HyperRogue, a open-source non-Euclidean roguelike: new weapons | Hacker News Reader

HyperRogue, a open-source non-Euclidean roguelike: new weapons

zenorogue.blogspot.com

159 pointszenorogue26 comments

It took quite a bit of clicking to find the "open source" part https://github.com/zenorogue/hyperrogue/blob/v13.0/COPYING (GPLv2)

While digging around, it seems there's also an online version for lighter-weight tire kicking https://www.roguetemple.com/z/hyper/online.php

Don't overlook the author's YouTube channel, which digs into the non-Euclidean parts: https://www.youtube.com/@ZenoRogue/videos

Other than the visualization, what specific aspect of non-Euclidean space is leveraged? For instance, if you were project the space on to a rectangle, what would fundamentally change about the game?

The coolest non-Euclidean game ideas I've seen involve violation of the triangle inequality of metric spaces, i.e. the shortest path between two points is not necessarily a straight line (e.g. Portal).

Just from the article, I can't tell how the projection fundamentally impacts game play.

If you play it a little, you learn very quickly how hyperbolic space impacts the gameplay: if you're wise, you can always avoid being backed into a losing situation by the enemies. There's more space behind for you to run away into than there is space around you to be crowded by.

There are puzzle levels like the round table, where you must retrieve the grail from the center of the table (>= ~14 tiles in) and return the way you came-- a deceptively tough task for the unprepared

It's true that it's hard to tell from the screenshots, but I'd say this game is way more non-euclidian than a mere "euclidian plus portals" kind of space. It's not simply the projection that makes it look strange, and there is no projection that can possibly make a hyperbolic world look like a normal 2d world. For example, a circle in hyperbolic space contains a lot more space than a circle in euclidian space with the same radius. If you want to get a better intuition for this, consider just trying the game.

I just tried the game. Let me preface this comment by saying that I think any exploration of new game techniques is always worthwhile, and, more broadly, creating anything is always positive. I have no expectation that the author of this game created it to please me.

That being said, I standby my initial comment. After playing the game, I see how hyperbolic geometric affects movement in the world. What still remains unclear, however, is how movement in a hyperbolic world impacts game play in a meaningful way. Games are not complete happenstance; they're a collection of intentional choices to create an experience through purposeful mechanics. While the choice of hyperbolic geometric was intentional, the impact of this decision on the game play feels more or less random. That's not to say hyperbolic geometry couldn't be used to make an interesting game, but one would need to design the game in a way that creates a compelling experience by intentionally exploiting the characteristics of hyperbolic geometry. Taking an existing thing and recreating it with hyperbolic geometry is not cutting it for me, at least not in this specific instance.

> What still remains unclear, however, is how movement in a hyperbolic world impacts game play in a meaningful way.

It impacts how far you have to go to reach a variety of terrain. In euclidean space there is a fixed amount of surface area with any given walking distance. In this game there much more space within that same walking distance which allows more user choice and variety in areas without having to decrease the size of areas. Thus any given biome can border many more biomes without making the distance between those biomes larger.

That's a valid point of view, but it sounds like a different, more educated take than your original comment. This education is exactly one of the reasons why I love games like this.

To clarify, "For instance, if you were project the space on to a rectangle, what would fundamentally change about the game?" didn't make much sense in the context of this game, and made it sound like the game's world could have been represented in a simpler, more obvious way. All I'm saying is, as you might understand better now, there is no simpler way, and you can't simply fit hyperbolic space onto euclidean space. I would approach this game partly as a math experiment, and partly as a game, with the goal of exploring the possibilities of this combination.

It is possible to run the game in a Euclidean hex grid and compare. For example:

* In Euclidean open space, if you are attacked by two adjacent monsters at once, you cannot escape, because the monsters would just move in parallel lines. In hyperbolic, you can, because parallel lines do not work.

* In Euclidean open space, if you are ambushed by many (say, 12) monsters on all sides, you cannot escape. In hyperbolic, you can. There is always more directions than it seems.

There is a land Hunting Grounds which teaches the tactics above. It simply does not work in Euclidean mode. There is also this article: http://zenorogue.blogspot.com/2012/03/hyperbolic-geometry-in...

I think a Lovecraftian game could make use of this concept, but otherwise I consider it just a gimmick or tech demo, not a killer feature.

But how much have you played it?

When I started working on HyperRogue, I expected it to be a "gimmick or tech demo" as you say. But after implementing the basic roguelike gameplay, it felt surprisingly good, better than what I had actually planned. So released it, and other people liked it too.

So it is not surprising that people expect it to be a gimmick (given that I did expect that hyperbolic geometry would make basic roguelike gameplay feel better myself). Some people do not get it on their first try, but love it on their second try.

One concrete effect is that the the circumference of any given circle increases exponentially with its radius. So navigating without landmarks is much harder, because any slight errors in your direction of travel result in you going off-course by an exponentially increasing distance, rather than linearly as in Euclidean space.

Another effect is that "parallel lines" don't exist in quite the same way. That is, any given line has infinitely many non-intersecting" parallel lines, but they all diverge from it rather than maintaining a constant distance. So one entity pursuing another along a "parallel" course will have to constantly turn* to keep following them, which lengthens their path and slows them down.

hyperbolic space means that as you walk, there is much more space around you than you would have guessed from euclidian geometry; exponentially more space. so space is not a grid, but it is exponentially branching

it's like.. suppose your space is discrete like in this game (if it's continuous it's the same argument basically), if you walk N steps in arbitrary directions in euclidian space, you can be sure you are confined in a N x N square so there are N^2 possible tiles you could be. in hyperbolic space your possibilities are much larger, space grows exponentially so you easily get lost

anyway that's why parallel lines diverge in hyperbolic space: if you have two parallel trajectories that go in the same direction they get further and further apart because as you go, there is more space around each trajectory

this means that unless you retrace your exact steps, it's very very hard to get back to your starting position after you wander for a while. navigation becomes almost impossible and it's not a matter of recognizing landmarks because you may never get to see the same landmarks again

so in this game you are always walking towards new stuff; even if you go back, you won't find the placew you were before

good thing it is procedurally generated then, and it basically doesn't matter much where you are because the game is pretty much the same everywhere (it has biomes but they just determine your enemies and stuff like that)

a game like this but with a plot would be much harder and maybe require some sort of teleport or transport network

It exists in a hyperbolic space. So the area reachable in radius r is not r^2, but x^r for some x>1.

It doesn’t violate the triangle inequality, but it does mean that there’s way more than one parallel line through a given point off an initial line. I think that’s Euclid’s axiom.

Intuitively, the mechanics make it easier to run away from groups of enemies, since the angle it would take to follow you is more precise. It also makes it harder to find and return to earlier locations. In fact, to win the game you have to find an “orb of yendor”, then a key spawns 100 tiles away with an arrow helping you find it. The hard part is getting back to the orb once you get the key.

Congratulations. Definitely one of the most polished and unique roguelikes on Steam.

Given steam features the binding of isaac, hades and inscryption, I can't understand your comment.

Might depend on the interpretation of "roguelike" -- Rogue combined single-character adventure with grid tactics, so to many people, "roguelike" means single-character grid tactics, usually with some other less unique features (such as randomness), just like it did in the 80s. This was also the most important roguelike feature for the design of HyperRogue. While more commonly "roguelike" is used for marketing anything that takes whatever inspiration from a game marketed as roguelike. In the roguelike communities, mentioning The Binding of Isaac (in a way suggesting that roguelike means a game like it) happens regularly and yields very negative reactions, because it is not tactical and thus not interesting to the community. Similar for the other ones you mention.

Still, there are many very polished roguelikes on Steam (Dungeons of Dredmor, Crown Trick, Sproggiwood, Moonring, etc.).

This has been doing the rounds for a while, and I enjoy seeing it every time it pops up. The new content here is the addition this year of Einstein tiles, although that’s obviously Euclidean space only it’s still fun.

This made me smile so much. Thanks for building such a unique game.

This is a really cool project, thank you for sharing!

Today is my birthday, and this is quite the excellent gift :)

I've been thinking about what it would like to express something like the holographic principle in this form factor ... haven't made much progress!

Happy Birthday!

Happy birthday!

Happy Birthday :)

For cmrx64 is a jolly good fellow, for cmrx64 is a jolly good fellow...

thanks all… now, go play with weird geometries! my treat! ;)

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