Ain’t Killed Me Yet: Still Playing Curiousity
Kyle McIntosh March 13, 2013 - 12:02 pmCuriousity made us ask a question, and not the one you might think. We didn’t want to know what was in the cube, but who was still playing and, more importantly, why? Kyle McIntosh gave us an answer, and, like the question itself, his answer wasn’t the obvious one.
The alarm clock sounds.
Smack. It’s off now and I’m getting out of bed. Stretch. After fumbling around in the dark for a few a minutes, I manage to get dressed and head out the door. I’m running—for leisure, not because I’m late—and then back home. Water hits me. I’m suddenly wide awake, an hour after getting up, as I’ve forgotten my shower water starts cold. I get dressed again now, flip the kettle on, and get ready to eat. My breakfast is meagre: Toast, fruit, tea. And every morning, while I’m sitting at the table, I tap away at my phone.
Today is a normal day, but it’s anything but normal. Today, I would spend hours in the hospital waiting room with no comfort; none but the cube.
Tap. Tap. Tap.
I’m tapping away at a giant cube made of an unknown amount of layers of millions of tiles called cubelets. Tapping destroys tiles, with each tile removed by the global community moving them that much closer to the centre of the cube, and revealing a new layer of tiles. Some layers are solid colours, others gigantic, sprawling photographs, and every one fascinating.
I hold the cube in the palm of my hand – Peter Molyneux’s appropriately titled Curiousity: What’s Inside the Cube – an app Molyneux asserts will change the life of the individual that gets to the centre of the cube. I haven’t made it to the centre yet, but already the cube has changed my life.
Tap. Tap. Tap.
Constantly I tap the cube, though it’s not out of curiousity, despite what the name may lead one to believe. My interest in what lies at the centre of the cube is minimal, if not entirely non-existent. Molyneux is often seen as over-promising and under-delivering, so I’m wary of trusting him again. Curiousity doesn’t describe my play; instead, my play is characterized by routine.
Curiousity is a passive app that begs to be played while multitasking. Tapping takes no real work if the player doesn’t want it to, making it the perfect complement to morning tea, or any other activity that doesn’t require one’s full attention.
However, Curiousity inspires more than mindless tapping. At any given time one may find messages scrawled or shapes formed from bricks removed. Sometimes these are humourous, sometimes they’re about videogames, and sometimes – many times – they’re phallic in nature. There is no instruction booklet telling players how they must tap, but through seeing others making words or symbols, players are socialized in the game’s language.
That socialization led me to etch notes into the cube as I prepared for final exams – a recurring event many will say is among the most stressful of their lives, at least to that point – and everything from the names of characters in Greek tragedies (try spelling Clytemnestra) to the wave equation (v=fλ) made its way on to the cube as I tapped.
Such miscellaneous titbits likely meant little to the bulk of players around me, but each and every one bore significance to me. This is not a preparatory act: the comfort I feel in tapping the cube, in sharing my cryptic anonymous messages, and engrossing myself in the minimalist world is far more advantageous than last minute study.
Tap. Tap. Tap.
Continually tapping has a hypnotic quality to it; it’s easy to establish a rhythm and get lost in the ambient music. Allowing oneself to get lost in the tapping has its benefits. Late at night such an inward focus can be applied to meditating.
The act of tapping does not replace meditation itself, but it does help get one in the necessary mental state to meditate: relaxed, calm, focused. Not bad considering smartphones are oft considered a distraction and nothing more. Just as I tap away at the cube each morning before school, I chisel, bit by bit, before bed.
Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap.
“Your grandmother has had a heart attack,” my mother tells me over the phone.
Today is not a normal day. Everything about it seems normal – same routine as always – but it’s in a different place. I’m on a break from school, back home for a spell, enjoying being away from the city and, more importantly, final exams. And now, I’ve received news that is anything but enjoyable. I must go to the hospital, I’ve been informed, as nobody else in my immediate family can avoid other commitments like work; worse, my extended family are at a birthday party for one of my younger, distant cousins. The show must go on.
Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap.
I sit in the waiting room, completely separated from my grandmother and surrounded by strangers. I have seen her once – she’s alive – but have since been whisked away. Medical personnel pummel me with unfamiliar words and abbreviations I can’t repeat for lack of recollection: the point, they say, is that I can’t be here. So I wait. And without even thinking about it, without intending it, I pull my phone out and load Curiousity. “Welcome back,” it reads, like an old friend waiting to comfort me.
Hours pass in the waiting room, and I receive and give only periodic updates. Sitting in a hospital waiting room is an exercise of great determination. Such a sterile environment is meant to aid in one’s darkest hours, but I couldn’t help feel the walls closing in around me any time I was pulled away from the cube.
The cube is a deep blue now, and I am engrossed. As long as I keep tapping, the sounds of the hospital don’t penetrate my ears, the walls keep their distance, and I feel comfortable. Hours pass this way, and finally, my grandmother emerges from the emergency room. She hasn’t had a heart attack, but she, and I, are fine.
Tap. Tap. Tap.
It seems Molyneux is correct: When someone breaches the centre of the cube, my life will be changed. I will need to find a new source of routine; a new source of comfort when dark clouds loom.
Tap. Tap.
Comments (1)
I guess this is one way to look at Curiosity – seems like it’s gone from making people curious to relaxing people instead.