issues that have caused those problems or indeed any other frustrations," reads the post by members of the server support team. "The point of this communication is to take responsibility and admit that we messed up by misjudging the performance of the system under the load...
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11 CommentsMolyneux responds to backlash against Curiosity server donations
By Samit Sarkar on Nov 13, 2012 11.13.12
Curiosity: What's Inside the Cube studio 22Cans only put up a donate button on its site in response to requests from fans, founder Peter Molyneux told CVG. Upon Curiosity's launch last week, players flooded the product's servers, which led to widespread connection and performance issues that 22Cans has worked diligently to fix. The studio discussed the problems in a humorous video released shortly after launch. According to Molyneux, 22Cans didn't plan to ask for money from Curiosity fans for servers, which run about £700 each. "I said on Twitter we were going to put on more and more of these expensive servers," Molyneux told CVG. "And a couple of people said we'd really love to donate, is there any way we could donate," so the company set up a PayPal account and tied it to a donate...
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17 CommentsCuriosity developers now accepting donations to help with continued improvements
By Emily Gera on Nov 12, 2012 11.12.12
The Peter Molyneux-headed 22Cans studio is now accepting donations to help with continued improvements in the development of its first iOS experiment Curiosity, according to the game's official website. Following the appearance of numerous server issues and bugs since the game's launch, the studio has set up a PayPal account to help keep up with increasing costs. "We are a small independent developer and due to popular demand we now offer the option for kind people to donate, so that we can make Curiosity the best possible experience it can be," reads the statement. "However big or small the donation; it will really help us make Curiosity better." Last week Molyneux confirmed the number of users playing Curiosity was close to 1 million, pushing servers to their limit. "We are...
