Dave.f.kleinschmidt

An explanation of how walking through walls would actually look like if you could move in 4D.

This doubles as an explanation of how Miegakure works (finally! Also SPOILER ALERT) and what the fourth dimension is.

Ever since people discovered the concept of a fourth dimension of space around a century and a half ago, they have tried to come up with what would be possible if space was actually four-dimensional. Walking "though" walls would be one of the simplest consequences of being able to move in 4D space. But what would it actually look like? It's not often that watching a video-game trailer actually teaches you about real math.

Of course, if you have watched the video, you know that it is not "through," but rather "around" walls, despite what this movie poster or this comic book character, for example, would lead you to believe.

Additional Notes:

• From the perspective of a regular 3D observer standing next to the wall the player character would suddenly disappear, and a few moments later reappear on the other side of the wall (assuming the player character is very thin along the fourth dimension).
• There are infinitely many 3D worlds stacked on top of each other, even if in the Wall level the ground texture makes it seem like there are only two. A more complex example is the shape at the beginning of the trailer, which is a true 4D shape called the 120 Cell, as explained here.
• Yup, the 2D/3D section is part of the game. There are more 2D levels. Not going to spoil how you get access to them.
• The 2D/3D section has been part of the game since I first showed it at the Experimental Gameplay Workshop 2009 a couple months after making the prototype. At first I made it in order to explain the game, but it seemed like a good idea to make it part of the game itself.
  I took inspiration from Flatland (of course) and Super Paper Mario for the aesthetic. I couldn't resist having the game contain its own Demake ;)
• Fun anecdote: the code that handles movement in 2D/3D is the same as the code that handles movement in 3D/4D, but one axis is ignored ;) The display code is of course different, but it reuses a bunch of stuff.

This trailer took a long time to make! It will be the basis for talking about the game more.
The pixel art was done by G.P. Lackey and the music by Disasterpeace & Mateo Lugo. I love how it turned out!

Big thanks to Vi Hart [Youtube Channel], Chris Hecker [SpyParty], Brady Haran and others for their suggestions on how to improve this video.

Oh I forgot to post here that we will be showing the game at PAX Prime, as part of the Indie MEGABOOTH.

We’re celebrating the end of the year with our most popular posts from 2013, plus a few of our favorites tossed in.  Enjoy!

Like many people, I’ve been following news about the crash landing in San Francisco. It’s a frightening reminder of the risks that come with air travel, but an uplifting one thanks to the small number of casualties.  The Mayor of San Francisco was quoted saying: “We’re lucky we have this many survivors.”  And the Chief of the San Francisco Fire Department said that it was “nothing short of a miracle…”  At CNN, after mentioning the two confirmed fatalities, the reporter writes, “Somehow, 305 others survived.” Sheryl Sandberg, COO of Facebook, wrote that it was a “serious moment to give thanks.”  But to whom?

There’s a kind of person who is trained to maximize survival in the case of a plane crash: the flight attendant.  Airlines don’t advertise the intense training their flight attendants receive because it reminds potential passengers that air travel is risky.  As a result, most people seriously underestimate the skills flight attendants bring on board and the dedication they have to the safety of their passengers.

Flight attendants have to learn hundreds of regulations and know the safety features of all of the aircraft in their airline’s fleet. They must know how to evacuate the plane on land or sea within 90 seconds; fight fires 35,000 feet in the air; keep a heart attack or stroke victim alive; calm an anxious, aggressive, or mentally ill passenger; respond to hijackings and terrorist attacks; and ensure group survival in the jungle, sea, desert, or arctic.

It isn’t just book learning; they train in “live fire pits” and “ditching pools.”As one flight attendant once said:

I don’t think of myself as a sex symbol or a servant. I think of myself as somebody who knows how to open the door of a 747 in the dark, upside down and in the water (source).

This is why I’m surprised to see almost no discussion of the flight attendants’ role in this “miracle.” Consider the top five news stories on Google at the time I’m writing: CNN, Fox, CBS, the Chicago Tribune, and USA Today.  These articles use passive language to describe the evacuation: ”slides had deployed”; all passengers “managed to get off.”  When the cabin crew are mentioned, they appear alongside and equivalent to the passengers: the crash forced “dozens of frightened passengers and crew to scamper from the heavily damaged aircraft”; ”passengers and crew were being treated” at local hospitals.

Only one of these five stories, at Fox, acknowledges that the 16 cabin crew members worked through the crash and its aftermath.  The story mentions that, while passengers who could were fleeing the plane, crew remained behind to help people who were trapped, slashing seat belts with knives supplied by police officers on the ground.  The plane was going up in flames; they risked their lives to save others.

I don’t know what the flight attendants on this plane did or didn’t do to minimize injuries or save lives, but I would like to know.  Instead, they are invisible in these news stories as workers, allowing readers and future passengers to remain ignorant of the skills and dedication they bring to their work.

Cross-posted at Jezebel, PolicyMic, Huffington Post, and BlogHer.

(View original at http://thesocietypages.org/socimages)