Sure it is possible, but not a good idea. Try to think about what 1 dimension is. 1D will be a straight line, possibly with different colors at different positions, but no width.

you'd have to define what you mean a bit more. A game with one-dimensional graphics? Or one with one-dimensional gameplay? Or a one-dimensional game world?
(For example, there are plenty of 2d games using 3d graphics. Technically there are a few 3d games that use 2d graphics too, more or less)
And you could argue that gameplay such as Space Invaders is one-dimensional. All you do is move back and forth on a line, firing a gun.

yes you could make a 1D game ... I am right now imagining something that draws from teh ideas of missle command and those old 2D games which you moved a guy around the bottom of the screen to catch falling stuff ...

only instead of using 2D, just make the game use colored dots moving on a line (via a single axis controller of course). So you could be a blue dot moving back and forth on a line intercepting increasingly bright red dots before the kill you .. etc.

Or you could make a game in which you have to keep a lever balanced, while taking on additional weights (2D in physics nature, but potentially 1D in control and graphics).

Graphically it would generally be taken as a single line. So, what ever gameplay you could come up with would need to be contained on a single line of display. If the line changes position in a direction perpendicular to itself then you have entered 2D space.

Color changing and contraction and expansion of the line are all I can think of for display elements. Sound could play a big role in feedback to the user, as could haptics.

I can think of a few implementations that would techincally be a game, but I don't see much in the way of longevity.

Sound and haptics are, however, additional dimensions.

heck, games don't even need to be "D" rated ... a game with nothing but disconnected buttons and lights is still a game ... such as a game where you have to test your reflexes to "kill" an enemy when they show up or "save" a princess. Build by having nothing except 2 buttons (kill and save), 2 lights (enemy and princess), and probably a score counter of sort or a timer. And for an advanced versions you might add stuff like extra lights to distract the player - (citizens that must be ignored).

Trufully real 3D games are not fun ... we need many more D than that ... I consider it a cheat to call a paper a 2D drawing surface ... it is in fact a 2D physical surface, but a drawing on it is multi-dimensional ... limited only by the perceptive and abstract capabilities of the observer. A simple drawing has at least 3D of expresiveness - Color @ X and Y (which is actually the trick we use to draw 3D in 2D screens) - also, if Wavelength is considered seperate from Brightness then it is 4F (For instance a 2D top-view of a minimap can show 4D of information - Color == Team, Brightness == Strength, X,Y = POS -- or Color == rate of change, Brightness == Z, X,Y == X,Y).

Also, unlike pictures, games also have a time dimension to work with ... allowing tricks like signals and patterns to be used to convey information (a single-brightness, single-color light can be used to convey the entire english langauges using nothing but 2 states, moris code, and time). The time dimension of a slide-show like presentation often conveys the Z value (for instance showing CAT/MRI scans in sequence where each slice is a certain depth of the scan).

Just thought I'd go all analytical for a minute ... now on with all the 1D goodness.

Well, you could always make it something like a "First Person 2D game." The graphical outcome would be a line, but the actual game things would be 2D. Wouldn't look very impressive, though.

Quote:Original post by CTar
Sure it is possible, but not a good idea. Try to think about what 1 dimension is. 1D will be a straight line, possibly with different colors at different positions, but no width.

I don't know if that is even accurate. If it has varying colors, then color could be considered to be the second dimension.