This is 4D Miner; a 4 dimensional survival
sandbox game. I’d rather not start this video off with
an explanation, so instead I’m just gonna show it to you. First let’s quickly make a new world. After the world generates, you’ll notice
a very familiar, blocky-looking landscape. But there’s more to this world than meets
the eye. As I scroll with the mouse wheel, the landscape
appears to transform. Blocks seem to contort into all kinds of different
shapes, while some seem to appear out of thin air, and others slowly disappear. Even the sun appears to grow and shrink! This kind of behavior is not unusual when
3-dimensional beings like you and me try to interact with a 4-dimensional world. In order to explain what’s happening here,
let’s look at what happens when a 2-dimensional being tries to interact with a 3-dimensional
world. Let me introduce you to Frank. Frank is a 2-dimensional being, restricted
to a 2-dimensional plane, and therefore cannot see anything beyond the 2nd dimension; much
like how we cannot directly see anything beyond the 3rd dimension. Luckily for Frank, we 3-dimensional beings
have the technology to give him a glimpse into the 3rd dimension. We can allow him to explore a 2-dimensional
slice of the 3D world around him. In addition to this, we can give him a superpower
that allows him to rotate his cross-sectional plane in the 3rd dimension, which lets him
explore anywhere he wants in his new 3D environment. When Frank uses his superpower, to him it
looks like the landscape is completely transforming. The blocks around him seem to change shape,
appear, and even disappear. To us, what Frank sees makes perfect sense. We can look at him trying to explore different
cross-sections of the 3D world around him. We can see him get stuck inside a cave, and
while the way out seems obvious to us, it’s not so easy for him. This is exactly what happens to us when we
try to explore a 4-dimensional world. Imagine you're in your living room, minding
your own business, when suddenly, a being from the 4th dimension snatches you away... Next thing you know, they place you into a
totally different world. A 4-dimensional world. Now you’re completely out of your element,
and your only hope is a magical dial they give you, that lets you rotate yourself through
the 4th dimension. That’s basically the scenario you’ll find
yourself in when playing this game. The first thing you’ll want to do is get
some kind of weapon, because while we can only see a limited 3D cross-section of the
world, the creatures of the 4th dimension can approach us from anywhere, and we must
be ready to defend ourselves. Punching tree trunks doesn’t seem to be
of any use, but if we look up, maybe we can get a stick out of the leafy branches of this
tree. It doesn’t look like we got anything, but
some sticks may have fallen and landed somewhere in the 4th dimension, outside of our 3D view. Let’s try scrolling through the 4th dimension
to see if we can find any. Here’s one! Now we’re a bit more safe from any enemy
creatures that may approach us. And just in time too! See those weird shapes appearing out of nowhere? Let me introduce you to the hyperspider. It’s not too much unlike a regular spider. Actually it’s very much unlike a regular
spider. It’s a 4-dimensional being about the same
size as you. Well, at least the parts that you can see. You’ll never be able to see the entire thing
at once. It has 32 legs and it can follow you anywhere
through the 4th dimension. Hopefully this stick we found will be enough
for us to defend ourselves. Well, it looks like we’ve killed it. And what’s this? Hypersilk? Is that like, 4-dimensional spider silk? As a matter of fact, it is! Let’s see if we can do anything with the
items we have. Maybe if we use the stick to dig through the
soil we’ll find something else to use. Oh look,a rock! And not just any rock, but a 4-dimensional
one! So we have a stick, some very strong spider-silk,
and a rock. And with those items, we can craft our first
tool, a hammer! The hammer not only allows us to break more
blocks, but it also serves as a much more deadly weapon than the stick we started out
with. As I harvest some of this wood, many of the
items disappear into the 4th dimension. Fortunately, scrolling back and forth allows
us to find where they landed so we can pick them up. Ok, I think we’re ready to look for a cave. I still have to watch out for spiders though,
since they can attack from any number of places that are outside of our view. Here’s a cave! It doesn’t look too big though. Maybe there’s more to this cave than what
we can see right now. There we go! This cave is actually a lot bigger than I
first realized. And it looks like there’s some iron ore
over there. I should be able to take it out of the cave
walls with this hammer. I have to be careful to make sure I don’t
miss any. There’s always stuff in the 4th dimension
that you can’t see. With the ore that we just got, we can make
some iron bars. Now we can make much stronger tools, like
this iron pick, which can break blocks much faster than this hammer. Let’s do some more exploring! Maybe if we go to this strange-looking biome,
we can find something to help us travel through the 4-dimensional world more effectively. There’s a lot of cool-looking stuff here,
but look what’s down in this cave. What’s that teal and magenta stuff? Well, let’s get some and find out! It looks like we got something called deadly
ore. This is actually the most valuable resource
in this 4-dimensional world. With it, we can make tools to help us see
beyond our limited 3D slice of the world. First thing I’ll make is a pair of 4D glasses,
which let us see the location of entities that exist outside of the player’s 3D cross-section. This includes item drops and enemies. Now I can see all the item drops that I missed. I better go pick them up! Now that we’re back on the surface, let’s
see if these glasses will help us find hyperspiders before they find us. There’s one! You think you’re sneaky? Not anymore! These 4D glasses will also help you find chests
that you placed earlier, because nobody wants to lose their loot stash, and that can happen
very easily in the vast expanse of the 4th dimension! The glasses are cool, but how do I know my
location? How do I know which way I’m facing in the
4th dimension? Without being able to answer these questions,
getting lost is pretty much inevitable. Luckily, with the help of that deadly ore
we mined earlier, we can craft an item called a compass! Now this compass doesn’t work exactly like
the compasses in minecraft, or the ones you’ll find in real life. That’s because it’s a 4-dimensional compass. It’ll show you your coordinates, which is
useful for getting back to your base, and like a real compass, it lets you know which
way you’re going. It also helps you to understand the orientation
of your 3D cross section of the world. That may seem complicated, but trust me, after
messing around with it in-game for a few minutes, it should start to make sense. In this game not only can you explore an infinite
procedurally-generated 4-dimensional world, but you can also build 4D structures in any
way you want. Speaking of which, I haven’t really tried
building any shelter for myself yet. First I’ll go get some stone for myself,
and try to build a simple hut. There we go! Now we’re safe from those pesky spiders! Wait a minute! Where did you come from? Oh yeah, I forgot! We just built a 3D hut, but we didn’t build
any walls in the 4th dimension, so creatures can just walk right in! If I scroll, you can see that there’s a
gaping hole in the wall. Now a naive way to build structures is to
just keep scrolling and patching up the holes until they’re all gone. You’ll end up making a really ugly building,
but at least you’ll be safe! A better way to do things is to just burrow
underground. That way you’ll be covered on all sides. If you’re willing to take a more mathematical
approach, you can try to make your house into the shape of a 4-dimensional hypercube, but
that’s gonna be a lot more work. There are also other unique aspects of building
in 4D. When you rotate in 4D, you’re looking at
uniquely-shaped slices of 4D blocks. If you take an artistic approach to building,
you can use these shapes to make more interesting creations than what you could normally do
with 3D cubes. Here are some dumb things that I’ve tried
to make using these odd shapes, but I’m sure you guys can make much cooler stuff! On the surface, this game does look quite
a bit like minecraft, and the inspiration is undeniable, but things like building, collecting
resources, and simply navigating the in-game world are completely different, and this affects
pretty much every game mechanic, as well as the main progression system of the game. I plan on expanding this aspect of the game
much further in the future, so that most of the new game mechanics and features focus
on how the player interacts with the 4th dimension. One of the biggest things I want to add is
multiplayer, so that you can explore the 4th dimension with the help of other people! In order to implement some of these features
though, I’m gonna need some help. To help me add new features, like multiplayer,
and to release the steam version, I am launching a kickstarter campaign. Not only will you be helping to develop this
game, but you can also earn rewards, such as getting a copy of the steam release, getting
a real pair of 4D glasses, and getting featured in the credits of the game! On the Kickstarter page, there’s a link
to play the demo version of the game free of charge, which means you could be one of
the very first players to test the game! There is so much more to this game than I
had time to include in this video, but I’m making a follow up video that explains how
I made this game from start to finish, and it will go into much more detail, and even
provide tips on how to develop your own 4D game! Please leave a comment if you have any feedback
or suggestions, and I will be doing a Q&A video in about a week, so please also leave
a comment if you have any questions. If you want to help the channel, please consider
subscribing and leaving a like on the video, and stay tuned for future updates about this
game! I’m sorry that I haven’t uploaded in a
while, but I’ve been really busy working on this project for most of the time I’ve
been gone, and I didn’t expect it to take this long, or to become this ambitious. I’m planning on doing monthly devlog updates,
which will be a lot more consistent than any of the other content I’ve been uploading
to this channel, so if you don’t want to miss out on that, please consider subscribing!
