4D Maze Game
Welcome to the four-dimensional maze game home page! And yes, that's right … the game is quite literally set in a four-dimensional world. A typical passage looks something like this, only larger, because you can use the whole screen, and better, because you can adjust the 3D effect to fit your own eyes.
To view, cross your eyes until the cubes line up, then wait until your eyes refocus.
If you're interested, now would be a good time to download the game. It's free, and lots of fun! Source code and copies of these web pages are also available.
4D Maze Game is a game where the player navigates a 4 dimensional maze. The latest version was released in February 2008. The game has been developed by John McIntosh in the Java programming language. It has been released into the public domain, it is free software since the source code is available on the homepage. Maze 3D models for download, files in 3ds, max, c4d, maya, blend, obj, fbx with low poly, animated, rigged, game, and VR options.
What's in all these web pages, anyway? Well, first of all, if you're still wondering how a four-dimensional game is even possible, there's a short page that explains the idea. Then there's a whole section about things you can see in the maze, along with some notes about various aspects of the four-dimensional world. Finally, just in case the program isn't self-explanatory, there's a reference manual.
One of the best ways to understand the four-dimensional world is to compare it to an analogous three-dimensional world. To that end, the maze game can also be played in three-dimensional mode.
The game has some other notable features, too. It generates a variety of good random mazes. It has lots of options, including several that control how the maze is displayed. It starts in align mode, so you don't get completely disoriented, but allows you to fly around freely if you want. Plus it has lovely source code!
I hope you enjoy the game, it is one of the best things I have ever made.
| John McIntosh November 2002 February 2008 |
4d Maze Game
The maze is a hypercube; in the same sense that a diagram might represent a three dimensional structure by showing some two dimensional slices one above the other, this maze represents a four dimensional structure by a grid of two dimensional slices.
In eighth grade, when I first wrote this, I was very interested in higher dimensions, and I tried to learn to visualize in four dimensions; I never really succeeded, but I did learn to visualize the shifting three dimensional cross sections of hypercubes passing through three-space at a couple of different angles. Visualizing higher-dimensional objects is hard (impossible, by some sources), but doing math or programming in higher dimensions is not by nature more difficult than doing things in two dimemsions.
Scary Maze
Does the maze look flat? Is it really four-dimensional? Let me ask you a question. What can you see that doesn’t look flat? All the images you see are two-dimensional. A movie or a 3D game doesn’t look flat because it represents a three-dimensional area in a two-dimensional way, and you learned as a child to perceive that as three dimensional. This maze also represents a four dimensional maze, just like a flat schematic diagram represents something three-dimensional. The picture on your screen is two dimensional, just like every other picture on the web, but the maze that’s represented is four-dimensional.
Maze Game Horror Prank
