"non-Euclidean geometry"

[zeno]

If I read the description correctly, you are using impossible spaces to "fit" a large impossible VR space in a small real-world space. But I believe this is impossible if you are actually using non-Euclidean geometry, because then rotating your head in a circle will change the relative orientation of the two worlds, so you cannot have any correspondence between real-world and VR directions (since non-Euclidean geometry is one where you do not rotate by 360 degrees when moving on a circle, but by a different number, hence the discrepancy).

[Team Morbid]

Originally posted by zeno:

If I read the description correctly, you are using impossible spaces to "fit" a large impossible VR space in a small real-world space. But I believe this is impossible if you are actually using non-Euclidean geometry, because then rotating your head in a circle will change the relative orientation of the two worlds, so you cannot have any correspondence between real-world and VR directions (since non-Euclidean geometry is one where you do not rotate by 360 degrees when moving on a circle, but by a different number, hence the discrepancy).

Thank you for your interest in Shattered Lights! The reason why we don't have to worry about that is that we're using a system to fit the entire world within a small play space. From the player's perspective, the experience will seem like they're in non-Euclidean space.

[zeno]

Why would they feel like being in non-Euclidean space? The trailer definitely does not look like being in non-Euclidean space. I see lots of parallel lines, so it appears that the parallel postulate does hold.

[Team Morbid]

Originally posted by zeno:

Why would they feel like being in non-Euclidean space? The trailer definitely does not look like being in non-Euclidean space. I see lots of parallel lines, so it appears that the parallel postulate does hold.

The current teaser doesn't represent the final architectural layout of the game. The non-Euclidean feel during gameplay is evoked via a system developed for moving the player through different rooms without the player leaving the room-scale setup. Think of the system as a combination of Antichamber and Layers of Fear.

[zeno]

Antichamber does not use non-Euclidean geometry. I know it claims it does, but "non-Euclidean geometry" does not mean "any weird space". This is a mathematical term that has more precise meaning in mathematics, and Antichamber is not it. Antichamber feels like non-Euclidean geometry only if you do not know what non-Euclidean geometry is.

[Craig [K.A.O.S.]]

I don't know what "non-Euclidean" geometry is and it sure felt like it to me!

[HD]

Originally posted by zeno:

Antichamber does not use non-Euclidean geometry. I know it claims it does, but "non-Euclidean geometry" does not mean "any weird space". This is a mathematical term that has more precise meaning in mathematics, and Antichamber is not it. Antichamber feels like non-Euclidean geometry only if you do not know what non-Euclidean geometry is.

You're technically right, but also wrong.
It's true that this game isn't non-Euclidean in the sense that it follows the traditional mathematical principle. However, in recent years non-Euclidean has become synonymous with 'impossible spaces' in most non-mathematical related fields (especially entertainment media). I believe this goes back to H.P. Lovecraft's misunderstanding of the concept, though it might go back further. Definitions change over time, and this game follows the currently accepted non-mathematical definition of the word. It can be really frustrating to hear people use it in this sense if you come from a math-background, but that doesn't make it incorrect.

[zeno]

H. P. Lovecraft was not a mathematician, and probably his understanding of non-Euclidean geometry was not that good. But I would not blame him for the situation.

The quotes "surfaces too great to belong to any thing right or proper for this earth" or "an angle of masonry which shouldn’t have been there; an angle which was acute, but behaved as if it were obtuse" are a pretty accurate description of the feeling you get when you play a simulation of a non-Euclidean space (in the traditional mathematical sense). He gets it right that non-Euclidean geometry is about angles acting weird; you can have "cubes" whose angles are acute, for example; you do not get angles acting weird in impossible spaces. "Surfaces too great" could exist both in impossible spaces and in non-Euclidean worlds, they are definitely typical to hyperbolic geometry. I believe he has actually used the term "non-Euclidean" in just two places in his works.

I do not think such a meaning is "currently accepted". Antichamber used the term that way (if I recall correctly -- I have just looked at some of its official channels and they seem to prefer "Escher-like"), its fans not knowing what non-Euclidean geometry is assumed that it is the kind of geometry used there. This does not mean that it is "currently accepted". Do you know any mathematically incorrect uses in entertainment before Antichamber? Manifolds are used in gaming for 40 years (see Asteroids, Pacman or Portal) but such games were not called non-Euclidean.

I would not mind if no confusion are possible, i.e., you could not make an interesting game using this particular mathematical concept. But you can, and it is more interesting than impossible spaces, which we have in games since Asteroids. One should not use a term to market a game if that term does not apply to that game. Calling a game "non-Euclidean" because its space is weird is like calling a game "Virtual Reality" because it does not take place in our world.

[FastLawyer]

what a trivial & esoteric conversation

[cold man]

imagine spending this much time on being the guy in this picture

https://pics.me.me/ackchyually-34514956.png

[KoJeT_]

Zeno, Stop. Have some social intelligence.