This is your average indoor FPS, with a few changes...

1) Players' running speed is 95% of "light speed" in the game. This causes hallways to appear shorter and other players appear to be moving slower or faster, depending on their direction.

2) There is a 4th spacial dimension in the game. Walls are color-coded to represent their position in the 4th spacial dimension, and the Q and E keys are used for moving "forward" and "backward" in these extra dimensions. The player would see the colors of the walls changing.

Fun, educational, and good hyperspace navigator training.

3) A space level with jetpacks, where players are in orbit around a small planet and must adjust their orbits to reach other players, dealing with complicated orbital dynamics, ie thrusting in the direction of the orbit causes you to move to a higher orbit and orbit the planet less frequently.
-- sninctown, May 03 2006

Kata/Ana Alter-Dimension Games Kata_2fAna_20Alter-Dimension_20Games
Sorry, the second part is exactly what I described in this idea, with more stuff, like platforms that change depending on your 4D position [DesertFox, May 04 2006]

Heh - couldn't be any worse than Descent!
-- Letsbuildafort, May 03 2006


Aaaahhh, but doppler effect as you are running around at 0.95 c (speed of light) would completely bugger up your "wall colour = 4th dimension" thing. In fact, I think the blue shift at 0.95c would probably put all the incoming light into the x-ray or gamma ray spectrum. So you ruddy well couldn't see anything anyway.

You also haven't said what you'd do about synchronisation of time given the relavitistic paradoxes ie you run around the block at .95c, passing another player. perceived time contracts for you, so it seems to take very little time until you get back and see him again. But for him, it takes ages, or at least a lot longer. How do you solve this synchronisation issue in a multiplayer environment? You could work it in singleplayeer with AI bots, but not in multiplayer.

Nice idea, and yes it should be that way in singleplayer space sims (except the 4-d thing: I think you need to think that through more. How far off (ie how "wide" are you) does a shot need to be to miss you in the fourth dimension, what units are this 4th dimension in?)???

Anyway, definitely no bun, 'cause the idea has absolutely no chance of working at all. But no bone either, 'cause you've obviously thought about this a bit. Read some hawking, think about it a bit more, then update your post.
-- Custardguts, May 03 2006


The second part is already half-baked. - See Link

I've also played a game like the third bit, but in 2-D (somewhere, can't remember name)

As for the first bit, you would have to have really slow light.

And when you fired when running, they wouldn't see the muzzle-flash until you were right next to them.
-- DesertFox, May 04 2006


sninctown, to quote the character of Brian the Dog from the cartoon series The Family Guy, "Can I buy some pot from you?"
-- Size_Mick, May 04 2006


[mick] Why do you ask?

I dislike posts explaining how physics works, unless its stuff I don't understand...

[sweet] You're wondering about the twins paradox-- if one twin gets in a rocket, flies at a relativistic speed for awhile and then returns to Earth, he ages less than his twin because he has been accelerating during that time, and acceleration or being in a strong gravitational field makes time pass more slowly. Why does acceleration make a difference? I should know, but I don't.
-- sninctown, May 04 2006


Hey Snictown, I'm no physicist (although I do read a bit), but I thought the relatavistic effects were proportionate to your speed aproaching "c", not your acceleration. ie it's the relativistic speeds, not the acceleration that induces all the funny effects. like time dialation. (exmple: a subatomic particle with a given halflife will experience time dialation (extended half life) when travelling *really* fast, even if it's not accelerating druring that time, but travelling at constant speed)

I still think Space sims should incorporate all the effects you list above, except for 4d.
-- Custardguts, May 05 2006


Get's my ----------------- +
-- 2 fries shy of a happy meal, May 05 2006


Acceleration must also make a difference to explain the twins paradox, and I've read that time slows in areas with extremely high gravity.
-- sninctown, May 05 2006


//Game play rate would change depending on your velocity and acceleration relative to others'. Buffering would be needed so other players would appear to move at a rate appropriately influenced by time dilation and speed of information.// I agree. When implemented over the internet, this would create some interesting apparent reversals of causality from some players' reference frames.
-- spidermother, May 05 2006


Excellent. [+]
-- david_scothern, May 05 2006



random, halfbakery