It's cool and all and I typically enjoy lowres renditions... unless, it actually impacts gameplay.
Since the gameplay is so much about 4D, clarity in what you see becomes more important and the extremely low resolution actually impairs the player rather than serve a positive (typically 'leaves more to the imagination').
It wouldn't take much of an effort to double or triple the resolution which I think would help the gameplay.
The reason it is so low res is actually more interesting than simple aesthetic choice. Think about the sensor(or eye) needed to view a 3d scene, it is 2d right. So this is a 3d sensor(voxels) for a simulated 4d camera. and then we are looking at the 3d sensor. (with our 2d sensor(eyes)), it's sensor inception.
So it is as low res as it is because it is a bunch of voxels simulating a 4d camera.
The dev put out an interesting video on the topic.
Fully agree. The low-res makes this unnecessarily hard to navigate. Which is a downside if your core gameplay is to teach players to navigate in a challenging environment.
I just watched the associated dev video And if I understand it, what the author is doing is kind of interesting.
The sensor to see a 3d scene is 2d(eye or camera). What is being done here is simulating a 3d sensor(for a 4d world) then we are looking at this 3d sensor using our 2d sensors (eyes). I don't know if this is the common way of rendering these 4d physics simulations. But it is the first I have heard it described this way. It is also why the narrative of the game focuses on eyes, because that is what it is doing.
Strictly speaking this doesn't make them a true 3d sensor, but rather a 2d sensor with an accompanying depth-map. In order for them to be true 3d sensors they'd be have to transmit information about both the near and far sides of an object simultaneously, for example.
I don't want to be the guy who has to use this level editor (although, in a similar way, doom was 2.5d, and so the level editor could essentially be 2d, so maybe it's not so bad?)
If this is 4d doom, i wonder what 4d quake could be
I read a novel when I was 14 or so who's premise is all about creatures inhabiting higher-dimensional space called "The Boy Who Reversed Himself" by William Sleator. I loved Sleator's books, they introduced me to really interesting concepts from theoretical physics as a youngun. If you find 4D Doom intriguing, I encourage you to borrow the book from your favorite ebook library, it's a quick fun read (at least, I remember it that way).
The perspective shifts so that the up-down direction becomes the hidden dimension. So the ceiling and floor disappear (and you have trouble avoiding lava) and you only see the walls of the space.
Some of the scenes from the video remind me of Manifold Garden [1] - only 3D but a 3-torus [2] and you can change the direction of gravity, i.e. what is up and down. And also visually beautiful.
I feel like now that I'm older, my brain just can't fully understand it say as quickly if I were younger. Makes me wonder if younger more plastic brains can adjust to having to juggle more dimensions than crochety old ones like mine with very rigid 3D grooves baked in. Or brains from other animals.
I guess taken to the logical extreme, what does the brain of someone/thing that's good at playing this (or any game of N dimensions) look like?
If you don't mind me asking, how old are you, and how did this progress? I'm in my mid thirties and am noticing some minor deterioration, but I'm writing it off to loss of sleep due to having small kids.
My curiosity is if this is like you suggest, ingrained patterns, or if there is actual slow down with age. I hear different opinions and am finding it difficult to navigate as I deal with my own, albeit mild, aging.
Mid 30s, also have kid and sleep loss but not as bad as before.
I actually noticed serious mental decline when I was burned out in my late 20s. There were real physical symptoms like not being able to look at a text editor for more than 2 minutes. Post recovery of that, I actually feel like my brain recovered a lot once I started learning languages very seriously (mandarin and japanese), starting a few years ago. Brain feels healthy now but I'm acutely aware of where it's not as sharp as before. Playing around with this felt a little like when my brain is trying to build a new grammar dictionary.
The problem with these attempts always seems to be that you can see in dimensions 1-3, but never in dimension 4, so any movement or exploration along that axis is always just blind fumbling. The extra dimension is not equivalent to the others
The only answer would seem to be an extra axis of rotation, but (a) doesnt work well with existing input methods, and (b) would be even more of a brain-breaker
I think you could approximate a 4d projection onto a 3d display, much like we approximate a 3d projection onto a 2d display. So perhaps one could enjoy a fun and intuitive game of 4d doom if you have an appropriately fancy volumetric display. Pity they're so rare/expensive.
Ordinarily, a 3D scene rendered in 2D only allows you to see a cone from your eye up to the first surface the ray encounters, thus defining the 2D projection which you see.
But you can make the surfaces transparent so the ray continues, and each additional surface adds a bit to the final pixel. This can look like a mess if you stand still but if you wiggle your movement left and right (or any other direction), your brain suddenly manages to process it into the full 3D structure.
That's exactly 4D. Just like "non euclidean"[1], this term is often abused in entertainment to mean something else, but the post here is about the real 4d world rendering.
Since the gameplay is so much about 4D, clarity in what you see becomes more important and the extremely low resolution actually impairs the player rather than serve a positive (typically 'leaves more to the imagination').
It wouldn't take much of an effort to double or triple the resolution which I think would help the gameplay.
So it is as low res as it is because it is a bunch of voxels simulating a 4d camera.
The dev put out an interesting video on the topic.
The sensor to see a 3d scene is 2d(eye or camera). What is being done here is simulating a 3d sensor(for a 4d world) then we are looking at this 3d sensor using our 2d sensors (eyes). I don't know if this is the common way of rendering these 4d physics simulations. But it is the first I have heard it described this way. It is also why the narrative of the game focuses on eyes, because that is what it is doing.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tKDMcLW9OnI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YE9rEQAGpLw
If this is 4d doom, i wonder what 4d quake could be
https://youtu.be/u8LMyWcKL_c?si=XZrCdSSSk9PtpNIP
Steam link: https://store.steampowered.com/app/2147950/4D_Golf
The person goes over quite a few technical details on their Youtube, though they talk about a bunch of other coding experiments too.
[1] https://store.steampowered.com/app/473950/Manifold_Garden/
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3-torus
I guess taken to the logical extreme, what does the brain of someone/thing that's good at playing this (or any game of N dimensions) look like?
My curiosity is if this is like you suggest, ingrained patterns, or if there is actual slow down with age. I hear different opinions and am finding it difficult to navigate as I deal with my own, albeit mild, aging.
I actually noticed serious mental decline when I was burned out in my late 20s. There were real physical symptoms like not being able to look at a text editor for more than 2 minutes. Post recovery of that, I actually feel like my brain recovered a lot once I started learning languages very seriously (mandarin and japanese), starting a few years ago. Brain feels healthy now but I'm acutely aware of where it's not as sharp as before. Playing around with this felt a little like when my brain is trying to build a new grammar dictionary.
The only answer would seem to be an extra axis of rotation, but (a) doesnt work well with existing input methods, and (b) would be even more of a brain-breaker
But in 4D there isn’t really an equivalent control, so it ends up feeling more like toggling something you don’t fully understand.
Ordinarily, a 3D scene rendered in 2D only allows you to see a cone from your eye up to the first surface the ray encounters, thus defining the 2D projection which you see.
But you can make the surfaces transparent so the ray continues, and each additional surface adds a bit to the final pixel. This can look like a mess if you stand still but if you wiggle your movement left and right (or any other direction), your brain suddenly manages to process it into the full 3D structure.
Can something like this be done in 4D?
i managed to kill three enemies before succumbing to my fate
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miegakure
[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9yW--eQaA2I
[3] https://xkcd.com/721/
https://store.steampowered.com/app/355750/Miegakure_Hide__Re...
[1] For this check out zenorogue work btw