Press Start

by Riel Evangelista

In our last discussion in class, we talked about truth and how people opt to find and see the truth. We have different views on the truth and it varies from one individual to another, although there are instances in which one’s truth is the same as another, so in a way, the truth is intersubjective. As we had this discussion, it reminded me of a videogame. Thinking of video games during class isn’t really the best thing to think about while discussing philosophy, but I started to relate our discussion to this video game.

The video game is called, “Curiosity - What’s Inside the Cube?” it is a mobile cellphone game made by 22cans, a small game company, headed by Peter Molyneux (Creator of Fable and Populous). The game is different from other games, since it’s more of a social experiment than a game. The mechanics of the game is simple, you are given a virtual cube with a LOT of layers and cubelets (more than 10 billion cubelets) and you are tasked to break each cubelet by touching it and in doing so makes you one step closer to discovering what’s inside the cube.

You may think that doing this alone is a huge pain, but the game is a multiplayer game, meaning you’re not the only one doing all the work. People from all over the world, who are playing the game, are also taking part in this tedious task of breaking cubelets, just to find out what really is inside the cube.

So where’s the discussion in “The Mystery of Being” play out in this? In this game, we are put in this place where we are tasked with this giant cube, this place is the “intelligible milieu”, the place to see the truth / a community of seekers of truth (other players also playing the game with you). “You can only see the truth, if it has value to you”, so in a way if the truth has value to you, you would spend hours breaking each and every cubelet in the game.

The other “seekers of truth” and their different points of views on the truth are reflected in that the cube has different “faces/sides” and one may work on a different side than the other. In breaking the cubelets we are slowly overcoming our fear of seeing the truth, since it takes courage to see the truth (and its a lot of work to break these cubelets). Once we finally break all the cubelets (finding the truth) we feel enlightened and it is an end to an inner struggle.


Truth is a mystery. There are moments in our life where we makes these choices that would have a huge effect on ourselves. I believe that life is a journey in which we find our own “truths” in this life. We may find it in different forms and it will be a defining moment for us, once we find it.