Curiosity killed the cat, or at the very least distracted it, and like that proverbial animal, I’ve been pawing at something frivolous, something you might say was as pointless as playing the lottery: poking a giant cube (or a really tiny pocket-sized one, depending on your perspective). Instead of spending cash, I’ve spent time, which to me is worth more than money, so that’s saying something. Minutes. Hours. Days and weeks, if I soldier on. I could be reading a book, or watching TV, or going for a run, or, you know, taking an arrow to the knee in Skyrim. Instead, I’m chipping away at a virtual cube on my iPhone’s screen, tapping strange patterns on Gorilla Glass, my finger like a chisel or the pointy end of a pick. Thank (or blame) Peter Molyneux, the 53-year-old game designer (and Officer of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire) who brought us stuff like Populous, Black & White and Fable, a.k.a. the guy who also spawned an entire conversational sub-genre wherein gamers poke fun at luminaries who sometimes confuse enthusiastically chatting about big ideas with actually pulling them off. Which brings us to Curiosity — What’s Inside the Cube?, Molyneux’s first project since exiting Lionhead and founding startup 22Cans last March. It’s either a game, a waste of time, a social experiment or all of the above, depending who you talk to. It’s also completely free, and the only ads you’ll endure are the ones that occasionally grace the sides of the cube itself. “Is the power of curiosity enough to unite the world in solving one mystery?” teases the app description (as if we didn’t already know the answer — hello still-confused-about-Lost!). “Join thousands of people worldwide to simultaneously chip away at a giant Cube to discover the life-changing secret buried inside.” That’s the goal, then: to get to the final layer and be the last person to tap the very last piece of a cube made up of billions. Whoever does so wins…well, something. 22Cans and Molyneux won’t say what![]()
