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Comment by pierrec | Hacker News Reader

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.

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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.

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