Curiosity unboxed, winner to become the god of Godus

After just over six months of collected Android and iOS owners inexplicably tapping at a giant cube, 22 Cans have finally revealed what's inside the box.

After just over six months of collected Android and iOS owners inexplicably tapping at a giant cube, 22 Cans have finally revealed what's inside the box. Turns out Curiosity hadn't caught a quantum cat, or Gwyneth Paltrow's decapitated head, or any other unlikely guess. Instead, it held a mini-Molyneux, with a message to the winner about their ultimate prize. And unlike Curiosity itself, that prize will have an impact on PC gamers - at least, it will for those backers of 22 Cans' upcoming Godus.

"You, the person who reached the centre, will be the god of all people that are playing Godus," Molyneux revealed. "You will decide - intrinsically decide - on the rules the game is played by. And - here's the life-changing bit - you will share in the success of the product. Every time people spend money on Godus you will get a small piece of that pie."

"You will have fame, you will have fortune, and you will have the power to introduce morals into a game."

Which means, as questions are answered on one project, they're raised in another. Specifically, phrasing like "every time people spend money on Godus," which is just open-ended enough to obscure how that money is being spent. It was announced last week that Godus' mobile version was being distributed through a publisher, with speculation that the game would be free-to-play for mobile users. When questioned by RPS, 22 Cans stated that the PC version wouldn't have a publisher attached, but couldn't confirm pricing methods on any platform.

Secondly, it seems odd that "the rules the game is played by" - whatever that actually means - are being decided by a single person, when Godus is a project that began life through Kickstarter, and so only exists through the backing of 17,184 others. Of course, 22 Cans are free to design their game in whatever way they see fit. But it does seem like Godus backers have, perhaps unwittingly, been dragged into the studio's madcap experiments.

The new god in question was revealed as Bryan Henderson, from Edinburgh. In an interview with Wired, he said, "People are going to hate me for this, but I only registered for the game earlier this morning, about an hour before I won the thing." So if nothing else, we at least know he's a sensible deity.