HyperRogue – A non-Euclidean roguelike

by stared • 9 months ago

144 51 9 months ago

versteegen2• 9 months ago

HyperRogue is specifically hyperbolic (and very cool! See also RogueVis), but of course there are a number of non-Euclidean roguelikes. One of my favourites is Smart Kobold [1], which really amazed me at the time, particularly as it was made in just 7 days for the 7DRL! It's so called because pathing through a non-Euclidean map is very difficult for a human but trivial for a computer or a kobold. The map looks 2D, but is made out of small pieces that are (seamlessly) joined together at their seams to connect in unexpected ways. Jeff Lait also used the code for other 7DRLs (I honestly wouldn't know which is best to recommend) [2]

[1] http://www.zincland.com/7drl/kobold/

[2] http://www.zincland.com/

integralid2• 9 months ago

If I understand you correctly, the game geometry is actually euclidean but world contains many seamless portals?

I think geometry being euclidean or not is specifically about parallel lines, and the term "non-euclidean" is sightly misused for other kinds of spatial gimmicks. At least that's what I learned after watching several ZenoRogue videos (HyperRogue channel) :)

zenorogue6• 9 months ago

Yeah, Jeff calls it "non-Cartesian". He changes the topology but the geometry is Euclidean. There are also lots of roguelikes doing other experiments with topology, tilings, dimensions (Verdagon 7DRLs, geometry episode of Roguelike Radio, etc.)

jerf4• 9 months ago

If your geometry has portals, the parallel line postulate will no longer hold. If your portals can have different angles between the entrance and the exit you can straight up cross "parallel" lines, and even if you require them to be oriented at the same angle you'll lose "when given a line and a point exactly one parallel line can be drawn".

Euclidean geometry is an extremely precise geometry, and there is nothing wrong with calling any deviation from it "non-Euclidean". Since Euclidean geometry is a fairly specific point in geometry-space, the only real objection is that calling something "non-Euclidean" doesn't tell you much about what it is, but Euclidean geometry isn't a bad choice for a "default" geometry and at least it tells you it's not that. There is no requirement for it to be continuously curved in some spherical or hyperbolic manner to be "non-Euclidean". Even just permitting a single portal into an otherwise Euclidean geometry would utterly shred Euclid's Elements from top to bottom.

By my examination of the original postulates, not only would portals wreck the parallel line postulate, it in fact ruins 4 out of 5 of them, leaving only that a line can be continuously extended (and that line can still self-intersect, which may in fact violate the definition of a "line" and mean all 5 axioms are busted if you really dug in). It means it is no longer possible to draw a line between any two points (portals can shadow portions of the space such that some points are not connectible), cicles lose a lot of their properties that we rely on (imagine the unit circle, and a portal starting x = .5 and going straight up... they're no longer necessarily continuous), right angles may not be equal to each other any more (portals can change the apparent angles, or give two interpretations rather than one), and of course the parallel line doesn't hold. Putting portals into a geometry fairly comprehensively makes it non-Euclidean.

jhbadger3• 9 months ago

Wouldn't any geometry that violates any of Euclid's five postulates be non-Euclidean? Yes, the parallel lines one is the most famous, but surely a geometry that violates any of the other four would be too.

mouse_• 9 months ago

Jeff Lait is a major source of inspiration to me. I will one day ascend with the black heart of Beazl'bub!

thaumasiotes8• 9 months ago

It's so called because pathing through a non-Euclidean map is very difficult for a human but trivial for a computer or a kobold.

That sounds like an artifact of the display. Pathing through a non-Euclidean map is, for example, a major game mechanic of Super Mario Galaxy; it's not difficult at all.

MoltenMan3• 9 months ago

Super Mario Galaxy is not non- euclidean; it's just a regular 3D projection onto a 2D screen. The spheres you travel on are technically non-euclidean if you consider the surface in a vacuum, but you aren't playing on the surface, you're playing in a full 3D space.

Additionally, 2D sphere surfaces are very understandable because they can actually exist in our 3D world and we're used to them; hyperrogue has a hyperbolic non-euclidean 2D geometry which is impossible in real life, much more confusing, and impossible to display with no confusion. I don't know what Smart Kobold is, but I presume it's also not just a regular 3D game like Super Mario Galaxy.

skopje• 9 months ago

You posted similar reply 10 years ago:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9744353#9746212

:-)

versteegen2• 9 months ago

Hah! Thanks, I'd forgotten. I think my older reply was better.

n4r9• 9 months ago

I played this on android a couple of years ago but eventually uninstalled it. Now it appears to be missing from the Play store?

zenorogue6• 9 months ago

Google Play is not very friendly to small developers who do not want to share their home address (not their fault, it is some recently introduced EU law), but the Android version can be downloaded from itch.io

RunningDroid• 9 months ago

It's also available in the official F-Droid repo: https://f-droid.org/packages/com.roguetemple.hyperroid

card_zero• 9 months ago

some recently introduced EU law

Is it?

mamonoleechi• 9 months ago

you can get it here: https://f-droid.org/packages/com.roguetemple.hyperroid/

iberator• 9 months ago

Nah. It's ultra boring in comparison to nethack, pathos or more complex games like revengate(!) or greedy cave.

My listing of similar games:

- Grim Omens 3/5 - Revengate 4/5 - Dungeon Crawl Soup (on pc) 4/5 - The greedy cave 5/5 - Pathos 4/5

nrjames• 9 months ago

Brogue (Community Edition) also is awesome!

https://github.com/tmewett/BrogueCE

philsnow• 9 months ago

Nethavk is much much too baroque, a confusion of ideas and one-turn unavoidable deaths (well, avoidable if you know the secret handshake)[0]. It's like a cupcake recipe that has 40 ingredients and is dripping with extra stuff on top.

Brogue, on the other hand, is perfectly simple but perfectly well-executed, a five-ingredient recipe that lets every ingredient shine.

4ggr02• 9 months ago

ahhh, rainy sunday and i get a recommendation for abstract indie games, today is going to be a good day...

4ggr02• 9 months ago

...Project Silverfish[0] is really entertaining so far...

[0]https://store.steampowered.com/app/2941710/Project_Silverfis...

integralid2• 9 months ago

ultra boring

Of course, this is just your opinion, presented as an objective fact.

HyperRogue is one of the few roguelikes that I got sucked into. In comparison, I never "got" DCSS and despite several tries I always got bored immediately.

zokier• 9 months ago

I like hyperrogue but I think it is arguable that it is not very good as a roguelike; I like it more as a puzzle game. The thing is that in hyperrogue each of the worlds is almost entirely self-contained, and the choices you make in one world, or the order you go through the worlds, do not really impact the overall run in any major way. So it lacks the combinatorial explosion of possibilities that many good roguelikes (incl nethack) have.

BiteCode_dev• 9 months ago

Everybody understands that it's an opinion, it's a social convention, no need to spell it out. Just like people saying "broccoli are bad" doesn't need to be subtitled with "it's a matter of taste" or this dress looks ugly implies that it's a subjective take on aesthetics.

lock1• 9 months ago

Like other sibling comment said, I think it's just your personal opinion. I don't think The Greedy Cave is that complex or belong to traditional roguelike category, more like MMO's grindy number game with some microtransaction.

ytrt54e• 9 months ago

The curse of Hacker News broke the website

zukzuk• 9 months ago

AppStore says it’s not available in Canada for some reason.

zenorogue6• 9 months ago

AppStore only accepts games compiled in a new version of XCode, and I have only a very old Mac on which it does not seem possible to install such a new version.

tomhow• 9 months ago

Previously:

How to create a game using hyperbolic geometry? (2020) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36448270 - June 2023 (44 comments)

HyperRogue: A puzzle roguelike in a non-Euclidean world - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26073813 - Feb 2021 (34 comments)

HyperRogue – a non-Euclidean roguelike - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17432974 - June 2018 (38 comments)

HyperRogue – A non-Euclidean roguelike - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9744353 - June 2015 (33 comments)

trinsic2• 9 months ago

I like the concept, but from the video it feels a bit claustrophobic.

egeres• 9 months ago

Imagine this inside miegakure (https://miegakure.com/)

MoltenMan3• 9 months ago

Actually highly recommend this game. I got a lot of fun out of it when I discovered it a few years back, and it especially works well as an airplane time waster game. I'm not generally one for roguelikes but this one really is incredibly fun.

You can buy it on steam too if you want to support the developer!

HyperRogue – A non-Euclidean roguelike

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