Questions about the Cube

[Rixil]

It is very baffling how people actually find attraction to this box with a purple heart on it.

I see plenty of videos on youtube where the companion cube is overrated.

Why are people so attracted to a box with a heart on it?

I dropped it in the Incinerator with no hesitation.

The reason i call it a box with a heart on it is because it's nothing more than that. Perhaps there is a Bonding force in the game that the player can't feel, but chell does?

 

[Lokizen]

Ah, it's all part of the love of parts of the game, in part.

 

[Narvi]

"Before time began, there was the Cube. We know not where it comes from, only that it holds the power to create worlds and fill them with life. That was how our race was born. For a time, we lived in harmony, but like all great power, some wanted it for good, others for evil. And so began the war - a war that ravaged our planet until it was consumed by death, and the Cube was lost to the far reaches of space. We scattered across the galaxy, hoping to find it and rebuild our home, searching every star, every world. And just when all hope seemed lost, message of a new discovery drew us to an unknown planet called... Earth. But we were already too late."

Optimus Prime said that, and I think he knows a leeeeeeeeeeeetle more than you do.

 

[Cheomesh]

It is very baffling how people actually find attraction to this box with a purple heart on it.

I see plenty of videos on youtube where the companion cube is overrated.

Why are people so attracted to a box with a heart on it?

I dropped it in the Incinerator with no hesitation.

The reason i call it a box with a heart on it is because it's nothing more than that. Perhaps there is a Bonding force in the game that the player can't feel, but chell does?

You and me both.

 

[Naurgul]

Well, if you want to be cynical, everything in videogames is a bunch of pixels, nothing more than that. And every human on the planet is a collection of dumb cells. Yay! Now everything is meaningless.

You're supposed to get attached to it in jest, following the game's hints about what other people did in your position there.

 

[Iron_cube]

Yeah but still, it doesn't even do anything interesting other than being a prop_physics.

 

[Naph]

Well, if you want to be cynical, everything in pornography is a bunch of pixels, nothing more than that.

Fixed

 

[Alterego-X]

Perhaps there is a Bonding force in the game that the player can't feel, but chell does?

The players could feel the bond, you are the only one who couldn't, because you are a heartless monster.

Even you admitted that other players could fell the bond. When I had to destroy the Cube, I hesitated for several minutes, and when I had to do that, I almost cried.

 

[Rixil]

I look at characters like alyx or breen and think of them differently. Why? Because alyx looks like a real woman who talks and is attracte to gordon, just as breen hates you and you might hate him. but the Companion cube doesn't do anything, you just carry it around to solve problems, just like you would with a normal storage cube.

 

[FoolishOwl]

I'll let you in on the secret. IT'S A JOKE.

It's a complicated and multilayered joke, really.

To begin with, there's the way it's depicted in the game. As the developer's commentary describes, at first playtesters would abandon the cube after the first use, so they added some directions to make it clear they were supposed to hang on to it. Then they found playtesters were hesitant to give it up, so they had to push them to do that. They decided to make a joke of it, about how creepy GLaDOS and the Enrichment Center are: what kind of testing are they doing, such that it's common for test subjects to develop delusions that boxes care about them?

I've seen a lot of gamers comment, after they finished a game, that they became particularly fond of some entity within the game, and didn't want to give it up. This happens especially with CRPGs, and especially with NPCs; but not just NPCs, also innocuous objects that were just tokens for solving some problem. There's usually something about the description of such objects to make them seem interesting. I remember in particular that fans of the Fallout games would compare notes about how complete their collection of items they'd collected through the course of the game was.

It's a funny feature of human psychology that we can develop emotional connections to inanimate objects, just as we can treat other human beings as mere objects. Our consciousnesses are complex and dynamic, and can adapt to strange situations, or be confused by them.

I found the dialogue about euthanizing the cube eerie, as if GLaDOS (the developers) were messing with my head. I knew, of course, that not only was the cube not alive, but that there was no actual cube, just a graphic image representing a database object and some scripting. In fact, I think that it was easier to get through that bit of the story than it otherwise might have been, because it was so obviously a joke about the way gamers will develop attachments to imaginary objects, and an illustration of how creepy GLaDOS and the Enrichment Center were. Had it been a more straghtforward story, and had the cube simply vanished when I reached the fizzler, I probably would have felt a bit guilty -- and a bit chagrined that I felt guilty about an imaginary object.

So, those of us who keep going on about the WCC are continuing to laugh about a joke within the game, one about the game, and about other games, and about human psychology, including our own.

On top of that, for people who've played the game, the WCC is now an inside joke. For instance, on my desk at work, I've got a cardstock WCC, at the side of a Cthulhu plushie. It amuses me, and it should look to others like some sort of joke they don't get, which they could ask me about -- or, if they've played Portal, they could say, "Oh, who's the Portal fan?"

 

[Tigsalot]

It is very baffling how people actually find attraction to this box with a purple heart on it.

It's a PINK heart FYI

and Foolish Owl, I think you've said it all, man.

Close this freakin' thread now, it's over:cheers:

You checked and mated this mofo.

 

[nurizeko]

The reason i call it a box with a heart on it is because it's nothing more than that.

Get out.


Now.

Thats okay, ignore the bad man, he's gone now, he wont hurt you again, yesss..yeees I know, he is cruel, but hes going to burn in hell for a life age of the world *hug*

 

[morgs]

The person playing the game isn't supposed to get attached to it, it's Chell, the one doing the test that is supposed to feel that way, the character. getting attached to a 'cube' in a computer game is pretty sad IMO. I actually felt pretty good chucking it in the incinerator.

 

[Pesmerga]

"Before time began, there was the Cube. We know not where it comes from, only that it holds the power to create worlds and fill them with life. That was how our race was born. For a time, we lived in harmony, but like all great power, some wanted it for good, others for evil. And so began the war - a war that ravaged our planet until it was consumed by death, and the Cube was lost to the far reaches of space. We scattered across the galaxy, hoping to find it and rebuild our home, searching every star, every world. And just when all hope seemed lost, message of a new discovery drew us to an unknown planet called... Earth. But we were already too late."

Optimus Prime said that, and I think he knows a leeeeeeeeeeeetle more than you do.

Win win win win win win win wiwn iwnwinwinwiwn

 

[Iron_cube]

Definitely overrated

 

[Pesmerga]

Companion Cube > Iron Cube

 

[Rixil]

See? Nurizeko and tigsalot are already flaming because i asked.

Go outside and play some baseball you two.

 

[Plug]

To all the people 'confused' about why people like the cube... lighten the hell up, seriously.

It's a joke - if you don't get it, i think you're sad. You're missing out on all the fun everyone else is having.

The previous post explaining why it's funny pretty much has it dead on imo. But i think people 'get' that on a subconcious level, and it's just funny 'cus it is on the surface.

Lighten up, don't take everything so god damn seriously. Relax. You might start to have some fun with everyone. (God forbid you could appreciate something that a large group of other people do.... oh noes)

 

[Plug]

Win win win win win win win wiwn iwnwinwinwiwn

+8700000 wins

 

[Van Kayne]

"Before time began, there was the Cube. We know not where it comes from, only that it holds the power to create worlds and fill them with life. That was how our race was born. For a time, we lived in harmony, but like all great power, some wanted it for good, others for evil. And so began the war - a war that ravaged our planet until it was consumed by death, and the Cube was lost to the far reaches of space. We scattered across the galaxy, hoping to find it and rebuild our home, searching every star, every world. And just when all hope seemed lost, message of a new discovery drew us to an unknown planet called... Earth. But we were already too late."

Optimus Prime said that, and I think he knows a leeeeeeeeeeeetle more than you do.

Win win win win win win win wiwn iwnwinwinwiwn

+8700000 wins

I concur with the wins. Therefore, in accordance with the generally accepted practice of motions put forward and concurring to ratify, the "win" is ratified.

Seriously, the idea with the Companion Cube is that Chell has probably undergone subliminal or positive feedback association with the Cube. After all, if the lab rats don't want the cheese at the end of the maze, how will we ever find out how fast they can get to it? Ditto with the cake, if you didn't get that.

 

[scotland1]

The fact that the cube plushies are sold out is sad really...

 

[Pesmerga]

I bought a Vortigaunt plushie

 

[Cheomesh]

But why was the cube plushie so much monies?

 

[GM)Paravin.]

I want a cube plushie so I can hum...g it.