The game was met with controversy after the reward ended up being less "life-changing" than claimed, and ultimately nearly nonexistent due to the commercial failure of Godus.

The game setting was a featureless and minimalist white room in the middle of which floated a giant cube made of billions of smaller cubes ("cubelets") and white, floating text across each layer, usually topic related (hashtag, notifications etc.

Coins could be spent on tools that temporarily enhanced the player's abilities, such as picks ranging from iron to steel to diamond that increased the number of cubelets destroyed with each tap, or firecrackers that could be laid on the cube in long strings to chain together explosions.

In addition, Peter Molyneux suggested there may be more to the game than it would seem: "There is something we haven't told everybody about when you play the cube.

22cans did not anticipate such widespread interest in the game, and were not prepared to handle the extreme load, causing connectivity issues to persist from launch day to nearly a week afterwards.

[3] The floating text across the layers usually carried the hashtag for this 'game experiment', #Curiosity, or short, informal messages from the staff.

Reviews consistently improved since version 2, which introduced 3 new gameplay features, was released on the Android store on 7 December.

[17][18] The winner was identified as Edinburgh resident Bryan Henderson, who was given the option to either keep the knowledge of the contents of the cube to himself or share it with the public.

[21][22] Prior to the game's completion, Molyneux regularly described the prize as "life-changing," though clarified it would not be "a huge mountain of cash [...] an amazing sports car [...] or Half-Life 3.

"[25] In a 2012 interview with Rock Paper Shotgun, Molyneux declared the prize would last for five to ten years.

[30] Upon learning about the controversy, indie publisher Devolver Digital and developer Roll7 decided to include Henderson as a non-playable character in their 2015 release Not a Hero.