4D in Scratch Is Possible

Added: 2026-05-05

[00:00:00]Imagine this. You spawn in what looks like a normal 3D room. You can move, jump, and look around, but then you notice this. Wait, what are these keys for? You press and hold I, and suddenly everything starts to warp and transform into random shapes. And don't worry, you didn't break the game. You're just moving through the fourth dimension.

[00:00:19]What you just saw is a 4D engine built entirely in Scratch. But how is it even possible? Scratch is literally a platform for 10-year-olds, which isn't even designed for 3D, let alone 4D. But is it still possible to make a proper 4D game in Scratch? Well, to find out, we need to understand what 4D really is.

[00:00:38]In front of me, I have a basic 3D engine. If you follow my videos, you know exactly how this works. But right now we're interested in creating a new dimension. We have X, Y, and Z, so let's name it W. Now, many people think that time is the fourth dimension, and this is wrong. What 4D really is is four spatial dimensions, each with its own direction. For X, it's left and right.

[00:00:59]For Y, it's up and down. For Z, it's inwards and outwards. And for W, it's called ana and kata. So, to get a feel of what the W axis looks like, let's first draw a line, a 1D object. If you clone it and connect the corners, then it becomes a square. Then, if you clone the square and connect the corners, then it becomes a cube. So then, when you clone the cube and connect the corners, you make a 4D version of it called the tesseract. And you can continue this process to make 5D and 6D and 7D shapes.

[00:01:29]Okay, let's not get into that. So, how are we going to make a tesseract in Scratch? I have this custom block that lets me draw any cuboid I want. I'll duplicate it and set the coordinates to W like this. And all I have to do is to do is to draw eight more lines to connect the cubes. And all I have to do is to draw eight more lines to connect the cubes.

[00:01:44]And done. Now we have a tesseract that can move through the fourth dimension.

[00:01:48]So, as you see, when you move along W, it creates this offset. Here's a real game on Scratch that uses 4D. This guy chose to represent this by scaling up the cube instead of shifting it like I did, which makes it kind of confusing to play.

[00:02:01]Okay, I'm getting somewhere.

[00:02:03]1:32.

[00:02:06]No, bro. But currently, we have a problem. If 4D is just another axis, then how do you rotate?

[00:02:13]You can't really rotate with a single straight line. So, what do we do? The solution to this is Minecraft. 2D Minecraft.

[00:02:21]To understand what 4D looks like, let's see how 3D appears to 2D creatures. A guy named Mashpo made a really nice animation of this, where he gave a 2D character the ability to see the 3D world. We can give him a superpower that allows him to rotate his cross-sectional plane in the third dimension, which lets him explore anywhere he wants in his new 3D environment.

[00:02:44]When Frank uses his superpower, to him it looks like the landscape is completely transforming.

[00:02:49]So, just like for this guy, the 3D world appears weird. It's the same thing for us when we try to see 4D. Okay, let's go back to the 4D room. If I turn the map on, then everything starts to make a lot more sense. 4D isn't just another axis.

[00:03:04]It's a whole space that covers our 3D universe. See how you can move and rotate inside? That here is real 4D. I'm just wondering how far this can go on Scratch. I mean, people made all sorts of 4D games like Minecraft or golf. So, can we make something like this on Scratch? Well, I guess we'll find out.