For six months we've toiled and tapped at the most recent project from ex-Lionhead guru Peter Molyneux and his new studio 22cans, with no notion of what's inside or when (if ever) we'll find out.
No more. At long last Molyneux has broken his silence, revealing just how few layers remain before the centre of the cube is breached in Curiosity and the enigma held within is shared with one lucky individual. And it's not long at all.
Where once 2,000 layers stood between us and the end of Molyneux's cryptic experiment, just 50 remain. 50 layers each made up of around 100 million cublets, but still. There's not long to go now and I can hear the excitement in Molyneux's voice when I chat with him about it. The experiment is drawing to a close but the final race for those of us keen to find out what's inside is just beginning.
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I thought this has gone on for six months, and if we don’t finish it soon it’ll just be, 'Oh well that was another one of Peter Molyneux’s stupid things that never came to anything'.
"There are two main reasons to say we’re on the last 50 layers," he shares. "One was that I thought this has gone on for six months, and if we don’t finish it soon it’ll just be, 'Oh well that was another one of Peter Molyneux’s stupid things that never came to anything'; We need to kind of bring it to a close.
"Secondly, to learn more stuff. We’ve already learnt a huge amount from Curiosity but on these final 50 layers people’s motivations will change. They’ll change because Curiosity's changing from this big white board, wiped clean every layer, changing from that into 'This is a race for something unimaginably amazing in the centre'. That’s going to be fascinating to see and, again, we’ll be learning new stuff from that."
The biggest change Molyneux and co expect to see is in the increased adoption of tactics, with everyone clamouring to be that one person who destroys the last cublet and sees what's inside. A host of new tools have been added to the app to facilitate just such an approach.
First up, an auto-tapper can be purchased for the next 45 layers to chip away at the surface of you cube while you're offline, though it won't work on the last five layers. What's the point you ask? Well, it'll accrue you precious gold; gold that can be saved up for the final five layers when you'll want to buy chisels that increase the number of cublets you destroy per tap, exponentially increasing your chances of being the one to destroy that last block.
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It’s an interesting part of the experiment to see how many people actually do buy that. We’ve already had far more people buy into that than I thought ever would.
The controversial ability to prolong the experiment for real world cash won't be going anywhere, though. For a set price, you can elect to have cublets added onto the experiment, increasing the distance to the centre. Since going live about two weeks ago, Molyneux admits it's received quite a mixed reaction.
"It's a bit of a tongue-in-cheek, contentious way to monetise, you know," he shares. "We don’t think we’ll make any serious money out of it, but it’s an interesting part of the experiment to see how many people actually do buy that. We’ve already had far more people buy into that than I thought ever would."
Visual enhancements will also be introduced in a bit to ramp up the tension; each layer will be emblazoned with a number showing how few remain. As Molyneux reiterates, "We really want to set in people’s minds that things have changed; it’s no long kind of part art installation, it’s actually a race. It’s going to be fascinating how and if that changes anything."
But just what have the team at 22cans learned so far? Well, while the technical issues that plagued the launch of the app back in November hopefully won't be reappearing when Godus eventually releases, the main bulk of knowledge that's been accrued relates to gamer psychology...and it's pretty interesting to see how subtle factors can influence us.
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We’ve had five marriage proposals, one obituary, raging political debates! We’ve had people draw the twin towers and other people drawing planes crashing into them.
"There are some rules that the games industry almost lives by and I, as a game designer, have lived by for many, many years. You always give the player an objective, and they can see their progress, and the objective must be about one or two play sections long, those sort of things; Curiosity completely has none of that. We've been watching what people do and how motivated they are, and what portion of the population will continue to do unbelievable things with such little motivation given the Herculean nature of the task.
"Subtle things can change people’s motivation. The picture that people are tapping through highly influenced the way people tap, and that’s very important thinking about Godus where we’ve got the sculpting mechanic, which is about creating the things you want to create. How can you foster and nurture that? It’s really fascinating.
"Then an incredible amount of learning is about communication. Think how little communication there was in Curiosity; the only way people could communicate in this mass social experiment was by tapping. The incredible things that people did when they tapped! I mean we’ve had five marriage proposals, one obituary, raging political debates! We’ve had people draw the twin towers and other people drawing planes crashing into them; we had people drawing people falling out of buildings and other people writing God Bless America, and that is a pictorial debate going on; we’ve had celebrations and commiserations about Obama’s elections; whole sides of the cube have been devoted to political thought in pictorial form. All of this has been amazing and incredible and totally unexpected."
Love it or loathe it, you can't deny that Curiosity has been an experiment worth conducting. For a considerable time it had over five million of us hooked and, though daily user figures may have dipped from 800,000 at the app's peak to 100,000 now, one gets the feeling that this could all be about to change following the news that the end is in sight.
Internal predictions at 22cans suggest the final cublet will be broken on the morning of May 21, coincidentally the same day as another pretty important games industry event, but just who'll be the one to break it is anyone's guess. Game on.
Luke Karmali is IGN's UK Junior Editor and keen Cube explorer. You too can revel in mediocrity by following him on IGN and on Twitter.
Source : ign[dot]com
