Shifting Dimensions in Platformer Spaces

Taxonomy of Virtual Spaces Part II

I continue to work on my platformer game expansion to my interactive Taxonomy of Virtual Spaces project. This overall project is being created to explore the aesthetics of primary geometry methods used when virtual spaces are projected onto a game screen in different visuo-spatial configurations. 

3D Nintendo Mario by Justin Buovino (2009)

In other words, what is the experience of playing a video game using a different projection method? Artist Justin Buonvino uses Bryce software to create renders of NES game environments as if the games could be played with 3-D perspectival projection (linear perspective) methods. This shows a dimension of depth to the 2-D characters and environment, something that may be closer to the player's mental model of the game even if it isn't expressly shown on the screen.

3D SEN by Geod Studio

3D SEN by Geod Studio is an impressive piece of NES emulator software that can "3Dify" NES games, making them literally playable in a perspectival projection. Developer Tran Vu Truc has painstakingly set screen depth and model data for game objects in many NES games so that Mario's warp pipes are rendered as cylinders, for example. The program even allows users to play their NES games in VR.

Flipping between two views of the same space in Super Paper Mario (Nintendo, 2007)

Even Nintendo toys with this concept as a gameplay feature in the Paper Mario series of games. The titular character can "flip" between dimensions, shifting to a 3-D perspective to overcome obstacles that are a challenge in 2-D perspective.

My project in orthographic projection

My project in 1-point perspective

To start, I've created a replica of World 1-1 from Super Mario Bros. as a default environment for now. I can shift between two different projections at the moment and the controls feel fluid and snappy. The camera settings are set so that the virtual world is framed at the same scale as the original game, as in the screen frames a 15 block high view of the environment (like in SMB). The 16x9 window is obviously much wider than the NES 4x3 aspect ratio, so I change colors on the ground surface every 16 blocks, which would be one screen width on the NES.