Wow.. this is just an incredible idea. I went on for an hour discussing what has been said in this thread. It wasn''t really discussion, it was more like "wow, cool."

Anyway, I was thinking about the idea that you could walk from room one to room two, then out another way to the ceiling of room one. Avoiding the lack of definite story, it would be pretty interesting to program that. Wouldn''t you have to have some sort of map written down for how you can get where? And wouldn''t it drive you, the programmer, more insane than the person who actually plays the game?

About the idea where the player starts the game being attacked by himself: wouldn''t that give rise to that whole set of "If I killed my father, do I still exist?" type of questions. And besides that, how would you program it? If you started the game, and you attacked yourself, and then you saw this scene later on in the game and decided to jump in, how would the ''you''s already in the room react? Would they just ignore you and hack at each other? Or would you have to craft some sort of AI to respond to this new development, one that learns about the player''s habits?

Wow, great ideas by all :D

Toraque, I think thats a great idea for a storyline... although I''d like to tune down the morbidity a bit to make it a lot less obvious from the get go that it is a virtual world. The player should start off knowing nothing... including not knowing that they are in a hypercube at all. Leaving one room and entering a familiar one via a wall will be one of the ''tingle down the spine'' moments.

And psyker... yes it will be interesting to program, but not actually all too difficult. First off, all 8 cubes will be stored independantly, as 8 separate universal maps, so to speak. Based on the players location and current orientation, a new world map could be constructed every time the player moves between rooms. Then it is as simple as rendering that 3D scene.

Hey ,i like the diea alot ,and just know ,if you need a graphics artist or a modeler/animator ,you know who to talk to !! Send me an email and we can talk ,ight??
Peace out ,
Daniel Osadtsuk Osadkid@37.com (thats my email)

Hey ,if you need a graphics designer for this hypercube game ,you know who to talk to!!Send me an email ,and ill get back to ya fast!!
Peace Out!
Daniel Osadtsuk osadkid@37.com (thats my email)

Hey ,if you need a graphics designer for this hypercube game ,you know who to talk to ,i also model and animate(actually ,thats what i do best)!!Send me an email ,and ill get back to ya fast!!
Peace Out!
Daniel Osadtsuk osadkid@37.com (thats my email)

sorry for so many posts ,i didnt realize that there were 2 pages so i kept going because i didnt see mine appearing!!

lol, you can delete posts by using the edit button

I will need to work out some design documents and such first, and hash out all the ideas for puzzles and such. But I will be needing a graphics artist eventually, and I will make sure to keep you in mind. Do you have any examples of past work that I could check out?

Okay, how about this for a storyline. Nothing is known or explained from the beginning. Basically, the player fires up the game for the first time, sees an ominous intro movie (headlights flashing in the rain, cut to a framed picture of the wife, cut to a hospital gurney with some wires hanging off of it, while a discordant piano refrain repeats.) Everything fades to black, and a voiceover cuts in: “At the end, I decided I didn’t want to remember.” And then they’re standing in the room with the telephone dial. Think: the movie, “The Game”

The story is told mainly by the player talking to himself—think Garrett in the Thief series, making sardonic comments on things he sees. This comes out as a voiceover as the player is standing there, staring at the telephone.

“The past is a weight to be carried, the future is only a hope . . but I choose this present.”

Since there’s really nothing to do in here except stare at yourself in the mirror or try numbers on the dial, eventually the player will move to the second room. Where, once the dead body comes on the screen, the voiceover kicks in: “There’s a certain chill you feel when you see yourself dead . . . but after a while, like everything else, you can ignore it.”

Now, the player has a couple questions—wait a minute, I’ve seen myself dead . . . before?

Once again, there’s really nothing else to do except dial the number that’s written in blood above the body, which maybe opens a door from the room to the dial, instead of the whole doppelganger thing (that could be used anywhere, really)

So now, the player has three rooms to work with.

As the player progresses through the game, the world opens up around him, centered on the dial (call it obvious, but the way to solve the game is to dial a specific number into it—revelation is as much about showing familiar objects in new ways as it is about showing new things) The player isn’t fully shown the full extent of how strange the virtual world he’s in until later—only after seeing the dial room upside down does he start to see what’s going on. Meanwhile, he’s heard enough cryptic comments to start to put the pieces together—he’s lying on a hospital bed somewhere, and none of what he sees exists anywhere outside of his head.

I’ll be glad to do some of the writing on this if you want, as long as I don’t have to do much code—been doing straight 3d lately and that’s enough math, gah.

I would rather the player didn't have to explain himself to himself... that would imply that the protagonist knows things that the player does not. I think the game should really be just the explorer, who starts off with absolutely nothing. He may find notes he left himself in the past... but he should begin with true complete amnesia.

Also, I would like to avoid 'action' such as fighting yourself, and keep truer to the puzzle exploration style of myst.

[edited by - origamiman64 on November 28, 2003 1:21:03 AM]

quote: Original post by OrigamiMan64
Oluseyi: I think the argument about a smaller scene being able to contain a much deeper plot is a good one (if I interpreted the first part of what you said correctly). However, with referance to the short story, I disagree with the ideas that A) you could get into or out of a hypercube and B) that if you could the exits would lead to arbitrary places in the world. Also, introducing time travel to the structure is an addition to, not a property of, the structure.

Consider a 2D analogy. The regular world is a flat piece of paper (well, it could be warped and curved, but you get the idea). A ''hypersquare'' for them would be the same idea as a ''hypercube'' for us... and we can see that it would be a cube, with 6 rooms, all of which interconnect to eachother. There would be no way to walk ''off'' of the hypercube and back into the plane of the real world... this would be as impossible as trying to walk off the edge of the world.

There''s a flaw in the analogy, which is that you are considering it within the constraints of a world that does posses three dimensions. For entities that do not posses any third dimension whatsoever, a cube (hypersquare) is beyond both fathoming and description. Furthermore, remaining in its 3D shape, the hypersqaure can intersect multiple flatlands oriented arbitrarily within the context of three dimensions. Similarly, then, a 4D figure can intersect our 3D world - and other 3D worlds - at a number of arbitrary points, physical and temporal.

But I digress.

quote: Now, I like the idea of having it be a virtual world of some kind, as it solves the problem of a way in and a way out very cleanly. However, the idea of a human being a rat in an alien maze has been used extensively, and is somewhat predictable. I would like revelations to send chills down the players spine, not make them think "yup, thats what I expected". I want a new angle on the virtual world idea... perhaps it has been self inflicted for some reason? There would probably be complete lack of memory at the beginning as well, and clues about the past could be uncovered in the environment.

Gothika. Sorry, but the reference just popped into my mind. I haven''t had the opportunity to see it yet, but the themes are coincident.

Another good short story to read is one from Isaac Asimov, Jokester. The "human in a rat maze" idea is applied, except that the maze is completely non-physical. I don''t want to spoil it, though, so you''ll have to find and read it for yourself. The fundamental idea to draw from it, however, is that the maze does not have to be physical. That is, the physical world can be either exactly as we know it - or be strange variations on the theme, such as momentary failures of gravity and so forth - and the fantastic elements are primarily psychological.

Which, I see, is the direction this discussion is headed in. Good job.