Dimension-Bending Games Stretch Fabric of Space and Time

[Ian David]

Dimension-Bending Games Stretch Fabric of Space and Time
06.04.07 | 2:00 AM

In the famous Victorian satire Flatland, a two-dimensional square is suddenly plucked out of his flat world and lifted into the third dimension. It is a spiritually mind-blowing experience -- by looking down on his flat house, the square is suddenly able to see the insides of objects that, when he was 2-D, appeared solid. He sees through the walls of his house: His children sleeping in their rooms, the servants in their quarters.

"I looked, and, behold, a new world!" he cried. "Lo, the secrets of the earth, the depths of the mines and inmost caverns of the hills, were bared before me."

When I read the book as a kid, the concept of slipping between dimensions fried my tiny mind. I hankered after some new way to recapture that sensation. Last week, I finally did, when I played Super Paper Mario and Crush, two games that turn the Flatland conceit into a piece of gameplay. In each one, you navigate puzzle worlds by flipping from 2-D to 3-D -- and using the different perspectives to explore hidden areas and fight enemies in unusual ways.

In Super Paper Mario, life begins as a regular 2-D game -- your Mario is a flat, "paper" cutout in a world of paper cutouts -- until he suddenly acquires the power to shift into a 3-D perspective. Suddenly you can see that all your 2-D enemies are wafer-thin and easily avoidable if you just sidestep them. When threatened by a horde of onrushing Spiny Tromps, I didn't bother trying to jump over them -- I just shifted perspective, stepped sideways, and they rolled past me harmlessly like huge, flat coins. (Check some video of that here.)

More:
http://www.wired.com/gaming/gamingreviews/commentary/games/2007/06/gamesfrontier_0604