A few years ago I had an idea for a game experience that was about user development.

The fundamental premise was that you are an "entity" with a slowly increasing awareness of the world around you and almost no hardcoded wetwiring to help you understand or interpret this world (as opposed to say a human who has many highly specialize organs in the brain to process various types of input in particular way) ...

So the "game" was going to start out as a completely black screen, with no sound, and no predefined control system. And then the game world would begin generating itself using various self-referential algorithms to eventually grow into something somewhat recognizable as a game. Obviously the progression algorithms would have to be coded by a programmer (I was envisioning the idea of using various generators to invent a number of "dimensions" a number of physics formulas (have alternate parameter based options) a number of attributes and arbitrary relations between them - like say "when attibute A gets low, a quick jolt is infused into attribute B" or "when attrbiute C gets too high, it drains attribute D and infuses it into attribute B" ... which might be like starvation and threat leading to aggression) ... but the core idea was that the game controls and input / ouputs would be mapped and modified as the game progresses. For instance at the start, sound code be a single pattern whose intensity is mapped to attribute C, while the screen could be filled by eminating the level of attibute A as a certain color / location, and attribute D could cause a certain effect at certain levels.

Then as the game progressed, these things would - slowly and in a connected manner - shift and migrate to other forms of expression allowing the presentation of more information.

I originally envisioned as being a game about being a single-celled organism (which of course has no nervous system and sense in the normal sense), and only hoped to reach further once I learn how to make that initial theme be somewhat expressable and enjoyable to experience.

A single celled creature basically has A cell-wall with presure / spacial state - an internal state, various organelles with state, and some complex manner of interaction between them. As well as "the world outside" of course.

Why not take it all the way, and have 0 dimensions?

Or you could go all mathy, and try some fractional dimensions. 1.3367D-gameplay, anyone?

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Original post by The C modest god I was just trying to see if minimalisem can work in terms of graphics.

1D graphics is effectively meaningless, given that the display device is 2D. 1D gameplay, however, is well-established and has a lot of opportunities if you don't mind marrying it to 2D graphics or non-graphical representation (like sound, where you can have on level in which the singular representative dimension is amplitude - meaning there is always a note/sound being played, but at different volumes - or pitch or frequency, etc).

1D gameplay is particularly well-known in games where you essentially have a single input. Take those Tiger handheld racing games, for instance, where your car can be in one of three positions - left, center, right - but can not advance or retreat, nor do you have control over speed, etc. That is 1D gameplay, yet many of us were entertained by such games for hours on end in our youth.

That said, layered complexity is the prime means of originating complex gameplay. Take the sound example above: by starting out in levels where the user can affect only one of pitch, amplitude and frequency, then moving to levels where the user can simultaneously affect pairings, and finally to a level in which all three are driven by user input, you've created a complexity gradient that, well executed, should be quite satisfying. Tweak the input mechanism a little and you'll see that this is basically Karaoke Revolution.

1D graphics, though, is a meaningless semantic exercise.

then instead of using length, what about using time, as the dimension watched?

Let's say you have to press a control on a certain timing? Donkey Konga, or Dance Dance Revolution anyone?

Pow!

http://unfaegne.eorl.googlepages.com/1d.htm

Buggy little &#106avascript game.

I interpret '1D game' as a game where the 'game world' exists entirely in one dimensional, regardless of how it is rendered.

In this game, you play a line segment (thrilling). You have two variables (in a single dimension however) - length and position. You are being attacked by other line segments. The guys to your left can get you if they touch you while longer than you. The guys on the right can get you if they touch you while shorter than you.

It is buggy and ugly, but I think if done properly it could be an enjoyable mini-game for a cell phone or whatever, and I think it meets the criteria of the original question.

For a 1D game enviroment -
I think it's possible to create an entire game on a single horizontal line.

1. In this game, you are a pac-man like pixel. As you travel along this line, you can shoot stuffs at oncoming enemies.

2. You are an ameoba. You travel along a single line, encountering other ameobii. If they are smaller than you, you can absorb them. If they are bigger, you can shoot plasma untill they disintegrate to a consumable size, or phase out until they pass over you. As you absorb ameobii, you become bigger, stretching the line as it passes around you. There would be bosses and powerups and ...

...

Wow, #2 sounds fun! I s'pose I'm off to go make a flash game of it.

See you people in about a week!

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Original post by eedok haven't seen 1D tetris yet?

You, sir, have made my day!

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Original post by Xai Or you could make a game in which you have to keep a lever balanced, while taking on additional weights (2D in physics nature, but potentially 1D in control and graphics).

That made me think of Homerun.

A lot of you mentioned using lines in order to create a 1D-graphical game.
But strictly speaking what we know as a line or a line on a computer screen is a 2D object.
If the line was mathematically 1D, it would be invisible to us.

a 1D game?

Street Fighter, Mortal Kombat, all those early 2D fighting games were essentialy 1D...jumps only intiated different attacks or allowed the opponets to swap sides on the fixed 1D horizontal line (they didn't allow you to reach other "platforms" or the like as you were always limited to that single line)

Another clear example is Tempest...yeah you went around the web, but you were fixed to its outside edge

The Atari classic Demon Attack was 1D in the same veign as Space Invaders. Yars Revenge, and a host of others fit the bill too.