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This, quite brilliant topic, was posted in chat and guess what... it got NO replies! People ask me why I post newbie stuff in here? Simply to stop topics like this being unread:
What made pre-32 bit games so much more original than games nowadays?
Simple: The power of processors was so feeble and pitiful that no game designer would ever dream to make a “realistic” game. Instead designers had to create completely new worlds in which to set their games- 2 dimension universes for their characters to play in. Mario’s massive Peach Kingdom and Sonic’s rolling Green Hill Zone being but two examples.
So, here we are- an age where processors are so powerful that designers need not think beyond the real world for inspiration. No more need for those fantasy unrealistic universes of old. Sonic’s green hills have been replaced by an urban metropolis and Mario’s kingdom with a castle.
The next evolution of games looks even worse- worlds so perfectly real that they be like a playable film. Even minute details like the pattern of knots in wood will be unique to every piece of wood in the game thanks to dynamic fractal algorithms. Great.
But is this really where gaming should be using the new-found power of processors?
I certainly think not. Rather games should be becoming more diverse than ever. While games like realistic survival-horror games and racers exploit the technologies available to produce ever more lifelike worlds, other games (the proverbial Marios and Sonics) should instead use technology to venture further and further into the fantasy zone.
Why don’t game designers produce whole self-contained worlds that have their own feel and rhythm. They could, like the 2D games of old, even have their own physics- your character can perform cartoonistic leaps into the air or walk on water.
Such simple game ideas were rife in the pre-32 bit era because they had to be- there was no other way for games to be. But now we’re near to losing such a great part of games all in the name of “advancement”.
Is it really advancement, or just a play-it-safe regime to guarantee sales?
What made pre-32 bit games so much more original than games nowadays?
Simple: The power of processors was so feeble and pitiful that no game designer would ever dream to make a “realistic” game. Instead designers had to create completely new worlds in which to set their games- 2 dimension universes for their characters to play in. Mario’s massive Peach Kingdom and Sonic’s rolling Green Hill Zone being but two examples.
So, here we are- an age where processors are so powerful that designers need not think beyond the real world for inspiration. No more need for those fantasy unrealistic universes of old. Sonic’s green hills have been replaced by an urban metropolis and Mario’s kingdom with a castle.
The next evolution of games looks even worse- worlds so perfectly real that they be like a playable film. Even minute details like the pattern of knots in wood will be unique to every piece of wood in the game thanks to dynamic fractal algorithms. Great.
But is this really where gaming should be using the new-found power of processors?
I certainly think not. Rather games should be becoming more diverse than ever. While games like realistic survival-horror games and racers exploit the technologies available to produce ever more lifelike worlds, other games (the proverbial Marios and Sonics) should instead use technology to venture further and further into the fantasy zone.
Why don’t game designers produce whole self-contained worlds that have their own feel and rhythm. They could, like the 2D games of old, even have their own physics- your character can perform cartoonistic leaps into the air or walk on water.
Such simple game ideas were rife in the pre-32 bit era because they had to be- there was no other way for games to be. But now we’re near to losing such a great part of games all in the name of “advancement”.
Is it really advancement, or just a play-it-safe regime to guarantee sales?
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The best popular maths author at the moment has to be Simon Singh- if you haven't done, read "Fermat's Last Theorem" and "The Code Book". The first is, obviously, about the solution of Fermat's theorem by Andrew Wiles- but it ranges across so many topics and is really well writted.
The second is concerned about the history of code making and braking- right from Caesar's Cypher to modern day RSA internet security!
The second is concerned about the history of code making and braking- right from Caesar's Cypher to modern day RSA internet security!
Glad you like the website: I'm seriously tempted to buy one of those bottles. I haven't read that Ian Stewart book, but I have got another one by him (co-authoured with Jack Cohen) called The Collapse of Chaos, which is really fantastic. It's all about simplicity in complex systems, and finds all these connections between evolution, fractals, the weather etc.
I've also just started Emergence by Steven Johnson, another book that looks really good. The subtitle is 'the connected lives of ants, brains, cities and software', which just says it all really. Long live crazy science!
I've also just started Emergence by Steven Johnson, another book that looks really good. The subtitle is 'the connected lives of ants, brains, cities and software', which just says it all really. Long live crazy science!
That website is great! I was reading about Klein Bottles in "The Problems of Mathematics" by Ian Stewart over the last week as it happens!
Oh, and Mobius strips are pretty cool... try colouring just one side of them, or cutting them down the middle;)
Oh, and Mobius strips are pretty cool... try colouring just one side of them, or cutting them down the middle;)
Sonicrav: dammit, you're right! I wasn't thinking that the boundary in Pacman was a wall, but rather some weird complication of the space itself. So the crazy shape I was coming up with wasn't Pacman, but my own weird concoction. I did some searches on google groups (home of people who think about these sorts of things) and my weird shape is something wacky combined with two perpendicular mobius strips. Very strange.
Anyway, topolgy is a very interesting subject and one I'm sorry I don't know more about. I did find this very cool site at www.kleinbottle.com which sells Klein Bottles - three-dimensionally immersed 4D shapes that have (apparently) zero volume and can't exist in three-dimensions. Hmmm.
Anyway, topolgy is a very interesting subject and one I'm sorry I don't know more about. I did find this very cool site at www.kleinbottle.com which sells Klein Bottles - three-dimensionally immersed 4D shapes that have (apparently) zero volume and can't exist in three-dimensions. Hmmm.
Kernel, I get what you're saying about pac-man: the top and bottom only share one point in common (and the same for the left and right).
However, this is exactly the same as a torus! Imagine the top and bottom being joined. Now, there is a common wall (the top and bottom wall is in fact the same!), with a break halfway- the "tunnel".
Now do the same for the left and right edges of the board, and you have a torus.
Basically, the board now only has 2 lines bordering it- not 4. It's just that these 2 occur twice each!
Oh, and as for the Zelda thing, the problem is how you imagine the links between worlds, and how they move relatively to each other in time... nightmare!
However, this is exactly the same as a torus! Imagine the top and bottom being joined. Now, there is a common wall (the top and bottom wall is in fact the same!), with a break halfway- the "tunnel".
Now do the same for the left and right edges of the board, and you have a torus.
Basically, the board now only has 2 lines bordering it- not 4. It's just that these 2 occur twice each!
Oh, and as for the Zelda thing, the problem is how you imagine the links between worlds, and how they move relatively to each other in time... nightmare!
Sibs wrote:
> Unknown Kernal said:
>Right, I need a lie down.
I'll second
> that...
Sonicrav started it! ;~)
> Unknown Kernal said:
>Right, I need a lie down.
I'll second
> that...
Sonicrav started it! ;~)
Unknown Kernal said:
>Right, I need a lie down.
I'll second that...
>Right, I need a lie down.
I'll second that...
OK, the picture messed up! Imagine the second vertical line shifted over to the right.
===SONICRAV---> wrote:
> Unknown Kernel...
Isn't the topology of Pacman just the same as asteroids- a
> torus (donut)??? After all, the top of the screen links to the bottom and left
> to right.
Nope, Pacman is different: you can only move from top to bottom, and from left to right through the 'tunnels' in the centre of the square's sides. If my little piccy turns out right, then: top and bottom are connected only at (1), and left and right only at (2). On a torus the whole of the top line is topologically the same as the whole of the bottom line; and the same for left and right.
____1____
| |
| |
2 2
| |
|___1____|
The easiest to see the 3D shape of this universe is to get a square piece of paper and pull the diagonally opposed corners together. I can't really explain what it looks like (except as a BIT like the string you'd use to tie up a parcel, but without a shared point in the middle!) you really need to try it and see ;~)
I'm not sure Hyrule is that simple, either, because aren't there portals dotted about that take you from area to area quicker than walking the straight line route? This is what I had in mind anyway: any game set in an 'unconventional' 3D world. If there are portals or wormholes that link two areas of distant space then the topology gets more complicated, a la Pacman.
Right, I need a lie down.
> Unknown Kernel...
Isn't the topology of Pacman just the same as asteroids- a
> torus (donut)??? After all, the top of the screen links to the bottom and left
> to right.
Nope, Pacman is different: you can only move from top to bottom, and from left to right through the 'tunnels' in the centre of the square's sides. If my little piccy turns out right, then: top and bottom are connected only at (1), and left and right only at (2). On a torus the whole of the top line is topologically the same as the whole of the bottom line; and the same for left and right.
____1____
| |
| |
2 2
| |
|___1____|
The easiest to see the 3D shape of this universe is to get a square piece of paper and pull the diagonally opposed corners together. I can't really explain what it looks like (except as a BIT like the string you'd use to tie up a parcel, but without a shared point in the middle!) you really need to try it and see ;~)
I'm not sure Hyrule is that simple, either, because aren't there portals dotted about that take you from area to area quicker than walking the straight line route? This is what I had in mind anyway: any game set in an 'unconventional' 3D world. If there are portals or wormholes that link two areas of distant space then the topology gets more complicated, a la Pacman.
Right, I need a lie down.
they (kind of) did that with Zelda- Link to the Past... there was a parallel universe. But the game was only 2D + the other universe... so that would make it a 3D 2D game...
Confused yet?
Confused yet?
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