[[quoteright:350:[[VideoGame/DungeonMaster https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/dungeonmaster2_1208.png]]]]

A common technical solution in early {{Adventure Game}}s and RolePlayingGames from the late 1980s and the early 1990s, before UsefulNotes/PolygonalGraphics were advanced enough to develop a true 3D experience.

As the player characters wander through a dungeon or walk along the city streets, the player sees the corridors in a first-person perspective. However, the view isn't truly rendered in 3D. Rather, it is composed of multiple algorithmically assembled 2D building blocks; to render the view, the game appropriately arranges these images on top of pictures that depict the floor and ceiling. Sometimes, enemies and items present are overlaid as sprites. Early on, the walls were black-and-white wireframe, or filled with a uniform color.

This differs from games where each individual view is basically a single image, like the first ''VideoGame/{{Myst}}'', or games that have each node as a single panorama, like the third ''Myst'' or Google Maps Street View.

In games that use this, the player moves from cubic node to cubic node of an InvisibleGrid. All walls are orthogonal while all ceilings and floors are the same level.

Compare FirstPersonShooter.
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!!Examples:

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[[folder:Action]]
* ''3-Demon'' was a classic [=MS-DOS=] game that recast ''VideoGame/PacMan'' into this kind of environment.
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[[folder:Adventure]]
* ''VideoGame/ScarabOfRa''.
* Particularly advanced examples were the early [=CyberFlix=] [=DreamFactory=] games, like ''VideoGame/{{Lunicus}}'' and ''VideoGame/JumpRaven''. They looked like flat-shaded 3D, but were in fact prerendered images and animations turned into 2D vector art. This allowed the appearance of realtime travel and rotation through 3D environments.
* Buildings in ''VideoGame/TheAddamsFamily: Fester's Quest''.
* ''VideoGame/EscapeFromTheMindmaster''.
* ''VideoGame/TheLoneRanger'', ''VideoGame/TheGoonies II'', and ''VideoGame/FridayThe13th'' on the NES all had segments like this.
* The underground bases in ''VideoGame/Golgo13: Top Secret Episode''.
* ''VideoGame/{{Ratrun}}'', produced for ''Cursor'', a "magazine" produced for the Commodore PET in the late 1970s that came on a cassette tape that usually included a game or two. ''Ratrun'' was a game simulating a rat in a maze looking for a piece of cheese. The maze is rendered in a faux 3-D view from the rat's perspective.
** Quite a few examples later from actual magazines for the Commodore computer series (which usually included multiple games printed in BASIC or assembly source, to be typed in and saved to disk); the C-64 (and -128) happened to have a character set well suited for basic game backgrounds, simplifying the programming.
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[[folder:First Person Shooter]]
* ''VideoGame/MazeWar'' (1974), ''the'' UrExample a.k.a original FirstPersonShooter.
* ''VideoGame/SilentDebuggers'' for the Platform/TurboGrafx16
* ''VideoGame/LastSurvivor'', a 1989 UsefulNotes/ArcadeGame by Creator/{{Sega}}, makes heavy use of scaling and rotation to disguise that the backgrounds are made of flat 2D panels.
* ''VideoGame/DeathMask'', a 1995 game designed to run on older Platform/{{Amiga}}s with a horizontally-split screen.
* ''VideoGame/{{Hostages}}'' (1988) by Creator/{{Infogrames}} featured this sort of gameplay during the assault on the embassy (this was only one of multiple gameplay phases).
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[[folder:Horror]]
* ''VideoGame/TheGoodGrimaceShakeHorrorGame''
* ''VideoGame/ImScared''
* ''VideoGame/ISeeYou''
* ''VideoGame/{{Lasting}}''
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[[folder:Racing]]
* Most {{Driving Game}}s until the 32-bit era. Many were simply an endlessly repeating grey strip with a car sprite on it, surrounded by layered 2D buildings/cliffs/bridges/whatever.
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[[folder:Rail Shooter]]
* ''VideoGame/RevolutionX'' used zooming background layers and DigitizedSprites to create the illusion of 3D environments.
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[[folder:Platform]]
* ''VideoGame/ToyStory'' had a level inside the Claw Machine (called "REALLY Inside the Claw Machine") which was basically this. The only 3D elements were the Little Green Men, which you had to rescue, and Woody's arms.
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[[folder:Puzzle]]
* ''VideoGame/CoffeeQuest'': A browser game series at http://www.blazinggames.com/story/cq/index.php
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[[folder:Shooter]]
* ''VideoGame/DayOfTheViper'', a first-person {{Roguelike}} which is most emphatically ''not'' related to ''Series/{{Battlestar Galactica|1978}}'' despite the misleading cover.
* ''VideoGame/{{Xybots}}'' had Faux Third Person [=3D=] view.
* Levels 2 and 4 of ''VideoGame/{{Contra}}''.
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[[folder:RPG]]
* ''VideoGame/{{The Bards Tale|Trilogy}}''
* The ''VideoGame/GoldBox'' games, as well as those created with ''VideoGame/UnlimitedAdventures''.
** And VideoGame/DungeonCraft, UA's modern remake, located [[http://uaf.sourceforge.net/ here]].
* The ''VideoGame/EyeOfTheBeholder'' series.
* First-person [[Creator/StrategicSimulationsInc SSI]]/[=DreamForge=] games: ''Dungeon Hack'', ''VideoGame/{{Menzoberranzan}}'', ''VideoGame/RavenloftStrahdsPossession'' and ''VideoGame/RavenloftStoneProphet''. At least the latter 3 actually use a "flat 3D" engine like ''VideoGame/Wolfenstein3D'', but do have a discrete movement mode, that ties players to a grid and limits turning to 4 cardinal direction — to bring the games closer to the familiar ''VideoGame/EyeOfTheBeholder''.
* ''VideoGame/DungeonMaster''
* ''VideoGame/SwordsAndSerpents'' for NES
* ''VideoGame/MegamiTensei'', ''VideoGame/MegamiTenseiII'', ''VideoGame/ShinMegamiTenseiI'', ''VideoGame/ShinMegamiTenseiII'', ''VideoGame/ShinMegamiTenseiIf'', and ''{{VideoGame/Persona|1}}'' are all ''Franchise/ShinMegamiTensei'' examples of this.
* Dungeons from the original ''VideoGame/{{Phantasy Star|I}}'', which only renders a corridor ahead, and gives a pre-rendered turning animation that causes branches and terminal walls to pop-in once the turn is complete.
* The overworld in ''VideoGame/SwordOfVermilion''
* ''VideoGame/ShiningInTheDarkness''
** The sequel ''VideoGame/ShiningTheHolyArk'', however, is fully 3D, although the gameplay still uses grid-based level design.
* ''VideoGame/{{Arcana}}''
* The main ''VideoGame/MightAndMagic'' series up to and including ''World of Xeen''.
* The main ''VideoGame/{{Wizardry}}'' series up to and including ''Crusaders of the Dark Savant''.
* Dungeons in early ''VideoGame/{{Ultima}}'' games:
** ''VideoGame/UltimaI'' and ''VideoGame/UltimaII'' use wireframe black-and-white graphics. ''II'' upgraded the monsters to blocky pixel art.
** ''VideoGame/UltimaIII'' and ''VideoGame/UltimaIV'' fill the walls with uniform color, and dispensed with visible wandering monsters.
** ''VideoGame/UltimaV'' added some detail to the walls and floors, and brought back visible in-dungeon monsters (at rather higher quality than in ''I'' and ''II'').
* ''VideoGame/{{Stonekeep}}'' used pre-rendered backgrounds to animate each step the party makes, even resizing and re-angling enemy live-action sprites.
* ''VideoGame/{{Realmz}}'' originally just had an overhead automap that controlled like this for indoor areas, but an optional [=3D=] feature was added in 4.0. The twist? Scenarios were then updated so that some dungeons permeated with especially sinister magic [[FakeDifficulty would disable the overhead view unless you cast a certain spell]].
* ''VideoGame/TheBlackOnyx''
* ''Advanced Dungeons & Dragons: VideoGame/TreasureOfTarmin''
* ''VideoGame/LegendOfGrimrock'' is a modern revival of this fashion of gameplay, albeit using fully polygonal graphics.
* ''VideoGame/TunnelsOfDoom'' for the Platform/TI99
* ''VideoGame/DoubleDungeons'' for the Platform/TurboGrafx16
* For a really primitive-looking version (despite being released the same year as Ultima II), ''VideoGame/CryptsOfChaos'' on the Platform/{{Atari 2600}}.
* ''VideoGame/TheKeep'' on [=3DS=] uses this gameplay with polygonal graphics.
* ''VideoGame/CrystalRift'' combines this with polygons and a VR display.
* The ''Videogame/EtrianOdyssey'' series is another throwback to this style, complete with a built-in cartography system to give the feel of old-school pencil-and-paper dungeon mapping.
* ''VideoGame/TheHauntedRuins''
* ''VideoGame/AnvilOfDawn'' inside locations (like cities, and dungeons), where you spend most of the game. The roads connecting them use single prerendered images, and the ability to turn varies — the directions aren't necessarily orthogonal, and often there's fewer than four.
* ''VideoGame/RealmsOfArkania'' inside cities. Travel is done on a world map, and combat is third-person isometric. Like SSI/[=DreamForge=] games, the third game is "flat 3D" like ''VideoGame/Wolfenstein3D'', but also allows to tie the party to the familiar grid, fixing steps and turning angles.
* ''The Legacy: Realm of Terror''. Visually similar to contemporary ''Eye of the Beholder''.
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