Project Labelled: Game|Complex|Medium-Term.

3-D Marble Maze is a game in which you must tilt a maze, attempting to direct a spherical marble, rolling under the influence of gravity, from the start to the finish of the maze, without falling down any of the holes. There will hopefully be lots of levels, and lots of other obstacles (if I can think of any...), perhaps time limits, things like that.

FQAs (Frequently Questionable Answers)

3-D, you say? Sounds pretty flashy to me.

Well, more flickery than flashy actually, but basically it uses the principle of 'Stereoscopic 3-D'. Two 3-dimensional wireframes are drawn on the screen, calculated from viewpoints about 10cm apart. You cross your eyes, such that the left image from the right eye is superimposed on the right image from the left eye (if this makes no sense, see the diagram below), and the wireframe will appear to be a real object, a fair distance in front of your screen. The technique actually dates back to Victorian times, when a stereoscopic pair of photographs would be placed in a box with a dividing wall down the middle, which worked in the same way.
Basically, Stereoscopic 3-D just tricks your frontal lobe (the part of your brain that resolves images) into thinking that the object is there in front of you, by appearing to each eye just like a real object would. The important bit is the offset between the two viewpoints - that's what controls how 'deep' the image will appear. If it's too low, the image will look flat, and not very 3-D at all. If it's too high, the brain won't be able to resolve the images, so it'll just give up and you'll see a mush of wireframe lines that don't look like anything much. But if it's somewhere in the right range, a 3-dimensional object will suddenly appear, and 'click' into focus.

So what does 3-D Marble Maze look like then?

Well, here are some screenshots. (Click to enlarge)

Tilt the maze to roll the ball...	...to the finish...	...without falling down the holes!

When will this game be available?

I'm not all that sure. A Version 0 release (i.e. preliminary beta-test build) will probably be out by December '07, but it won't have many features. Once that's available, I'll start work on more levels, more features, more cool stuff (hopefully).
I'm not making any promises though...

I don't know about 'soon', but there will be more 3-D stuff on the way. I've made the code to make stereoscopic 3-D into an 'engine' - an easily adaptable subroutine which can be linked into other programs. I plan to use the 'StereoScopic 3-D' engine in 'StarStrike III' (the sequel to SSII: Secrets Abound), and I'll probably think of some other games to make with it.
I might also do some kind of CAD Stereo3D modelling utility, but I can't see many applications for that.

THIS PAGE LAST UPDATED: Saturday 25th August 2007.