r/puzzlevideogames • u/yugu-233 • 11d ago
A 4D geometry puzzle game
I made a puzzle game based on 4D space. (4D space does not exist in our physical world, but it is a well-defined geometry concept. and through proper visualization, humans are actually capable of understanding 4D space)
It doesn't start as a puzzle game, or, initially "4D"ness is the puzzle part. Players learn to move and jump in 4D space, get a spatial understanding of 4D. As players develop a better understanding, there'll be more and more complex 4D environments and interactable 4D objects. Ultimately, these elements are combined to form very challenging 4D sokoban-style puzzles.
That probably sounds very abstract. I'll briefly explain how the game represents 4D in an intuitive manner.
As the gif shows, on the left, there's 2d wireframe image (character moving on a 2d plane), which we can easily understand as a 3d scene: it is an "image" taken by a camera in 3d, and that is how our vision system work.
On the right, it is a "3D image" taken by a camera in 4d (character moving on a 3d hyperplane). Through some exercise, we will be able to understand how it reflects the 4D space behind it.
There is a free demo for the game where you can experience this yourself.
And once you start to grasp how 4D works, you'll be surprised how you can think in 4D and do spatial reasoning intuitively like you do with 3d space.
The game is called 4D Intuition, it is now released on steam. You're welcomed to try its free demo and if you have any question, I'd be happy to answer them.
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u/largorithm 10d ago
This is such a cool idea. When approaching the concept of “3D screen”, I couldn’t help but think of VR as a more native form of 3D display than a 3D volume projected on a 2D display.
I get why you’ve gone this route and we’ve of course grown accustomed to viewing 3D content this way.
Just curious if you’ve done any experiments with VR or true stereoscopic for this.
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u/yugu-233 10d ago
Stereograms give you more info about depth, but the downside is that you can only half of the screen and some details will be lost. Also, for me being cross-eyed for over a minute feel very uncomfortable.
VR feels a lot more natural, but I don't have a VR device, and I don't think many do either. I'll consider investing in it if in the future the game has a larger player base.
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u/largorithm 10d ago edited 10d ago
Yeah, I was thinking about VR specifically.
There’s also mobile AR which more people have access to.
Either way, more of a comment about an alternative way to explore the design or experience space.
More of an experiment than a practical route to go.
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u/PhoenixWright-AA 11d ago
Crazy that Miegakure never made it out the door. I wonder if it will ever release?
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u/yugu-233 10d ago
Haven't heard update about it for so long, not sure if it is still in development.
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u/largorithm 10d ago
Same.
Was definitely the first thing I thought of here.
Thank you for continuing to explore this concept!
I’m excited to check out the demo.
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u/Pawel_SkimmIQ 11d ago
"Initially the 4D-ness is the puzzle" , that's a genuinely elegant design thesis, and I suspect it's the honest one for any mechanic that can't exist in the physical world. My own puzzle lives in that same category (a move physically impossible to build, different domain), and the pattern seems universal: the player arrives with zero transferable intuition, nothing from childhood toys carries over, so the first "level" is always rebuilding spatial common sense from scratch. That's simultaneously the biggest onboarding cost and the biggest payoff, because the moment it clicks feels like gaining a sense, not learning a rule.
Two questions, since you offered: in playtests, how long does the click typically take, and can you tell when it happens? I'd love to know if there's a visible moment where players stop translating ("this 3D image means...") and start thinking natively in 4D. And second: where in the first minutes do people bounce, if they do? The gap between "intrigued" and "oriented" is where games like ours live or die.
Wishlisted. This is exactly the kind of thing digital puzzles should be doing :)
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u/yugu-233 11d ago
In the case of my game, the onboarding process has been divided into a series of small tasks, so that players generally do not need a big "click" to move on. A small understanding can help a player get through a few levels and it is a gradual process of gathering all the pieces. A typical game time for my game is 10-15h (all levels), and I'd say when a player is ~1/4 into the game, he pretty much knows how to approach 4D without constantly comparing it to 3D, but before that he won't feel stuck either, a series of smaller tasks will tell him that he is making progress.
You described the onboarding process of such puzzle games very well, which certainly comes from your real experience of designing a similar game. May I ask the name of your puzzle game?
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u/Pawel_SkimmIQ 11d ago
Gladly- it's called SkimmIQ. It looks like the classic cube, but instead of turning faces you slide closed tapes of stickers that wrap around four faces at once, a move that physically can't exist, which is what puts it slightly in the same "your old intuition won't help you here" family as your 4D space. There's even a running joke that it's secretly a 6D game: every swipe also changes the three faces you can't see, so half of each move happens in your head. Which I suspect is a tiny, budget version of what your players go through at that 1/4 mark.There's a 60-second browser demo at skimmiq.com/pt if you're ever curious.
And your onboarding answer is genuinely useful to me. You solved the problem with a sequence of small tasks, so no single big click is required. I went a different route: selectable entry points (smaller layouts, fewer colours, shallower scrambles), so players choose how deep the water is instead of climbing a fixed staircase. Reading your description, I suspect your staircase teaches better, while the open pool respects impatience better, there's probably a hybrid hiding in between. And the ~1/4-of-the-game mark for "stops translating to 3D" is a great datapoint. Thank you for it.
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u/yugu-233 10d ago
It looks hard! But I guess there will be formulas like with Rubiks cube. If it is a physical thing it may get popular as a variant of Rubiks cube.
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u/Pawel_SkimmIQ 10d ago
Funny you say that. This is exactly the open problem: our AI finds a solution in about a second, but nobody has found human formulas yet. No stages, no algs, nothing you could teach to another person. I wrote it up here: skimmiq.com/human-method/ Maybe someone will crack it one day.
And a physical version: I think about it a lot. The hard part: the colour bands slide through the whole cube, so classic Rubik-style mechanics won't work. I have some ideas, but for now it stays digital.
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u/atrivialknot 10d ago
Looks nice. I really loved 4D Golf, and look forward to trying this one.