Unexpected curiosity cripples Molyneux app

Veteran British games developer Peter Molyneux's latest mobile game, Curiosity, has been dogged by issues after an unexpected million or so downloads led to server overload. The development studio 22 Cans has appealed for fan donations to improve the service. Curiosity - launched last week - is Molyneux's social experiment in …

[ForthIsNotDead]

Excuse me...

...could I be the first one to ask: Just what the f**k are you *talking* about?

Seriously, what the hell is this? It read like gobbledy gook to me. I simply didn't understand a bloody word of it.

I must be getting old or something.

This is a 'game' nowadays is it?

Think I'll stick to Jetpac!

[Rob]

Re: Excuse me...

I'm glad you said something.

So from what I've read, it's a game where you chisel away to slowly reveal a picture of (what looks like) mostly healthy foods or some other bland image and they want people to either donate or pay in some way for this?

I don't get it either, maybe if I was chiselling away to reveal a naked lady it might make mildly more sense.

[Code Monkey]

Re: Excuse me...

So it's a bit like the old picture-of-a-topless-bird-on-the-thing-with-the-bags-of-nuts-on they had in pubs? Except with no pictures of topless birds, no nuts and you're not in a pub?

I really don't understand the modern world.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Excuse me...

Much earlier than that was the pen you turned upside down and the nudie bits were revealed.

[ForthIsNotDead]

Re: Excuse me...

@CodeMonkey

Just sprayed my monitor with KP Salted Nuts (ooer, etc).

And it's all your fault!

[Haku]

Re: Excuse me...

It's a game for people too stupid to do sudoku.

[Pie]

I may buy an add on but when you can't login it is difficult, charging 59p for the app may of helped but at the mimoment it is unusable

[Zaphod.Beeblebrox]

Curious no longer

I downloade dit to see what it was all about and tried over the weekend at various times to log in, and like you was unable to do so. Deleted app, no longer curious.

Paris 'cause I hear she's curious...

[Anonymous Coward]

ruh roh

Why, pray, the flaming fuck, would people want to donate to Moleyneux's adventure in "monetising" players? The parlously-constracted wanktemple fell over and couldn't extract cash from players, so he wants them just to send money out of the goodness of their hearts to fix his money sieve?

He's done some tossy things in his time, but this truly tops them all :P

[Stephen 2]

I played the game for awhile

It's quite boring and obviously he's had to call it an 'experiment' rather than a game, otherwise the media wouldn't play it out very well.

Aside from it being quite limited and hard to access, even if you could access, it did a piss poor job of keeping everyone updated with each others progress. So you were quite often just digging at an area that had already been dug but the server hadn't pushed an update out to you yet. That's one of the reasons why they've been manually clearing layers rather than waiting for users to get every block.

[Aldous]

according to the wired interview he did with the twatter pisstaker peter molydeux, moleneux's 22cans studio has posters all over saying " 1 Million online" (or words to that effect) and that this was his goal for curiosity.

strange then that when they get a million ponline the thing goes belly up and the need more cash.

[ForthIsNotDead]

Glad it's not just me!

And I would just like to add: When someone says "It's not about the money", it's about the money.

[Lunatik]

“It seems there was an insufficient number of users interested in forking out in-app for those stronger chisels”

Not really.

The chisels and other power-ups can only be purchased with the coins earned in-game. Trouble is, the app was only rarely able to connect, has consistency issues that mean earned coins often disappear, has a glaring UI bug in the unavoidable bloody Facebook button causing a white screen of death, and is, in in the case of the Android version, so crushingly laggy that it is difficult to build up enough coins to purchase anything other than the most basic of upgrade items.

The in-app purchases that may have provided Lolyneux with the cash money he desires have yet to be enabled, so anyone who wanted to help fund this mad experiment, couldn’t.

There is an intriguing element to this whole thing that would be more evident if it worked properly. 22 Cans must hope that people don’t just get bored and wander off before they get it sorted.

[Amorous Cowherder]

"I played the game for awhile It's quite boring..."

Some people have way too much fucking time on their hands!

You know what I did this weekend? I spent the weekend outdoors taking photos of lakes at sunrise and sunset, might not be the greatest use of my time but bugger me it's better than paying 59p to stare a 3 inch screen pretending to scratch away at an image of some flowers. If people really need to do this sort of thing, at least go buy some scratch cards and you might stand a slim chance of getting something tangible from it!

Jesus wept the older I get the more stupid and gulliable younger generations seem to be!

[Colin Millar]

I try to imagine

Who might "play" this "game".

And I just keep getting the zombie shopping scene from Dawn of the Dead - complete with the canned muzak

[Badwolf]

Pissed?

22 Cans of strong lager and this POS was conceived - brilliant

[Michael Xion]

Was fun until I connected.

Downloaded this the other day to see what it was about. Sent about 10 minutes playing the 'server busy, retry' portion of the game which was quite exciting waiting to see if it would connect, quite a sense of achievement once i got through. Once I got on the rest of the game was dead boring, mindlessly tapping at blocks and then all of a sudden the whole screen just clears.

Honestly, he should have just released the first part where you try to connect to the server, way more fun.

[Self-evidently!]

So pathetic!

This FAIL of a SO-CALLED GAME is designed for iPAD loosers so they can play it with one hand while they touch there selves!!

Anything more CHALLENGING wouldnt fit on that dead toytown interface anyway! Pathetic!!!

[Goat Jam]

Re: So pathetic!

Awesome.

Particularly liked the irony of "iPAD loosers" but "touch there selves!!" was excellent too.

[Anonymous Coward]

The real challenge of this 'game' is

to see how big a penis you can draw on the cube before others try to erase it.