From
The Other Wiki: Isometric projection is a form of graphical projection, more specifically, a form of axonometric projection. It is a method of visually representing three-dimensional objects in two dimensions, in which the three coordinate axes appear equally foreshortened and the angles between any two of them are 120 degrees.
In layman's speak, it's a way of faking perspective by squashing the vertical axes, thus forcing perpendicular angles to look wider.
Also, close up objects appear the same size as distant objects.
In the days before true 3-D graphics, isometric projection was one of the ways artists suggested depth.
Developed and formalized in the 19th century for technical and architectural drawings, it remains a popular way of creating 3-D-esque graphics in video games, especially for handheld systems.
Of course, in many cases in video games, the projection is not actually isometric in the mathematical sense, because a 26.57° slope is much easier to draw on square pixels than a 30° slope. But that would be nitpicking, so these games are called "isometric" anyway. The term can also refer to the vastly different Trimetric Projection (such as in
Fallout and
Fallout 2 or
SimCity 4).
The weakness of Isometric Geometry is that the same sort of line can be either distance or height, or even
both in some cases. Usually, it's easy to tell; but no proper
Penrose staircase
could be built without this concept.
See also
Top Down View,
Side View and
3/4 View.
Video Game Examples:
Action Game
Action Adventure
- Ant Attack, strong contender for the Ur Example and an even stronger one for the Trope Namer in gaming (its creator, Sandy White, took the word "isometric" from his old work as an architect after he recognized the in-game city's similarities to M.C. Escher's drawings; the city was named Antescher in tribute).
- Deadly Towers
- The Last Ninja
Adventure Game
Eastern RPG
Maze Game
- Crystal Castles (uses the "trimetric" projection variant)
- Marvin's Maze (maze game by SNK superficially similar to Pac-Man)
- Pac-Mania, sort of. Only the vertical axes are this, the horizontal ones are straightforward left/right.
Platform Game
Puzzle Game
Racing Game
Real Time Strategy
Shoot 'em Up
- Future Spy (similar to Zaxxon, except it has different controls and a different setting)
- H.A.T.E.: Hostile All Terrain Encounter
- Highway Encounter
- Viewpoint
- Zaxxon and Super Zaxxon
Simulation Game
Strategy RPG
Turn-Based Strategy
Western RPG
- Avernum
- Baldur's Gate
- Hero Quest (both video game adaptations)
- Ultima VII had what was probably one of the strongest and most distinctive isometric designs for all its graphics, which showed up again in Ultima Online.
Unsorted
- The Adventures Of Robin Hood
- Age of Empires and Age of Empires II
- Arcanum
- Battle Chess
- Boktai and its sequels (including the Nintendo DS sequel known as Lunar Knights in North America)
- Brandish 4
- Breath Of Fire III and IV
- Cadaver
- Culdcept
- Desert Strike (and by extension, the rest of the Strike series)
- Diablo 1 and 2.
- Excitebike World Rally is in full 3D, but uses this perspective.
- Fallout and Fallout 2 (both also use the Trimetric Projection variant).
- Farmville (and for that matter most of the Flash games run by Zynga for Facebook)
- The Megadrive FIFA Soccer games
- Furcadia
- The GBA versions of the Harry Potter movie games.
- The Immortal
- Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories (the Game Boy Advance version, not the PS2 remake)
- Landstalker
- Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light
- Light Crusader
- Little Big Adventure
- Mega Man Battle Network and its successor Mega Man Star Force
- Mitsumete Knight R : Daibouken Hen
- the Nintendo DS version of MySims Agents
- Mystic Towers
- Paperboy
- Planescape: Torment
- Postal
- Project Zomboid
- Q*bert
- Ragnarok Online
- Return of the Jedi (arcade game by Atari based on the movie)
- Rings of Power
- RollerCoaster Tycoon, the first and second games. The third is in full 3D, but still has an option to view the 3D landscape at an Insometric Angle.
- Scurge: Hive has received the fan nickname "Isometroid" due to its isometric viewpoint and otherwise resembling another series. There actually was an Isometroid fanproject, taking the original game and displaying it from an angle, but as far as I know it never went anywhere.
- Shadowrun for the Super NES
- Shadow Watch.
- Shining Soul and it's sequel Shining Soul II.
- Snake Rattle N Roll
- Sonic 3D: Flickies' Island
- Spot Goes To Hollywood
- Super Mario 3 D Land uses this in certain areas, most likely as an homage to Super Mario RPG. These tend to use Forced Perspective when it comes to jumping on platforms and footholds.
- Super Robot Wars note Only some of them, and none of the original-timeline games. Hardware power seems to be the deciding factor: The PlayStation games use Isometric, while the Game Boy Advance games use a top-down perspective, for example.
- Tibia
- Torchlight
- The Childhood Mode of Tokimeki Memorial 2
- Wario Ware
- X-COM and its brethren.
Other Examples:
- Several Comcast commercials feature people driving around in an isometrically projected city/town, most likely in a Homage to SimCity 2000.
- M.C. Escher used isometric projection to create many of his iconic Alien Geometries. The same sort of line can be used for height and distance in an Isometric Projection, and so Escher used the same line to represent both — and left which one to the ever-shifting context.
- Habbo Hotel
- Homestuck mainly uses this perspective.
- Japanese DJ Halfby's music videos by Groovisions use isometric projection. See here, for instance.
- The art of pixel art group eBoy.
