How many dimensions can you have in a game?

Jabus10 · 2006-12-06T00:01:54

I was thinking about this the other day and I wondered about how many dimensions you could put in a game before it becomes too complicated. The standard three dimensions are length,width and height. This is what the user sees. So the limit is 3 to the user. What if there are more dimension actually in the game logic like: time,magic or something else. I was wondering about the affect that this would have on the game and whether anything new and innovative would come out of having something like 5 dimensions in a game and only objects of similar dimensions could affect each other. What do you think should be the limit of 'dimensions'in a computer game?

Game Design and Theory Game Design

Started by Jabus10 November 28, 2006 01:10 AM

22 comments, last by JBourrie 18 years, 2 months ago

psykr

295

December 05, 2006 11:43 PM

I don't think that four dimensional game worlds is such a good idea; not only would the math to display such a system be really hard, it would be difficult for the user to visualize it. For me, at least, there needs to be some kind of indicator to see where you are in this fourth spatial dimension such as a slider or something so you can distinguish between being in world w=1 and w=2.

Also, I think it's more about degrees of freedom than actual dimensions in the game. I'm not sure if this is exactly right, but in say an FPS you can move front/back, left/right, have a limited ability to jump, turn left/right, look up/down, etc. Human brains are well-adapted to 3D spaces, but I feel any more borders on too confusing.

JBourrie

1,204

December 06, 2006 12:01 AM

Quote:
Original post by psykr
I don't think that four dimensional game worlds is such a good idea; not only would the math to display such a system be really hard, it would be difficult for the user to visualize it.

4D visualization

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