marctenbosch

Update Feb 2024

This month one thing we worked a lot on are animations. Previously, our animator was part-time, but now we have someone full time so it is going blazingly fast. We should be done with animations within a month or two.

Animations are amazing at giving life to the scenes and making the game feel polished. It's crazy.

I wanted to wait for the end of the project to really start on them. They are not necessary for the gameplay to work so it was fine to wait. And this way we know what t...

Update January 2024

I kept working on improving the visuals for the many levels in the game.

I worked on improving the textures. I will talk about that here in more detail later.

I am focusing on making the early game fully done, so that I can show the game and tell people that that this is its final look and feel.

Buildings are delayed a bit because an artist on the team had covid.

We could ship with the characters we have so we're switching to...

Update December 2023

I've been working on improving the visuals for the many levels in the game.  I just realized I never really talked about what that means.

When I make a new level it is first just made out of perfect hypercubes (some of them moveable) with very simple textures, and sometimes extra objects required for gameplay. This is sometimes called "greyboxing." The level is playable from start to finish, and so we can evaluate if it is fun to play, and maybe change it a bit. I playtested the w...

Update October 2023

In early October I finished the previous month's task of optimizing loading in the game, including making levels load in the background, as well as changing the way levels are reloaded in order to speed up restarting levels. It was the last big programming task. I realized I could have explained more last time, actually, so I will do it now. As usual the 4D makes things a bit harder than normal.

First, some background: levels in Miegakure are lua files. For those unfamiliar, Lua is a sc...

Update September 2023

Last month I worked on a ton of small issues and improvements.

I also worked on speeding up the loading of the game, and loading data in the background so that a loading screen can be displayed. This took longer than expected but it's almost done. I had to go through and change a lot of code. But it basically was the largest remaining programming task on my todo list, so that's another one down!

Sorry, I guess this month's update is rather short! Next month will be more exciting.<...

Update August 2023

This month:

- I improved the workflow for going through the levels and improving the art. The last couple month I tried to get many levels to look final, but it was taking more time than it should, so I fixed that.

- We added a bunch of new art to the game. One of the pieces is super crazy, and we made it because it will make a great video about the 4th dimension, in addition to being a cool level. It's something that people ask me about all the time when they think about the 4th ...

"The Wall" Screenshot Before and After

I am so excited to start to share the almost final version of the "Wall" level! It's been close to done for a while and I've been meaning to post it.

- The Wall itself is made out of 4D eroded cubic bricks. The same bricks can be seen in front of it, so it is clear that they come from the wall. This is way better than the random tesseracts I had before, which didn't look like they were made of the same material. I removed the weird red pyramid piles I had made to try to make the scene m...

Update July 2023

Last month I worked on making more levels look good. It's nice to have many levels that look pretty close to final, even if we will keep improving them.

I also worked on small details. I also added a Looping scene to 4D Toys (but not on iOS because I don't have my Mac with me).

Then I took a week and half summer break. I needed it.

My Todo list is getting pretty short! As far as I can tell right now, for me personally (not the artists) :

- My biggest task by far is to ...

Video 06

As promised from the May update, I quickly put this together based on Samuel's suggestion.

It tuns out a 4D Snowman Is Not Hard To Build... once you have a general 4D engine.

It's three 600-cell stacked together, with a hypercone for a nose, and more 600 cells for the eyes/buttons. I made sure the 4D snowman has 4 eyes, as it obviously should. 

Update June 2023

This month I kept working on refining the final visual look of many levels. 

I started with a level later in the game, which contains a mechanic that lends itself well to having pretty levels because it doesn't constrain the shape of the level too much.

I made some good progress, but soon realized that it was even better to focus on the Red Tower level ( I posted the concepts here a while ago : 2023-07-01 20:40:51 +0000 UTC View Post

Update May 2023 with Video!

This month I kept working on levels to make them look final. I also worked on the tech for the last few visual effects that had been on my list for a while such as this 4D snow!

My favorite part of 4D snow is backtracking to a place you have been before and seeing your footsteps "end" at the moment you started moving along the 4th dimension (or to be precise, perpendicularly to your previous slice).

It is implemented by dynamically updating a 3D texture representing the height of ...

Update April 2023

This month I worked on improving the visuals of the first few levels, most importantly the Wall level. We are completely finalizing the look of the game, and many of the features I am making/improving for the Wall level can be used in tons of other places in the game. Things like the texture and shape of the wall, the size and shape and color of the grass, how much detail to put in the ground texture, etc...

I really like how it is turning out. I think people are going to flip out at ho...

Update March 2023

Hi! Last month I released the 4D Toys update and made the video for it. I made the video much faster than I'm used to... it took 3 days, compared to the "Wall" video which took maybe 3 weeks! This was because back then I had never really made videos before, but also because I wanted to really make sure it was perfect, so I tested it on many people beforehand. I think I also had to program more of the 2D/3D mode for it. Anyway, I'm happy that I'm much faster now. I think the video is high qual...

Miegakure: Spoiler!!!111! Don't click unless you want spoilers!!!!

Moved to Super Supporters only!

New 4D Toys Update and YouTube Video: Rotating the 3D Slice, Face Projections, Marble scenes + Every new feature I added

I released the 4D Toys Update! And made a video about it, which also talks about everything else I added over time, because I had never made a video about it before.

Update February 2023

Hi, this month I started by doing all the more boring things involved in releasing a 4D Toys Update, such as making and uploading iOS builds, writing blog posts, etc... I only have to click a couple buttons to release the update, but I needed a break.

So for a couple weeks I fixed all the remaining small issues with the collision detection code, which still had like a dozen small but important items on it. I thought it would feel nice to get done with it.

To be honest, I thought I...

Miegakure Video! The Lost Windmill

As promised, here's an exclusive first look at the "Lost" level in Miegakure. Please don't share publicly!

This level is what we refer to internally as a "Garden" level, which means it is primary not about a puzzle, and more about eye-candy, story, setting, and/or mood.

"Deep within the desert, lost among the sand dunes, you stumble upon a strange windmill."

The concept art is by Kellan Jett. Here is the 2023-03-01 01:31:00 +0000 UTC View Post

Video 05

High Quality Link: https://gfycat.com/hilariousclosedgadwall

Update January 2023

Hi! As you have seen in the videos I posted, I worked on a major 4D Toys update. It's basically done and will release in February. It focuses on features that people have been requesting for a long time:

- Rotating your 3D slice arbitrarily. It rotates around the center of the level unless you are holding an object in your hand in which case it rotates around the object. This ensures that the level is always in view. Incidentally, you can also hold a shape while you rotate your slice an...

Video 04

High Quality Link: https://gfycat.com/spotlessampleiberianchiffchaff

Video 03

High Quality Link: https://gfycat.com/glamorousforcefulgopher

Video 02

Full link: https://gfycat.com/shortmatureamericancrow

Video 01

I wonder if I can post videos more often and they embed well if I use this? 

Seems to work fine, link to higher quality: https://gfycat.com/dependabletightblackandtancoonhound

I really like the rotation control now! Feels really nice to use.

Bonus: an often requested feature: auto-follow the last touched object!

Update December 2022

Happy Holidays! Thank you for your support, it means a lot to me! 

We have been adding collision to the buildings... and fixing small details. 

More characters are being modeled and this is progressing well as usual!

In terms of 4D Toys:

I added support for rotating the slice in 4D Toys. As I was saying before, obviously the tech was not the hard part... There was a bit of hard-coded stuff about only moving in W, but that was easy to fix. The part that took l...

Miegakure / 4D Toys November 2022 Update

hello, please stand by

Economics is a complex and fascinating field of study that explores how  societies allocate limited resources to satisfy unlimited wants and  needs. It encompasses a wide range of topics, from microeconomics, which  focuses on the behavior of individuals and firms, to macroeconomics,  which examines the performance of entire economies. In this essay, we  will delve into the fundamental concepts, theories, and applications of &nb...

Miegakure Update October 2022

hello, please stand by

Economics is a complex and fascinating field of study that explores how  societies allocate limited resources to satisfy unlimited wants and  needs. It encompasses a wide range of topics, from microeconomics, which  focuses on the behavior of individuals and firms, to macroeconomics,  which examines the performance of entire economies. In this essay, we  will delve into the fundamental concepts, theories, and applications of &nb...

September 2022 Update

hello, please stand by

Economics is a complex and fascinating field of study that explores how  societies allocate limited resources to satisfy unlimited wants and  needs. It encompasses a wide range of topics, from microeconomics, which  focuses on the behavior of individuals and firms, to macroeconomics,  which examines the performance of entire economies. In this essay, we  will delve into the fundamental concepts, theories, and applications of &nb...

Miegakure's Philosophy of Puzzle Design

hello, please stand by

Economics is a complex and fascinating field of study that explores how  societies allocate limited resources to satisfy unlimited wants and  needs. It encompasses a wide range of topics, from microeconomics, which  focuses on the behavior of individuals and firms, to macroeconomics,  which examines the performance of entire economies. In this essay, we  will delve into the fundamental concepts, theories, and applications of &nb...

August 2022 Update

hello, please stand by

Economics is a complex and fascinating field of study that explores how  societies allocate limited resources to satisfy unlimited wants and  needs. It encompasses a wide range of topics, from microeconomics, which  focuses on the behavior of individuals and firms, to macroeconomics,  which examines the performance of entire economies. In this essay, we  will delve into the fundamental concepts, theories, and applications of &nb...

July 2022 Update

hello