Isometric Projection in older Video Games

This is a piece I removed from Observing the Coming of Age of Video Game Graphics. It could be interesting to pick up later on.

This cluster picked up on the specific formal element of isometric or oblique projection, which is a way of constructing a 3-dimensional representation without perspective. The formal element that this cluster centres around are thin horizontal lines and diagonals that branch off at a 30° angle, as well as repeated tiles to construct in-game levels. These tiles are of trapezoid shape instead of square blocks, which is another pattern often seen. The isometric-projection cluster represents a large variance in publication year, indicating that this type of video game graphics have already been realized early on in video game development and has been kept using.

This type of projection is not unique to video game graphics. It predates video game development and is found in Asian art history, and again found praise and application in the domain of technical drawings. This projections’ importance for computer graphic history is documented but not thoroughly researched. The advantage of isometric perspective for video games lay in the fact that they are less resource intensive than 3D or perspective projection. 3D projection took off with specialized hardware in the 1990ies. This meant, that video games that offered real-time 3D quickly adapted a legendary status, such as Elite [#cite], Battlezone [#cite] or Doom [#cite]. Isometric projection doesn’t need calculations on the fly. Being grid-based, the projection can be constructed out of reusable elements, which is cheaper in terms of computing resources and memory. Meanwhile, this projection style offers its own aesthetics and specific functionality for game mechanics. Through its advantages regarding computing resources and its uniqueness for game mechanics, isometric projection became a fundamental style that got picked up in later games and found a new fanbase in contemporary indie or retro games.

This specific cluster is representative of others that are similarly centring on specific formal elements. These clusters build an important base to distinguish what are important formal elements in video game images, when analysed as a specific types of interfaces. These formal elements go beyond aspects of text, colour and shape and signify successful approaches to ludemes that, taken together, amount to ergodic animages. These types of images are the “meeting point and mediating factor between the player’s agency and the game’s visual representation of its internal state” [#cite]. A video game needs elements of play or visual elements that signify game mechanics. Akin to buttons in a software, they tell the player what is possible regarding interaction and game play. Unlike buttons in software interfaces, these ludemes can take many different forms. A good example are pushable blocks in Sokoban [#cite] or the Zelda [#cite] franchise. These could also just be decorative elements, but after brief play it becomes apparent, that they are essential for game play and progression in the video game. Equally, an isometric tile is neither a classic UI-element, like a button, nor just decorative. It holds at the same time a functional value of informing the player on the structure and possibilities of movement of a level, for example, and is in this specific case very close to the design discipline of signaletics.