If you build a £50,000 piece of DLC, they will come. Maybe.
Nobody can say that former Lionhead boss Peter Molyneux doesn’t have his share of unique ideas. In June, we learned about Curiosity, the first of the 22 “experiments” he intends to create with his new indie studio 22Cans. At Rezzed, Molyneux offered more insight into the cube-tapping experiment.
“[The 22 Experiments are] kind of psychological experiments as well as being technological experiments,” says Molyneux. Curiosity will feature a black cube in a white room, and tapping on the cube will slowly chip away at the exterior, little block by little block. However, there are over 60 million blocks in the cube, says Molyneux, so the progress depends on how many people are working away at it together.
Players will be able to buy chisels to expedite the process, from the lowly iron chisel for $0.90 (10 blocks per tap), to the $5 steel chisel (100 blocks per tap), and finally the infamous diamond chisel – of which there is only one – which will eliminate “thousands of blocks” per tap at the cost of $77,800.
In essence, Molyneux’s experiment is testing whether or not pure curiosity alone, or the sense of being part of a larger whole working towards something, will be enough to make players tackle the monstrous task of chipping away at a 60-million-block cube.
The trick, of course, is that only the person who taps the very last block away will be able to see what lies inside. Molyneux is keeping the cube’s contents secret, but he swears it will be “life-changing.”
“If you want, you can score me on how life-changing it is,” he says. “Give me a score, and I guarantee you that out of 100, that score will be, if not 100, it will be 99.”
Nobody can say that Peter Molyneux doesn’t dream big, then.
Source: VG247
