Marc Ten Bosch

is an in-development puzzle-platform video game by Marc ten Bosch set in a world with four spatial dimensions. Since rendering true four-dimensional (4D) space to a screen is impossible, the game instead renders a three-dimensional (3D) slice of its world. Players can change the dimensions used to create the slice and move within the slice, thereby enabling them to move throughout the 4D world. The game has many puzzles that are impossible to solve in a 3D world, but are solvable in the game's 4D world.

In contrast to traditional 2D or 3D game development, virtually all of the technology behind ''Miegakure'' had to be created from scratch since the equations describing physics in a world with four spatial dimensions are different to those in spacetime (which has only three spatial dimensions). The technology underlying the game was used to create the 2017 simulation game ''4D Toys'', and some of the research underlying the game was published at SIGGRAPH in 2020. The game has been in development since 2009, and as of January 2023, does not have a release date.

Gameplay

Ten Bosch wrote in 2014 that the gameplay of ''Miegakure'' "focuses on exploring a 4D world and the consequences of being able to move in 4D." In 2014, the game also had characters and a story.

Development

In 2009, Bosch worked on prototype for the Experimental Gameplay Workshop at GDC 2009 which would be the basis for ''Miegakure''. In 2010 the game's engine was written in C++, and the levels were scripted in Lua. The game was popularized in March 2010 by an ''xkcd'' webcomic, which compared the game to Edwin Abbott Abbott's book ''Flatland''. On December 4, 2014, ahead of the PlayStation Experience event, the game was announced to be released on PlayStation 4 via the PlayStation Blog. The game was playable for attendees of the PlayStation Experience event in Las Vegas at the following weekend.

In 2015, Bosch said the game had around 140 levels, and each contains a unique idea. IndieFund backed the game in April 2016. In 2017, Bosch released the simulation game ''4D Toys'' for iOS and Steam VR. The game engine underlying ''4D Toys'' was based on the technology developed for ''Miegakure'', and borne out of tests to add a robust physics system to the game. Bosch said that working on ''4D Toys'' influenced the design of ''Miegakure'', noting "I also came up with many ideas for ''Miegakure'' levels and scenes while playing with ''4D Toys''."

Creating the game's physics engine involved generalizing Newton's laws of motion to an arbitrary number of dimensions, which required Bosch's team to come up with new mathematics. Part of the research was used to create the technical paper "N-Dimensional Rigid Body Dynamics", which Bosch presented at SIGGRAPH 2020 and published later that year.

The name of the game comes from a Japanese garden term, which Bosch chose because "the game's philosophy is connected to ideas Japanese gardens have developed." Bosch said that the simplicity of the color-switch mechanic in ''Ikaruga'' influenced the design of the dimension-orientation switching button in the game. Bosch went to Kyoto to study ancient temples for inspiration. Some of the concept art of the game was created by Kellan Jett.

The tremendous technical challenges of creating a 4D game engine mean that as of January 2023, the game is still in development with no announced release date. Bosch writes updates concerning the game in a dedicated development blog and on Patreon. In an ''Wired'' profile in 2014, Bosch described his daily schedule as "wake up, work on the game, go get lunch somewhere, work on the game, go to sleep."

Awards

''Miegakure'' won the Amazing award at IndieCade (the International Festival of Independent Games) in 2010.

See also

*List of four-dimensional games

Notes and References

External links

* {{Official website, http://marctenbosch.com/miegakure/

Development blog

Upcoming video games
Indie video games
Puzzle video games
Platform games
Windows games
MacOS games
Linux games
PlayStation 4 games
Four-dimensional geometry