14 DAY TRIAL // In a world where everyone wants to experience something that is familiar as well as new and exciting, someone made a game that is both and neither at the same time.
Miegakure is 4D game, in that it enables you to explore a rich, four-dimensional world and to perform all kinds of things you don't really understand.
While some people might argue that the fourth dimension is actually time, this is not the case with Miegakure, in the game, the fourth dimension is an actual place in space, working just like the three dimensions we are accustomed with, in a manner that is completely new.
Thus, the developer argues on the PlayStation blog, you might consider Miegakure to be the first 5D game, when also factoring in time.
Leaving the joke aside, the game is seriously confusing, due to the fact that nothing in our world is in four dimensions and we have no way of relating to what 4D navigation would be like. That's precisely why it's also a very interesting concept to explore, and something that is bound to leave an impression, if only due to its novelty factor.
The evolution from 2D to 4D
MTB Design Works President Marc Ten Bosch talked about how 2D games use two numbers to represent the position of each object, while 3D games use three.
The natural evolution from two to three dimensions occurred when computers became powerful enough to be able to do all the math required for a 3D representation of the game world, and scenes computed in 3D are then displayed on a 2D screen in a manner congruent with how our eyes perceive depth and the third dimension.
The game was sparked by the question of what would happen if someone were to use four numbers in order to track the position of objects instead of three, a question which computers, that don't really care about the fact that the known universe only has three dimensions and that we can't fully understand how that would work, can easily answer.
Thus, the team started working on a way to create the four-dimensional world so that it would make sense to a three-dimensional brain seeing it on a two-dimensional screen.
Not just a gimmick
The gameplay focuses on exploring the world and the consequences of being able to move across four dimensions. This means that you'll be able to get inside seemingly locked rooms, to remove the contents of safes without opening them, and a lot of other such things that transcend the three dimensions known to us.
The levels are designed around performing such feats, turning players into superheroes from the fourth dimension, being able to navigate through each slice at will.
The basic gameplay will be that of a puzzle platformer, but since the premise is so unique, it's hard to verbalize how it actually plays.
The best thing you can do is watch the gameplay video below and try to wrap your head around the crazy mechanics.
The game will be coming out next year, on the PlayStation 4, and a demo will be available at the PlayStation Experience event taking place on December 6 and 7 in Las Vegas.
