The windmill appeared strange from this perspective, its swift blades moving in and out of sight.
A few things.
- Miegakure is coming to PS4. I wrote a blog post introducing the game over at the Playstation Blog. Interestingly I had never written an introductory post like that. We are showing the game at the Playstation Experience in Las Vegas on December 6th and 7th, 2014. Of course, it will also be on PC/Mac/Linux.
- A couple interviews I had not posted on the blog: Chris Suellentrop wrote a piece about me for Wired’s December 2014 Issue, which was guest directed by Christopher Nolan. In the same issue there is also a great “XKCD guide to higher dimensions.” I also did this interview with Cathlin Sentz on N4G a while ago and this interview on Kill Screen turned out well: Videogame architecture allows us to visualize the impossible:
To a fourth dimensional person, it’s like, ‘you forgot two walls to your house,’”
- Now that the tech has solidified a bit we have been working on lots of new art, which I am exited to show soon. On the code side I have been finishing up smaller things like collision detection with objects that are not the tesseract tiles. It used to be possible to walk inside trees and lanterns, etc…
You know the game is strange when you can finally add collision detection many years in! For the longest time it was not clear how to embed 3D objects in the 4D space and how to display them, or what a 4D mesh even is, etc… So collision detection came as an afterthought. Note that you can almost never stand stand on these objects, so them having no collision never affected gameplay. Anyway I literally just added that and I am excited to test how it feels at the show, ahah.
If this is working on PS4 will it be available anytime on Intel devices. Or, are we waisting our time in waiting for it? I would help you with testing and some constructive criticism if you like. I have some small programing ability, and am capable of artistry. I think that allowing some others to aid you would greatly increase the possibility for your game’s success. Let me know if there is a place where I can help you explore this very enjoyable concept.
Michael
Yes, PC/Mac/Linux.
I’m looking forward to it.
Regards a Linux gamer
Will this be released on other platforms (PC, PS3, etc.)???
Yes, PC/Mac/Linux.
Ok for one that’s really cool that the game is going to be released on a popular platform like that! However, a tiny bit of a worry, I don’t like playstation, and I really don’t want to play the pricetag for one. Just reassure me that there will be other platforms available, or a Steam release? I currently have access to Steam for Linux, and I will be getting a Macbook soon (not by choice, but that’s another story)
Speaking of collision detection, and I think I may have asked this before, but is the character actually a 4D mesh? I know with the camera always orienting with the character it’d be impossible to see the 4D part, but I didn’t know if the collision detection relied on the mesh structure and also wasn’t sure how a 3D mesh would collide with a full 4D object
Yeah don’t worry it will be out for Linux.
The character is a 3D mesh. It technically has a bit of thickness along the fourth dimension, which is why it can collide with full 4D objects.
So technically it behaves like a cardboard-cutout-like 4D-Mesh? It’s just 3D with a little bit of 4D-thickness taped ontop of it?
Yeah, at least at first!
4D Shape/Nomenclature question. The lily pads in the water? Are those spherical in 4d? and what do you call a “pad” that is 4D?
ok questions are done for now.
There are two types, spherical and cylindrical, these are cylindrical.
Cool
I am really excited about this game.
Will you be sharing any specifics with regards to the technology used to present 4D puzzles? Ie., how to construct the meshes, how you’re doing collisions detection, etc?
It doesn’t have to be open source, though that might be the easiest thing to do. Far more beneficial, I think, would be a series of expository writings so the reader could implement their own solutions. 🙂
Have you read the other articles on this blog? there’s a great post about rotations and quaternions.
Hi
Just wanted to say that I’m impressed that you have kept going for so long – it’s clearly a labour of love and I wish you every success with it. Have you written it entirely by yourself or do you now have a team helping you? Many of the “big” computer games have hundreds of people working on them for years, so your individual effort is all the more impressive in that context.
It’s quite an odd concept for a computer game, which might make selling it harder, but sometimes ‘quirky’ games have big success, like Portal, for example. I presume you have the support of a big company in marketing and distributing this game?
If you aren’t now leading a bigger team, would you consider doing so? The reason I ask is that the game might benefit from the slickness that comes from having professional artists and musicians doing those things, for instance. I can see from the existing screenshots that you are brilliant anyway, but I am anxious for you that I want the game to be a success and the general public will not know that this is a small-team or single-person effort by you, and they may compare the game harshly against the super-slick huge graphics and sounds of a multi-million pound blockbuster game like Halo or Portal 2 or whatever.
I’m sure you’ve given all these things a lot of consideration already, and after five years I’m sure you know what you’re doing – I just want the game to be a success and I want to play it!!
Cheers
Tom
Games don’t need great art to be good, nor do they need a huge team. Minecraft was, at first, one person and, to this day, doesn’t come with great graphics, and has good sound, but not great. Despite that, Minecraft is a huge success. Miegakure could easily end up this way, maybe even as big of a success.
Also, if you have a professional team, you would probably need to pay them, and paying them is hard if you aren’t selling your product.
One thing I don’t understand: why in that trailer you can see that girl in “sideways world”? Is she 4D, or she’s something like “3d sprite” that always looking “at” camera?
P.S. Also, in case of 2D/3D, why is he “disappears” from 2D world when he’s turning sideways? I thought he will look like infinitely thin line (“intersection” between sideways world and normal world).
Good catch! Yes, she’s something like a “3d sprite” that is always looking at the camera. It’s not necessarily bad, but I have ideas on how to improve it.
I am just saying that an infinitely thin line is basically invisible.
1. As someone who was unable to go to the las vegas exhibit, what is the basic control scheme of the game? does it rotate though the axis you’re facing + the W axis (relative to the player’s current orientation) when a single button is pushed, or can to control which axes to rotate through?
2. What is the estimated release date on each platform?
1. You can’t control which axis is rotated out, it’s always the same. Makes the game simpler.
2. Not known yet.
As far as release dates go, everyone pretty much just expects it not to come out at all, so when it finally does, we’ll be pleasantly surprised.