HyperRogue – A non-Euclidean roguelike | Hacker News Reader

HyperRogue – A non-Euclidean roguelike

roguetemple.com

77 pointsstared33 comments

Being on a hyperbolic surface instead of strictly flat is certainly non-Euclidean, and this is pretty cool.

Another non-Euclidean approach is that taken by Vicious Orcs: each individual room is Euclidean, and the player can't tell that he's moved from one room to another, but the connections between rooms are arranged such that the overall map doesn't fit in a plane or even a 3 dimensional space. I got very lost and did not finish the game.

http://www.zincland.com/7drl/orcs/

That's not all! I know of two other non-Euclidean seven-day roguelikes (7DRLs) Jeff Lait has made. And a very large number of 7DRLs in general. I definitely recommend looking through his games, Jeff Lait has used many wonderful concepts.

Jacob's Matrix is interesting because it actually displays a Jacobian matrix describing, somehow, the way that the pieces of the world are put together. Walking from one piece to another can cause you to be rotated or mirror-imaged. You can also create portals (as in Portal) http://www.zincland.com/7drl/jacob/ http://www.roguebasin.com/index.php?title=Jacob%27s_Matrix

Here's another one. This one deserves mention because it turns out that enemies path-finding in a non-Euclidean space will run circles around a human. At least, I think that's how they do it. I have never felt so humiliated by a game AI. http://www.zincland.com/7drl/kobold/ http://www.roguebasin.com/index.php?title=Smart_Kobold

Yep. We are very good at intuitive pathfinding in 2d, but really really bad at much of anything else.

Although, that being said, someone who spends a lot of time in caves may be better.

For other non-Euclidean space example (although not hyperbolic) there is Antichamber (http://www.antichamber-game.com/). But in general, not only space whole reality was distorted/dream-like in this game.

The game website offers a link to buy the game via Desura - I would urge caution on buying via them as the company who owns them recently filed for bankruptcy [1]. It's unclear what will happen to the site, but it's not worth the risk when you can get it via steam!

1.http://gamasutra.com/view/news/245334/Desuras_parent_company...

I am sad to hear that Desura filed bankruptcy! I try to buy from GOG.com, gamersgate.com or humblebundle.com just so there is some competition in the marketplace.

Thanks for reminding me about this! I have removed the Desura links from the HyperRogue website.

See also David Madore's hyperbolic maze:

http://www.madore.org/~david/math/hyperbolic-maze.html

Hyperbolic Maze sounds like a euphemism for Politics ;-)

The author of HyperRogue here. Thanks to stared for sharing, and everyone for playing!

Thanks for creating the game! I was supposed not to buy any more games this week, but this one clearly deserved an exception. Just two more hours of work, and then I'm gonna play the living hell out of it!

I played this 3-4 years ago and had a blast... I remember the distinct worlds very fondly. Very happy to see it on the front page today!

Thanks! I guess there were 11 lands back then, and there are 22 now. And the new ones show many new things in the hyperbolic plane, like wars between huge armies (the Hive), large circles (Camelot, where you have to find the center of a circle of radius 28, and this is challenging), and horocycles (infinite circles -- the Temple of Cthulhu and the Caribbean).

hyperbolic-ier stuff is exactly what I felt was missing, I might have revisit. I also enjoyed the hydra game a lot.

Any chance of a gog release?

I will think about it :) I am a bit unhappy with gog after buying Spelunky there and seeing that some features (such as the daily challenge) are available only in the Steam version, but I guess this can be done better.

Multiplayer functionality is on the way with the introduction of the galaxy client. I hope that spelunky receives the daily challenge.

And GPL source: http://www.roguetemple.com/z/hyper/download.php

Cool idea, I wonder how a game based on a 3d fractal might work? You could hide items in levels of depth and explore an infinite world!

There are some on 2d fractals: http://indiegames.com/2012/04/tyler_glaiel_fracuum.html

The difference between this and a fractal in which you shrink as you descend into it would actually not be all that different!

The game looks good, but it makes me wonder are there any clear gameplay advantages/specialties that come from non-euclidean game "board". I mean, as long as the game forms a manifold it is locally euclidean and if we think games like snake where the very euclidean looking board loops around it still has (non-euclidean) geometry of torus.

In my experience, if you walk away from a location and return, it may be a different location -- that seems to be as far as it affects gameplay.

Read the linked article. It further expounds on the effects on gamepla.

There is a post on the blog discussing how the hyperbolic geometry affects the map generation and gameplay: http://zenorogue.blogspot.com/2012/03/hyperbolic-geometry-in... It is not up-to-date with some of the newest features, such as the Camelot quest, where you have to find the center of a circle of radius 28, and since such a circle has 31659398 cells inside, this is not trivial.

There is also an Euclidean mode, where you can see for yourself the things which do not work.

Love the game (free version) will buy on steam for sure!

This is indeed a fun game. Makes my vision swim though!

Cool. Bought!

What is "Euclinean" ?

Clearly Euclidean was meant.

Right. Sorry for that typo. (Unfortunately, I can no longer edit the title; could any power-user help?)

I flagged the parent message; hopefully that will bring it to the attention of such a power user.

Fixed.

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