What Is 1D?
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| Cover art used for itch.io |
You probably know the difference If we go down to 2D, we toss aside either the height or the width and keep the other one. This will result in a horizontal or vertical line, depending on which dimension we removed. And that is considered 1D.
between 2D and 3D games. When we switch from a 3D game to a 2D game, we give up on the depth and keep width and height.
You can view it mathematically as well. If 3D is a room and you take away the depth you're left with a plane. Removing another dimension leaves you with a line. Technically, stepping down another dimension will result in a point (0D).
Graphical Dimension Versus Gameplay Dimension
As you might have heard of 2.5D, we have to differentiate in the represented dimension and the one the player moves in. However, it's not standard for the player to move in a higher dimension than the graphics communicate. More about that on another blog post. There is a game made by Tim Ruswick, which shows the player moving linearly, but the game objects are placed in a plane. Just like Flappy Bird, an obvious contender for the 1D gameplay and 2D graphics.
Regardless, my goal was to make a game with 1D gameplay and 1D visuals.
Game Development
I wanted to make this game in Unity since I had the most experience there so far. After setting the release and in-editor resolution to 1x800, the rest of the development of the game is pretty simple. Unfortunately, this is not the case for the UI. We can't represent text or numbers in this format. Even if you would let them scroll they're not distinguishable. Something we can do, however, is to color-code them. If we, for example, say that the digits of a number can be colored the following way:
- red - zero
- orange - one
- black - two
- white - three
- blue - four
- yellow - five
- green - six
- brown - seven
- purple - eight
- gray - nine
While this is confusing to the player at first, there's no better option I can think of. Additionally, the player will learn the coding over time.
Next up, we need a game idea that works. I wanted to think simple since I only want to prove that a 1D game is possible. I had a few different ideas, but Guitar Hero seemed to be a good choice. A rhythm game itself would take quite a while, so let's paddle down. How about... having targets fall down, and you have to hit a key on the right timing? It's more or less the same, just no music or specific patterns.
The Release
Now that things are done, the game is ready for release. Something I've noticed is that it doesn't run well on a dark background, and it is hard to see. I don't think to resize it is a viable option, though. Anyways, after this blog post, I'll be writing the short page and add a link to the itch.io page. So, you can check it out yourself.
Check It Out >>
Check It Out >>
Next up... a 0D game! Wooo!
