People often ask me: will this game make me understand the fourth dimension?
The thing about this question is that there are multiple ways of understanding something, so we have to define which way we mean.
I think about Miegakure as a toy ball. I mean that in the sense that by playing with a toy ball as a kid you intuitively learn about how gravity works. You can adjust the throwing angle and force and see the different paths the ball takes. You learn about parabolas without even knowing the word for them.
This is very different from knowing the second-order differential equations of motion under the force of gravity. Clearly you don’t need to understand them to know how to throw a ball.
In the same way, Miegakure doesn’t explain anything explicitly about the fourth dimension, it just lets you be inside of a 4D world. If someone wants to learn the mathematical theory, however, it can be built upon stronger instincts.
I have watched tons of people play Miegakure and I see people fall along a spectrum between two types: intuitive and reasoned.
The intuitive types try something, fail and try something different. They often don’t understand how they are able to solve the puzzles or know exactly what they are doing and why. But they gradually build an intuition for the patterns they encounter.
The reasoned types, on the other hand, when put in situation they do not understand, stop and think: what is this system I am interacting with? They formulate theories and test them. They move a little bit, think, press a button and examine the results. Some people go back to previously solved levels in order to test theories. They quickly build a model of how the rules of the game work and it is this model that allows them to solve puzzle effectively.
This is not to say that any type is better. I have seen very smart people in both categories. I have seen someone play for 4 hours, beat almost the whole game, all on intuition. At the end I asked: so can you explain to me what happens when you press the “rotate” button? Their first answer was no, but as they started thinking about it they had an epiphany: oh! I see this is how it works!
I can tell a lot about the way someone thinks from the way they play Miegakure. I am reminded of David Sirlin’s great GDC 2012 microtalk [Blog Post] [GDC vault link]. It is about the difference between conscious thought and unconscious thought, and contains this quote from Capcom’s Seth Killian :
I can learn more about someone by watching them play 10 seconds of Street Fighter than 10 hours of an RPG
I am sure I am not the only one drooling in anticipation.
You are not.
I’m waiting for this game for so long. Thanks for every each email you send, please don’t stop informing us 😀
Thanks! Can I ask: did you get a single email? I got around 7, and I hope that it is only because I am an admin and have a bunch of test accounts.
I can say that I only received a single email.
Thanks!
Yep, I only got one email. Can’t wait to play this awesome game. I’m definitely a reasoned type. I’ve already been trying to figure out how a 4D world works just from the previews and such. Thanks for all your brilliant effort!
I’m sure I’m not the first to say: http://www.faniq.com/images/blog/Shut-up-and-take-my-money.jpg
Will there be an option for 1st person mode? It’d be incredible if we could walk around in 4 dimensional space while wearing an Oculus rift; Incredible and yet probably quite painful on the brain.
The game was very much made for third person, so it would be expensive to make it look good in first person, so probably not.
NONETHELESS, please consider adding stereoscopic 3D later on — no reason why it has to be 1st person to support stereo 3D. I encourage you to give the Nintendo 3DS or Oculus VR a try if you haven’t, maybe try the 3D Super Mario. It’s incredibly charming and effective, as long as you can make the sprites not seem like paper cutouts. : )
I also received a single email.
I never had the opportunity to make it at the events it was presented and I am now quite envious of the person who played it 4 hrs 🙂
The developers of Miegakure appreciate one of my favourite game designers David Sirlin. How awesome is that?
I’ve been tracking progress on this game for years now, and I’m just as excited now as I was when I first heard about it. Any chance a physics major with a background in game design could get a shot at a beta-test?
Well, the game will probably be at PAX East this year, maybe you are going?
Sadly, tickets were sold out before I could get some. I’ll keep trying on StubHub, but I am in the Boston area and would love a chance to meet with you sometime, game-demo or not.
I did not realise this game was trying to go on about the 4th dimension, very cool to hear about players tried different ways to solve puzzles.
I asked this question on quora recently: “Has anybody ever claimed to be able to visualize 4-D space in their minds?” http://www.quora.com/Science/Has-anybody-ever-claimed-to-be-able-to-visualize-4-D-space-in-their-minds
One of the people responding pointed me to your game. We all want it!
P.S. Assuming you spent a lot of time in 4-D space recently, how would you answer my question?
[…] with the fourth dimension, allowing for four-dimensional movement.” Obviously. He’s said that we needn’t fully understand 4D space to play, in the same way that a child with a ball […]