Humans are very good at navigating three-dimensional space. After all, that’s how the real world works. But try to add an extra dimension to something as simple as, say, Minecraft, and suddenly things change drastically to confusion.
Confusing, then, is how I would describe 4D Miner. Available as a free demo on Steam, developer Mashpoe’s extradimensional version of Minecraft is a lot for you to understand, even after following a short tutorial that explains the concept of dimensionality through a cute frog.
The playable tutorial introduces the concept of rotation through dimensions, showing a 2D platformer, with a visualization of how this “slice” of the world is representative of a larger 3D space. Roll the mouse wheel and this slice will rotate, changing the 2D view.
Enter the game itself, and the same concept applies. You explore a 3D world, as per regular Minecraft. But roll the wheel and your “slice” of the larger 4D space spins, cutting the world against itself. If it seems confusing, it’s because I’m still mentally struggling to visually how the dimensions relate to each other – in one seeming to bend the world within itself, a cubic world meets diagonals while another hidden plane rotates against, or within, or on top of, and oh God, it’s all very confusing, isn’t it?
When exploring the world from a 3D perspective, you’ll have to rotate through the fourth dimension to continue exploring. Items may fall from trees or stone blocks outside your current perception, caverns may unfold into forested valleys, and you’ll be attacked by hideous Hyperspiders from outside your current frame of reference.
Fortunately, there are tools to help you understand 4D space. Creating 4D glasses from mysterious ore will allow you to perceive things outside your limited perspective, while a compass not only tells you where you are, but gives you a solid view of how 4D space is actually constructed.
At the moment, 4D Miner is a pretty basic emulation of Minecraft mechanics. But this extra dimension adds infinite complexity to something as simple as “how do I build a house in four-dimensional space”. The developer even toys with the idea of four-dimensional multiplayer, which sounds like a wonderfully chaotic way to mistake yourself for a friend.
“On the surface, this game looks a bit like Minecraft, and the inspiration is undeniable,” Mashpoe said in a YouTube explainer. “But things like building, collecting resources, and even navigating the game world are completely different, and it affects pretty much every mechanic in the game.
“I plan to expand this aspect of the game much further in the future so that most of the new mechanics and features in the game will focus on how the player interacts with the fourth dimension.”
Mashpoe tried Kickstart 4D Miner last month and unfortunately was unsuccessful, but took to Patreon to continue development. Ultimately, it’s hard to say whether 4D Miner will be able to stand on its own merits as a game, or remain a curious tech demo too confusing for its own good.
But I absolutely want to see Mashpoe’s experiments in 4D space continue. Let me lie down for a bit first, all this dimension change has given me a bit of a headache.