Let''s see. What games do we have right now? We have the insanity game, we have the spy game, and we have the meso-american game. Three COMPLETELY different games that share one thing in common: they use hypercubes. And now, I shall propose a fourth: the hypercube is a method of time travel.

This idea came about when I thought, "how about making it so that in each of the eight cubes there is a different fold leading to a different point in the fourth dimension?" First my thought was that this would lead to different universes. Then I remembered about how some people are so stupid that they can''t understand a fourth spatial dimension. You try to explain it, and they respond, "but the fourth dimension is time!" They use this as a mantra even though they have no understanding of it''s meaning. But I thought that I could feed off of their stupidity and use their definition of the fourth dimension.

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I am the master of stories.....
If only I could just write them down...

actually, thats what made me angry about the hypercube movie... they just had random things happen, and didn''t use the actual mathematical properties of the cube. I would prefer not just to feed off of public stupidity, but to have this be a game that the smarter public could appreciate.

That hypercube movie had a lot more problems than just illogical and meaningless events happening for no discernable reason. That movie shouldn’t have been shipped as direct to video, that should have gone direct to MST3K.

Anyway, don’t dumb it down. Point A, Deus Ex: IW is getting hammered by critical reviews in a lot of cases for that, and point B, you really don’t have to. If those elements are not directly affecting gameplay, leave them in as something that someone who figures it out will understand, but if someone else doesn’t even notice it, it won’t matter.

As an example, in the project I’m working on (space combat sim) there’s a huge engineering model playing out behind the scenes. When a subsystem is damaged, the computer voiceover reports it, presenting it as something massively complicated that the player can’t directly understand—it’s meant to come across as background ambience, and a feedback describing levels of damage.

In one of the first missions, the player is acting as the pilot of a craft with several crewmembers. The story is moved along primarily through voiceovers, much like in Interstate 76—if anyone remembers that.

During one of the first few scenes, the craft is damaged, and the damage control system happily reports: “Warning! Primary vector gravatic plasma manifold losing phase! Cold deuterium event in progress! Attempting to reinitialize reactor gravatics controller!”

At this, one of the crewmembers cuts in with a voiceover on the intercom: “Uh, that sounds really bad, anyone know what that is?”

Another crewmember: “I think it’s something to do with the reactor, but I’m not sure.”

First crewmember: “Please tell me someone’s gonna fix that, before we blow up . . .”

Damage control system: “Reactor gravatics controller reinitialized. Reactor online.”

Second crewmember: “Well, problem solved, I guess.”

At the end of this, the player can safely believe that the information given out by the damage report is not something they have to act on. It’s just ambience.

However, since it’s all done as a damage control model, if the player spent the effort to learn the systems he could click over to the engineering control board and solve the problem himself. Or use any of the other controls that that board offers, such as changing repair priorities or focusing power to different shields (‘Full power to the forward shields!”)

In quake, you didn’t have to learn the console variables and scripting in order to run around and shoot people. You didn’t have to master rocket-jumping to frag someone. If you did, though, you really had an edge over people who didn’t.

If the mathematical accuracy of the hypercube is used as an underlying riddle, which is the basis of other puzzles or the means of telling where you are, then the players don’t have to visualize 4-D space in order to play the game. If they do figure it out, though, they won’t simply be moving around in a world that’s obviously ordered in some way that eludes their grasp, and they’ll have clues as to where else the game is going.

I can't wait to see someone produce a map for this bastard. HA!

I was thinking about the possibility that EVERY face of the hypercube coincided with a full 3D universe, so you'd have four "pairs" of parallel universes, all of which intersect at the hypercube. The problem with this is that when you think about a cube consisting of three pairs of parallel 2D planes, you find that they intersect along whole cross-sections, and so it gets a little fuzzy.

EDIT: Hmm... If one of the sides coincides with our universe, then ther hypercube will only really have seven sides. All the corners that would would have led onto the eigth side would lead off into the "real" world.

[edited by - Iron Chef Carnage on December 7, 2003 6:38:45 PM]

A little off-topic, but

quote: Original post by Idhrendur
If I still had Bryce 4 installed, I could render up a picture of looking through the rift either way real quickly.

Bryce can do this? How? I tried it once, but couldn't find a way to mess with space.

EDIT: HOLY CRAP! Every couple of seconds I think of something more bitching than last time. If it was a hypercylinder (see my above post) of sufficiently small size, you would be able to see past the center of the top sphere and back down to the surface of the opposite side. You could shoot an object straight into the air, and run around the world real fast and catch it. Sweet. Math is fun.

Somebody should build a simple 3D (4D?) engine that just lets you run around on the surface of 4D figures. FPS controls, a jetpack, and an object that you can throw would make this totally worthwhile. Times like this, I wish I could code.

[edited by - Iron Chef Carnage on December 7, 2003 7:00:34 PM]

Maybe instead of being insane, he could be on a peyote trip. Especially if he's a meso-american!
EDIT: Not that people from there ingest peyote...I'm just saying!

[edited by - bjmumblingmiles on December 7, 2003 7:17:41 PM]

Just read "And He Built a Crooked House". Freaking sweet. I advise everyone to read it. It seems to me that Teal''s great error was in building all eight rooms. If he had inverted one to anchor the house on our 3D plane, it wouldn''t have been unstable. Of course, it would take more than a mere earthquake to "fold" the house up, but if you could bypass that shortcoming, it would totally work. It''s right up there with perpetual motion and cold fusion. Everything works out perfectly if you can just bypass that one physical law...

quote: Original post by Nathaniel Hammen
This idea came about when I thought, "how about making it so that in each of the eight cubes there is a different fold leading to a different point in the fourth dimension?" First my thought was that this would lead to different universes. Then I remembered about how some people are so stupid that they can''t understand a fourth spatial dimension. You try to explain it, and they respond, "but the fourth dimension is time!" They use this as a mantra even though they have no understanding of it''s meaning. But I thought that I could feed off of their stupidity and use their definition of the fourth dimension.

Well, one could include the fourth dimension as time and get on the bad side of those who know how a hypercube works and change a mathematically conecept that 95% doesn''t understand into a fictional concept that noone understands. (In other words; bad idea.)



-Luctus
Statisticly seen, most things happens to other people.
[Mail]

There''s no law against making time the FIFTH dimension in a four-space world. It would still suck, but hey, what are you gonna do?

In "And He Built a Crooked House", a character discovers that he can in fact CHOOSE whether he "turns the corner" in 4-space or just exits the tessaract into the 3D outside world. If you read the story, you''ll have a better understanding of what I''m trying to say. He can climb through a window and wind up either in the adjacent cubic cell of the hypercube or outside in the garden. Heinlein links it to walking backwards or thinking about outside or something like that. It escapes me right now. But if you make it a matter of free will and let the person choose to take the fork in the universe, you could have up to eight separate "universes" spliced together at a hypercubic nexus. I''m not entirely sure how that could work, but it''s a thought.

This topic has covered a lot of ground, and I for one have learned a very great deal. Out of curiosity, is anybody doing anything with this? By God I''d be coding myself silly if I had the time or the know-how, but I''m writing a thesis (in philosophy) and studying existentialism, both of which are kicking my ass.

I have every intention of making this game, I plan to use it as my ticket into the gaming industry. Right now I''m spending every spare second I''ve got learning the math I would need to do 3D transformations and rendering. As I do, I am also trying to plan out this storyline. These damn finals keep eating up my time, but this winter break, I''m also going to learn to use DirectX. In the mean time, I need to get the setting figured out. Then I can have an artist build the eight boxes, and I can figure out how to flip them around for the game.

Now, the hyper cylinder is a cool idea, but remember the crush factor on curved surfaces... at the very least, you would shrink or grow based on the direction in which you walked. If you want to think about really complex shapes, I found something online about fitting dodecahedra together (a ball made of 12 pentagons) 4 dimensionally into a hyper-dodecahedron of sorts. It said something like 120 dodecahedral sides, but dont quote me on that. :D For a simpler example, you can fit 5 tetrahedrons together.

I am pretty happy with the idea of a cubic fold in the skybox wrapping to the real world as a point of exit/entry, and I think some sort of ancient temple is a good theme. So someone, please help me come up with puzzles that amplify the themes of the game. I had another idea for one... there are eight multi-colored cubes on a table, and the player must assemble them into an unfolded hypercube. Once they succeed, it is added to their screen display and functions as an interactive map.