Experimental Game

Just did a bit of reading up on Introversion's game in development, Subversion. They're developing the game in the public eye, of sorts, posting updates on their progress over the last two years. They've developed some incredibly impressive tools for procedurally generated cities, from streets to buildings to rooms to internal systems. And yet, after all the reading I did on the game, not only did I have no idea what the game is, but I had the very strong impression that the designers themselves didn't, either. This was confirmed (in a manner of soeaking) in a Eurogamer interview designer and programmer Chris Delay did with Kieron Gillen:

Kieron: Of course, despite you doing this developing in public... you haven't actually revealed what the game's going to be about. We're seeing technology, graphic experiments, everything... but we have no idea what it is. I can't help but wonder if you're being a bit meta with the title "Subversion". By showing exactly what you're up to, without revealing what you're doing, are you trying to play games with people's expectations?

Chris: There's no attempt at manipulation or "playing games" in any of our blog postings - I'm just writing about the stuff we're prototyping on a day to day basis. It's true that I haven't yet cleared up the mystery and written anything like "this is exactly what the game will be", but that's mostly because we're not sure ourselves yet. We really are experimenting - as much with technology as gameplay. We've learnt from Darwinia that a game design can undergo seismic shifts during development, and we don't want to do a Molyneux and end up disappointing everyone when our game doesn't solve the world's energy problems.

My first reaction to reading this was glee at seeing a British developer describe their mouths writing checks their games can't cash as "do[ing] a Molyneux".

My second reaction, however, linked his answer with a recent song from They Might Be Giants:

I already know the ending, it's the part that makes your face implode.
I don't know what makes your face implode, but that's the way the movie ends.
It's in my Experimental Film, which nobody knows about in which
I'm still figuring out your face implodes in my Experimental Film.

Yeah, you're all gonna be in this Experimental Film
And even though I can't explain it, I already know how great it is.