Wednesday, November 14, 2012
Curiosity killed Curiosity
Peter Molyneux is famous for games that sound brilliant on paper and then often turn out to be flawed in practice, like Black & White. Now recently he launched a project which is barely a game, but more of an art project: Curiosity is a mobile platform app in which players from all over the world together "mine" a huge cube, consisting of many layers of tiny cubes. The player who removes the last little cube "wins", and finds out what is in the center of the cube.
I understand the concept. I can see the "art" aspect of it. But unfortunately I can't try it out myself: Somebody forget to tell Molyneux that if you make a persistent online world for many thousands of players, even if that world only consists of a huge cube, you need serious server resources to run it. So the Curiosity servers are nearly always down. About a million people downloaded the app for iOS and Android, and the servers just can't handle that amount of interest. Curiosity killed Curiosity. There is some sort of meta-irony in here. I'm sure Peter Molyneux appreciates that.
I understand the concept. I can see the "art" aspect of it. But unfortunately I can't try it out myself: Somebody forget to tell Molyneux that if you make a persistent online world for many thousands of players, even if that world only consists of a huge cube, you need serious server resources to run it. So the Curiosity servers are nearly always down. About a million people downloaded the app for iOS and Android, and the servers just can't handle that amount of interest. Curiosity killed Curiosity. There is some sort of meta-irony in here. I'm sure Peter Molyneux appreciates that.
Comments:
<< Home
Newer› ‹Older
Here's a great writeup on what should have been the technical challenges behind curiousity - http://lucumr.pocoo.org/2012/11/12/death-by-million-cubes/
Sadly it almost sounds like he just got a grad student to make it using a fairly naive approach.
Sadly it almost sounds like he just got a grad student to make it using a fairly naive approach.
Not *that* great: he loses some credibility for thinking that the layers of a cube grow exponentially with distance from the centre.
But yeah, stupid idea poorly implemented.
But yeah, stupid idea poorly implemented.
Y U HATE B&W?? :(
But seriously, I must be the only player in the world that really, really enjoyed Black & White.
Not sure what to think about Curiosity. If all it wants to be is a weird experiment, I think it turned out pretty great, except for the stupid technical issues.
Anyway, I'm ready to be extremely disappointed of what's in the center.
But seriously, I must be the only player in the world that really, really enjoyed Black & White.
Not sure what to think about Curiosity. If all it wants to be is a weird experiment, I think it turned out pretty great, except for the stupid technical issues.
Anyway, I'm ready to be extremely disappointed of what's in the center.
I had fun with Black and White, but my computer at the time didn't like it much. Bad performance can really wreck an otherwise fun game.
Post a Comment
<< Home