After many months of speculation, famed game designer Peter Molyneux's Curiosity is now available on the iOS app store.

Gamers have known for some time the basic premise of the app. Curiosity presents gamers with a gigantic cube made of of many millions (or perhaps billions) of smaller cubes. Participants worldwide can chink away at the cube block my block, cooperating to reveal what's underneath each layer.

But... what the heck does this actually mean? And how does it work? Let's take a look...

This is the first screen you see when you fire up the app. It's wholly white, which obviously blends right in with IGN's page background. It also already sets up the mysterious, high-concept mood:

The stark white screen stays until you tap it. Apparently Curiosity takes your initial tap as a "yes" to the stark question above. You're next told how many people before you have downloaded and fired up Curiosity - a surprisingly powerful and compelling way to get both the cooperative and competitive juices flowing. I was the 335th person to try out Curiosity:

The cube has many layers, but getting to the center won't be easy...

What's more, only one person will get to hit that final block and see what's actually there. I certainly hope they choose to share what they see with the world...

After this enigmatic and oddly compelling into... we're finally here! On the cube itself! So... now what?

You can swipe your finger to rotate the cube, or pinch two fingers to zoom in and out. Zooming in reveals sections that other users have chipped away at that aren't visible from a distance. It's neat to see them slowly materialize.

Users are already beginning to clear away sections of the cube in an ad-hoc form of self expression:

Each layer of the cube promises to have something new underneath. A new color, a photograph, a painting... something that will satisfy each players', well... curiosity. But for now it looks like each side of the cube just has a blue-green layer underneath.

But let's get down to brass tacks. How does curiosity actually work? Blocks are deleted simply by tapping on them. Gamers start with a set amount of coins. I wholly expected to be charged a coin for each block I deleted. I expected them to refill slowly over time, and perhaps be charged real money for extra coins. But it turns out Curiosity actually does the opposite.

Each block you delete earns coins. If you delete blocks rapidly in an unbroken burst of play (work? participation?) a coin multiplier begins to tick upward. At first each block deleted just earns you one coin. But then two, three, and on upward with no upper limit that I could find.

This is a supremely interesting design decision because it means you're earning exponentially more coins the longer you play in one unbroken chunk. A user that deletes 1000 blocks a few at a time will only have 1000 coins. But a user that breaks 1000 blocks in a single chunk could earn 50 times that much currency.

But... what are these coins actually spent on?

The chisels, bombs and firecrackers in the menu above make you a more efficient block clearer for a limited time by allowing you to clear more cubelets with a single tap. These power-ups range in price from a few thousand coins up to 3 billion for the diamond pickaxe. What's a little more interesting is that even accessing the stats menu costs coins - 100, to be precise. Inside, you can see how many cubelets remain on the current layer of the cube, how many users are participating, how many cubelets you personally have cleared and plenty more.

Interestingly, the outer layer of the cube contains 100,000,000 cubelets just on its own. All of which must be cleared one by one. Anyone want to crunch some numbers and figure out how many total cubelets are contained within the cube, if it is solid all the way through?

So, there you have it. A first look at Curiosity from Peter Molyneux's new studio 22cans. The app is both absurdly simple and wildly complex. It's very silly and yet oddly compelling. Perhaps most unusual of all, given the current state of the App Store, is that Curiosity is an entirely free download, with no In-App-Purchases in sight. Yes, the entire experience is 100% free, from top-to-bottom.

Is it a video game? A piece of interactive art? To me, it feels like a commentary on mass cooperation. With millions upon millions of cubes to break, there is no getting to the center without cooperation on a massive scale.

Curiosity also makes me think about the human desire for self expression. The cube's grey face has no instructions in the same way that a canvas of wet sand has no instructions. No one tells you to write your initials in the sand with your finger. Or draw something considerably less benign and more vulgar, if that's or disposition. But it still spontaneously happens, regardless. We all want to leave our mark on the world, even if it is fleeting.

And so it is with Curiosity. Gamers don't need to be told to communicate using the surface of the cube. It just happens. And like messages written in sand, Curiosity's very nature ensures that any message left is fleeting. It will be washed away by the actions of other users, replaced with a new layer of the cube and new engravings.

Until the center is reached, at least. After that... who knows?

Spot something especially memorable on the cube? Add it to our user-powered gallery of curiosity sightings!

Justin is Editor of IGN Wireless. He has been reviewing mobile games since the dark days of Java flip phones. You can follow him on Twitter at @ErrorJustin and on IGN.

Source : feeds[dot]ign[dot]com

Bioware has announced that it will slightly loosen the restrictions facing free-to-play accounts due to "community and internal feedback".

In a post on the game's forums, lead designer Damion Schubert explained that changes would be made to the originally announced restrictions after they generated a mixed reaction.

“

It is important conversely that the subscription offers subscribers strong, tangible benefits over the Free-to-Play experience. We value our subscribers greatly, and they are crucial to the success of Star Wars: the Old Republic.

As a result, free-to-play players will now get a second quickslot bar, as well as the ability to run five Warzones each week. Under the original restrictions, there was no second bar for free-to-play accounts and only three Warzone battles could be played every seven days.

Schubert went on to address the worry that the limitations on Warzones will make queues longer, saying that if anything they should get shorter. He explained, "Our subscriber base likely will not shrink much, and for some of our competitors, converting to Free-to-Play has resulted in a subscriber increase! Which means that Warzone queues should likely see improvement from what you experience in game, and at minimum be relatively unchanged in experience.

"That being said, one of our golden rules is that the Free-to-Play experience should not cheapen the experience for paying subscribers. If it turns out that the Free-to-Play conversion results in a degraded Warzone experience once we go live for subscribers, you can rest assured that we will quickly make adjustments to the system to ensure that subscribers have an optimal experience.

"It is important conversely that the subscription offers subscribers strong, tangible benefits over the Free-to-Play experience. We value our subscribers greatly, and they are crucial to the success of Star Wars: the Old Republic."

Also addressed in the post is the potential for accounts to receive preferred status. Any former subscriber whose account has locked will automatically get preferred status, otherwise any F2P player who makes a single purchase through the game's official site will also have their account upgraded to preferred status.

Preferred status offers a range of benefits, ranging from increased server queue priority and an extra crew skill slot to obtaining the sprint ability at level 1 alongside access to your cargo hold.

No official launch date has been unveiled for the free-to-play option for Star Wars: The Old Republic, but it's expected to be available before the year is out.

Luke Karmali is IGN's UK Editorial Assistant and former SWTOR player. You too can revel in mediocrity by following him on IGN and on Twitter.

Source : feeds[dot]ign[dot]com

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