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Miegakure's 4D Objects Just Might Break Your Brain

The long-in-development puzzle game continues to move along, and it still looks extra crazy.

Apr. 15 2014

Posted by: Patrick

In This Episode:

Miegakure

35 Comments

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Fear_the_Booboo

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I did not understand anything.

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mrsmiley

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I did not understand anything.

I'm with you. WTF is going on!

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pirata

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Edited By pirata

I'm guessing the 4-dimensional aspect is that the 3-dimensional geometry morphs in a predefined way along a certain timeline that the player has control over. Interesting concept.

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PazDaemon

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I've watched it twice, really not understanding the transitions. I felt like you should be able to predict what the next screen will look like when you morph it. Maybe I'm just missing something. Still looks cool, looking forward to seeing how this thing actually works

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DanTheRobot

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Not really 4-dimentional at all but it looks nifty.

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downloaded

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I don't think they count as 4D, but I'll admit that I was and still am thoroughly confused.

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DickSocrates

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Edited By DickSocrates

My concern (which may be funfounded, no idea) is that the game will boil down to there being a button that makes the level change like a simple dark/light world seen in other games, and any 4D-ness won't matter. Whatever, it needs more explanation, the trailer doesn't make clear what's happening.

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MeatSim

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Finally 4D video games.

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abendlaender

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I really don't understand what is going on.

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SleepyDoughnut

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Edited By SleepyDoughnut

I don't get it

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Ezlo

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I've played this game at PAX East five years ago. Loved it then, still want to play it now. The tutorial does a remarkably good job of teaching you the basics, but think of it like this. You have four dimensions, height, width, depth and the fourth one. Basically with a button press you replace depth with the fourth one. So you can wander around in four dimensions. It's really hard to describe better than that, but it's worth playing once it finally comes out.

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AlexanderSheen

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So, what is this game again?

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SubwayD

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Looks more likely to bore my brain.

Woo! High five! ... Guys? :(

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Megasheep

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Just when I thought I understood the transitions... the next one would defy my misunderstanding. Maybe "meigakure" mean "you ain't gonna get this.." in Japanese.

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tourgen

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4 spatial dimensions represented using 3D geometry primitives and then projected for

viewing on a 2D display device is maybe asking a bit much of your audience.

Good on them for taking a shot at it. Looking forward to seeing more.

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Immortal_Guy

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The "4D" is referring to a fourth spatial dimension, rather than time. I think the "transitions" are meant to be rotations in the fourth dimension, and the game you're viewing is one 3D "side" of this 4 dimensional space. (It'd be like if you were playing a 2D game where you ran around on one side of a 3D shape - say, one of the squares that make up a cube - and when you got to the edges you moved onto the next side. But the shape is now 4D, so the space your character is moving in is 3D)

While I think I can just about understand it in the abstract, I don't think I'd be able to think about it intuitively enough to move around easily in this funky 4D space, let alone solve puzzles in it. Might be cool to try, though.

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mr_creeper

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Not too sure how this all plays out. Transitions seem random without context and strike me as just trial and error gameplay.

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benderunit22

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I don't get it. Is there a way of knowing what's gonna happen when the terrain shifts? If not, it's just trial and error.

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Jazz_Bcaz

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So it's Fez but with another spatial dimension? I can dig it.

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EuanDewar

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Gonna give this game the benefit of the doubt and say it's just a near-impossible concept to get across without having the controller in your hand.

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marctenbosch

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It wouldn’t need to be a video game if you could understand by just watching...

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Boniti

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Edited By Boniti

Music was pretty good!

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ronneyfan05

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Edited By ronneyfan05

Played it a bit this year at PAXEAST, totally mind F. Really had a hard time wrapping my head around the mechanics but felt it was solvable with more time. The art is amazing.

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generic_username

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Edited By generic_username

4D, so time is one of the directions? Not quite understanding here.

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lemonadepack

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Judging from the way the circular symbol spins clockwise under the character as the terrain changes, I'm going to guess the 4D must have something to do with time travel

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PuffZombie

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Edited By PuffZombie

@pirata said:

I'm guessing the 4-dimensional aspect is that the 3-dimensional geometry morphs in a predefined way along a certain timeline that the player has control over. Interesting concept.

Maybe concept is interesting, but completely wrong - time is not 4-th dimension.

If you want REAL 4D, look at mathematical analysis ( the partial derivative of three variables and hypersurface ), tesseract (4D-cube ) and more.

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woodek

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Its a projection from a movement of the 4d environment down to a 3d one. You can do the same with the a 3d object down to a 2d one, kinda like in fez where it seemed like a sidescroller, but in reality 3d rotations were possible.

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divergence

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not sure what's going on here, are we seeing a 3D projection of 4D geometry and they just swap dimensions around to generate the new projections? Hard to wrap the mind around anything beyond 3 spacial dimensions in the first place. Maybe fez is a good analogy since that's basically 2D projection of 3D space that is being rotated. Before fez there was echochrome which did a similar thing.

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rox360

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Very happy that this is still a thing. Looking forward to having my brain crushed! And yes, for those confused, this does deal with four spatial dimensions and there is consistent logic behind the way things behave. It's just ridiculously difficult to grasp at a glance. Just like figuring out what a hypercube is doing when it spins the way those do...

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Accolade

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Edited By Accolade

What?

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triclops41

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http://eusebeia.dyndns.org/4d/vis/10-rot-1

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solorex

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Edited By solorex
Loading Video...

Let me attempt to thwart the scepticism: This game does not simply boil down to a day/night mechanic, or manipulation of time. You really do navigate in four spacial dimensions. Here is a talk Marc ten Bosch (the creator) gave, where he talks about some of the challenges in designing four-dimensional levels.

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KilgorePike

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>Its a projection from a movement of the 4d environment down to a 3d one. You can do the same with the a 3d object down to a 2d one, kinda like in fez where it seemed like a sidescroller, but in reality 3d rotations were possible.

Not quite, I don't think. It's not a projection of a 4D object into a 3D space, it's the 3D slice (er, "chunk") taken out of a 4D object. Look at the dome in the final series for how it works. You know how when you pass a sphere through a plane, the intersection on the plane is a point, then a small circle, then a big circle, then a small circle, then a point again? That's what's happening here, with the 3D slice moving through the 4D object. It's really difficult to wrap your mind around it (because our brains don't do this sort of thing on a regular basis) so I don't think you can communicate it quickly through a video.

BRB, reading Flatland again.

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xseedx

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I thought it was more like an additional dimension as in parallel-dimension where you can walk through walls or the geometrie is different. But maybe i didnt get it at all.

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EmperorMeow

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Anyone know what the minimum pc specs will be to run this 4D in ultra?

:)