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.note 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), where all three angles are different.
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 Three-Quarters View.
Video game examples:
- Alien Shooter
- Bombshell
- Brigador
- Crusader
- D Generation
- Dark Seal series (also known as Gate of Doom [first game] and Wizard Fire [second game])
- Escape From The Planet Of The Robot Monsters
- Fire Trap
- Haunting Starring Polterguy
- Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis: The Action Game
- Isolated Warrior
- Märchen Maze (uses the "trimetric" projection variant, except in the PC Engine version)
- Michael Jackson's Moonwalker (arcade version)
- Prikura Daisakusen (a Spin-Off of the Power Instinct series)
- Skeleton Krew
- Paperboy
- WarioWare
- 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
- Cadaver
- The GBA versions of the Harry Potter movie games.
- Also, the PSP version of LEGO Harry Potter
- Landstalker
- Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light
- Little Big Adventure
- 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.
- Super Dungeon Bros
- Airball
- Altered Space: A 3-D Alien Adventure
- Bobby Bearing
- Get Dexter
- Head over Heels
- Knight Lore (the Trope Codifier to rightpondians) and other 8-bit games made with the Filmation engine.
- Monster Max
- Solstice: The Quest for the Staff of Demnos.
- Stasis
- Sweevo's World
- The Nintendo DS version of MySims Agents
- Crystal Castles (uses the "trimetric" projection variant)
- Lode Runner 2
- Marvin's Maze (maze game by SNK superficially similar to Pac-Man)
- Pac-Mania (Oblique Projection)
- Saturn Bomberman Fight
- Midnight Fight Express
- 100% Orange Juice! uses this perspective for its boards.
- Congo Bongo (platform game similar to Donkey Kong, but uses the same engine as Zaxxon)
- Spyro: Season of Ice, Spyro 2: Season of Flame, and Spyro: Attack of the Rhynocs.
- Mystic Towers
- Snake Rattle 'n' Roll
- Sonic 3D: Flickies' Island
- Sonic Chronicles is another Sonic game from this viewpoint.
- There's also the Game Gear game Sonic Labyrinth and the Arcade Game SegaSonic the Hedgehog.
- Spot Goes To Hollywood
- Super Mario 3D 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.
- Contraption Zack
- Marble Madness
- NekoBuro
- Spindizzy
- Q*bert
- Biker Mice from Mars (the Licensed Game for the SNES)
- Enduro Racer (Sega Master System version only)
- RC Pro-Am and its sequels
- RPM Racing for the Super NES, and its more famous sequel Rock n' Roll Racing
- Excitebike World Rally is in full 3D, but uses this perspective.
- Excessive Speed
- Age of Empires and Age of Empires II
- Attack of the Mutant Penguins
- Command & Conquer games Red Alert 2 and Tiberian Sun, compared to the top-down views of the first installments and full 3D of the third installments.
- Gangsters
- Gender Wars, which also has Action Game elements mixed into it.
- The Horde
- Nether Earth (trimetric)
- Planet Blupi
- Satellite Reign
- Starcraft has its maps organized like this, despite actually using square cells for building placement; leading to Artanis' Stop Poking Me! line, "I know it's not 3D!" while comparing Starcraft to Warcraft.
- Syndicate
- Avadon
- The Adventures of Robin Hood
- The Age of Decadence
- Arcanum: Of Steamworks & Magick Obscura
- Avernum
- Baldur's Gate
- Baldur's Gate II
- Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance and Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance II.
- Black Geyser: Couriers of Darkness
- Boktai and its sequels (including the Nintendo DS sequel known as Lunar Knights in North America)
- Brandish 4
- Breath of Fire III and IV
- Colony Ship
- Dark Half
- Darksiders Genesis
- The Diablo series
- Disco Elysium
- EarthBound (1994) uses this perspective when you visit Fourside, though it's a notable 45° instead of the traditional 30°-ish. This actually enhances the "city with tall buildings" effect.
- Fallout and Fallout 2 (both also use the Trimetric Projection variant).
- Heimdall 2: Into the Hall of Worlds (the first game used a trimetric variant that made movement somewhat awkward)
- Geneforge
- Grim Dawn
- Hakoniwa Explorer Plus
- Icewind Dale and Icewind Dale II.
- Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories (the Game Boy Advance version, not the PS2 remake)
- Light Crusader
- Lionheart: Legacy of the Crusader
- Lunar: Dragon Song
- Madou Monogatari (Sega Saturn)
- Mega Man Battle Network and its successor Mega Man Star Force
- Minecraft Dungeons
- Pathfinder: Kingmaker
- Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous
- Path of Exile
- Pillars of Eternity
- Pillars of Eternity II: Deadfire
- Planescape: Torment
- Rings Of Power
- Shadowrun for the Super NES
- Shadow Watch.
- Shining Soul and it's sequel Shining Soul II.
- Solasta: Crown of the Magister
- Super Mario RPG
- Super Robot Wars note
- Ditto Battle Moon Wars, as it is an Affectionate Parody set in the Nasuverse
- The Temple of Elemental Evil: A Classic Greyhawk Adventure uses this view; the characters are polygons, but the backgrounds are 2D.
- Titan Quest
- Torchlight
- Torchlight II
- Torment: Tides of Numenera
- The Twisted Tales of Spike McFang has an isometric Slippy-Slidey Ice World, though the player's movement controls remain locked to 90- and 45-degree angles.
- 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.
- Wasteland 2 and Wasteland 3.
- Wolcen
- Desert Strike (and by extension, the rest of the Strike series)
- Future Spy (similar to Zaxxon, except it has different controls and a different setting)
- H.A.T.E.: Hostile All Terrain Encounter
- Highway Encounter
- Return Of The Jedi (arcade game by Atari based on the movie)
- Viewpoint
- Zaxxon and Super Zaxxon
- A-Train III and IV (first two games were top-down; most later games are full 3D, though A-Train: City Simulator for the Nintendo 3DS surprisingly uses the isometric viewpoint again). The Western PC version of the third game predates SimCity 2000 as the first isometric game published by Maxis.
- Civilization II and III; Civ 1 has a bird's eye view, while 4 and 5 feature a 3D world that generally hangs out at a 3/4ths view.
- Evony
- Game Dev Tycoon
- Harvest Moon: Back to Nature (though its Game Boy Advance version, (More) Friends of Mineral Town uses a standard top-down perspective)
- Populous
- Sid Meier's SimGolf
- SimCity 2000 and its sequels, Trope Codifier
- The Simsnote
- Theme Hospital
- Tiny Life
- Transport Tycoon
- Tropico
- Zoo Tycoon
- Farmville (and for that matter most of the Flash games run by Zynga for Facebook)
- Mitsumete Knight R : Daibouken Hen
- 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 isometric angle.
- The Childhood Mode of Tokimeki Memorial 2
- The Sega Genesis/Mega Drive FIFA Soccer games
- The Microsoft-published NBA Full Court Press, developed by Melbourne House
- WWF Wrestlemania Challenge
- Zany Golf
- Black/Matrix
- Devil Survivor
- Energy Breaker
- Genjuu Ryodan
- Hoshigami: Ruining Blue Earth
- Luminous Arc and its sequels.
- Majin Tensei II
- Monstania
- Rainbow Moon
- Seireiki Rayblade
- Summon Night has this for the main series, but none of the localized spinoffs.
- X-COM and its brethren.
- Battle Chess
- Civilization II and III
- Culdcept
- Final Fantasy Tactics and its sequels Final Fantasy Tactics Advance and Final Fantasy Tactics A2.
- GhostControl Inc.
- HeroQuest (both video game adaptations)
- Into the Breach
- Massive Chalice; it's fully 3D yet the camera is constrained only to provide four different views, all giving the game this look.
- Tactics Ogre
- Tactics Ogre: The Knight of Lodis
- Most of the Turn-Based Strategy games by Nippon Ichi:
- La Pucelle
- Phantom Brave
- Makai Kingdom
- Disgaea and all sequels so far
- Soul Nomad & the World Eaters features full camera rotation. However, the camera still starts each battle at the angle the rest of the games use.
- Zettai Hero Project
- The Guided Fate Paradox
- Sakura Wars used this for combat sequences in the first and second games.
- Several Comcast commercials feature people driving around in an isometrically projected city/town, most likely in 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.
- Homestuck: The early acts make significant use of this; in particular, the kids' houses are mainly displayed in faux 3D, displayed from an angle centered on a corner of the room being shown, in a manner meant to mimic pseudo-3D game graphics common around the 2000s. This fades over time as video game elements go out of prominence, however; later scenes are mainly depicted in straightforward 2D art.
- Japanese DJ Halfby's music videos by Groovisions use isometric projection. See here, for instance.