22 Experiments for 22 Cans

Legendary game designer Peter Molyneux revealed the first project for his new studio, 22 Cans, is called 22 Experiments.

"We’ve got 12 people now, and I’m trying to push this to 20 people as soon as possible," Molyneux told Beefjack.com.

“And then we’re directing all of our staff at the moment towards these things called 22 Experiments, which are 22 experiments that we will release digitally on the journey onto the final product that we’re going to make."

Molyneux left his position at Microsoft a few months ago, after his experimental AI-interaction game for the Xbox Kinect, "Milo", was deemed to difficult to sell.

Free of the burden of making marketable products, Molyneux has set to work on his own unique studio, and has expressed interest in touch screen interfaces, social, and mobile games, but did not rule out the possibility of consoles for 22 Cans.

He estimates the first of their 22 Experiments will be done in as soon as six weeks, and while he did not provide specifics, he said the games would be, "very very different, unusual, I think very intriguing things."

Speaking at Game 12 today, Molyneux provided further hints about what 22 Cans has been up to.

“Our whole passion is to use some of the technology which is around in the world today in a single product and a single experience, in a way that no one else has used it,” he said.

“I am fed up to the back teeth of consuming other people’s visions – of directors’ and screenwriters’ ideas of what a hero should be; of novelists writing stories that they think are good, but I think are rubbish. Why can’t we have stories about me? I want to have my own unique experiences."

“When I put my son to bed at night, the best story I can tell is a story that I make up, and that’s a story about his life. And he loves it. That’s the story I want. I don’t want another James Bond film, I don’t want another Avengers.”

Molyneux was careful to explain he was speaking very generally about the project, saying, “Please don’t take what I’ve said too literally – it’s not a storybook called ‘whatever your name is’. It’s a bit more subtle than that."

“I love this one thought, and I have experimented with this in previous games, that you find out more about yourself while being engaged with this experience than with anything else. And we all love finding out about ourselves – whether it’s through personality tests, or someone turning around to you and saying X, Y and Z."