Legendary game developer, Peter Molyneux, wants to know if you're curious enough to endlessly tap on a cube for an unkown period of time. His new development studio, 22 Cans, has just released its first game, Curiosity -- What's Inside the Cube? Now available as a free universal app on iOS, Curiosity is one-part Minecraft dig, one-part social experiment.
The basic premise of Curiosity [iTunes link] is to chip away at a giant, floating cube in order to discover what lay at the center. People all over the world will work collectively, tapping on their iOS screens, removing each layer of the cube one little square at a time. There's a catch, however: only one single person in the world will chip away the final block and discover what's inside the cube.
According to a description within the app, the singular winner of the joint competition will see a video if they are in fact the lucky tapper. The 22 Cans server will actually decide which player has smacked the last block.
Molyneux has been quoted in recent months, since the announcement of Curiosity, stating that whatever is inside this mysterious cube is "life-changing" or "amazing." Heady statements for what we have to assume is a video or link to perhaps a prize. Granted, if there's a million bucks in that cube, that does sound pretty life-changing.
Curiosity showed up in the App Store late last night, and since going live, the face of the block was immediately etched with a wide array of meaningless specks, names, and occasionally offensive graffiti. And in that sense, Curiosity really does feel like a social experiment. Not only is it a public display of our zeitgeist, but there's something interesting about the world working together for the ultimate goal of only one person winning.
Oh, and the final winner? It's totally up to him/her if they want to tell anyone else what's in the box.
Playing a bit of devil's advocate, wouldn't it be amazing if there really was no way to reach the center of the cube? Maybe 22 Cans will just keep replacing each layer with another, into infinity. How long would people continue to tap? A couple months? Years? Maybe the "last" player is actually the person who manages to stick around. Now that sounds like a social experiment.
A totally evil, amazing experiment.
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