Uh... this game is not isometric.

[Arsene Lupin]

I'm used to seeing the Steam tag being appliled incorrectly, but in the description for the game, the developers are also calling it isometric.

Isometric is a 2D perspective that "flattens" dimensions, so that there's no "depth". IE if you look at a cube in reality, the sides nearer to the observer appear larger than those further away, whereas from an isometric perspective each side is equal.

From the screenshots, this is a 3D game with a conventional perspective. Not only is it not isometric, it's not even a top-down camera. Very weird.

I know this is very much a semantic thing to point out, but it's important to articulate what a product *is* on a store page in order to inform potential consumers... vague language and inappropriate adjectives run counter to that purpose.

[Razzle]

http://store.steampowered.com/tag/en/Isometric/#p=0&tab=NewReleases

This disgarees with you.

[VDrake77]

I'm also going to disagree. Isometric has always been a sort of 2.5d perspective. It's not directly overhead, and it's not directly to the side. This lets you use the 4 cardinal directions and vertical ones without requiring camera control. Looking at a cube from an isometric perspective gives you a view of 3 of the 6 sides.

Now, in most old games that used it, it was a way to fake 3d. Here, it's used simply for perspective, but real 3d models are probably being used. Unfortunately, it makes exact depth hard to read, and in games like Solstice, it meant long jumps into the void were MUCH harder to guess; the blocks didn't have different sizes to show depth, so a block that was much higher towards the front of the screen might look like it was actually near the ground towards the back of the screen. With real 3d models we can avoid that, I think. Don't see much of this anymore.

[Arsene Lupin]

@RazieLight: No, it doesn't disagree with me. I'm disagreeing with it. That's why I made the thread, yeah?

$VDrake77: You can't disagree, not really. Isometric perspective is a very specific, clearly defined thing. A perspective either is or is not isometric. See:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isometric_projection

[Razzle]

So you're saying every game on steam with the Isometric tag is wrong and you're right.

[Arsene Lupin]

No, I'm saying a great many games are incorrectly tagged as isometric, but I can accept that because they're generated by users, and they don't know what the word means. The problem here is not that this game has been tagged as isometric, but rather that the developers describe it as isometric in the the description.

It's easy to forgive ignorance from consumers, but developers should be held to a higher standard.

[Razzle]

As far as I know the first 3 tags are not from the consumers.

[Arsene Lupin]

I thought all of the tags were from consumers? Isn't that how it works?

[Razzle]

Originally posted by Arsene-Lupin:

I thought all of the tags were from consumers? Isn't that how it works?

I was told in a thread when I asked the same question, that the first 3 or so is from developers, I am not 100% sure of this since those who answered were users not mods or someone with a more trustworthy answer.

[Zyro]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isometric_graphics_in_video_games_and_pixel_art

[Mroz]

Originally posted by VDrake77:

I'm also going to disagree. Isometric has always been a sort of 2.5d perspective. It's not directly overhead, and it's not directly to the side. This lets you use the 4 cardinal directions and vertical ones without requiring camera control. Looking at a cube from an isometric perspective gives you a view of 3 of the 6 sides.

Now, in most old games that used it, it was a way to fake 3d. Here, it's used simply for perspective, but real 3d models are probably being used. Unfortunately, it makes exact depth hard to read, and in games like Solstice, it meant long jumps into the void were MUCH harder to guess; the blocks didn't have different sizes to show depth, so a block that was much higher towards the front of the screen might look like it was actually near the ground towards the back of the screen. With real 3d models we can avoid that, I think. Don't see much of this anymore.

Isometric projection is well defined technical term. There is absolutely no need to bring some personal theories based on history of games into it. It doesn't depend on a view angle as you mey think. Practicaly the only important thing is that there is no perspection whatsoever which is not true in this case. It is obviously used here as a modern cool buzz word with another words like classic, nostalgic, oldschool, etc.

[The Renderer]

Pointless discussion. Yes, this is not isometric, as are most games that are called "isometric". Just as most "roguelikes" aren't really roguelikes. Still everyone knows what is meant when you say "isometric" wrt a game and that's what counts.

[Gareth Noyce]

Hehe, so the game is isometric view, not isometric projection. :)

[Arsene Lupin]

..."Isometric view" is not a thing.

The word "isometric" combines "iso," which means "equal," and "metric," which means "measurement. It *literally* means "equal measurement."

Originally posted by The Renderer:

Pointless discussion. Yes, this is not isometric, as are most games that are called "isometric". Just as most "roguelikes" aren't really roguelikes. Still everyone knows what is meant when you say "isometric" wrt a game and that's what counts.

It is a pointless discussion, but that's only because people seem to think that there's room for personal opinion here--spoiler alert, there's not.

As for the popular (incorrect) interpretation of what "isometric" means... I mentioned that in the original post--many people conflate all top-down games as being isometric. But all you have to do is look at the screenshots to see that this game does not use a top-down viewpoint.

[Gareth Noyce]

Isometrics are defined by the angle of the viewport, but the commonly referred to projection is axonometric. Lumo uses the Isometric angles, not the axonometric projection.

[Arsene Lupin]

I'm not sure what you mean by "isometric angles." Isometric projection is a kind of axonometric projection. See:
http://www.ltps.org/webpages/lrush/photos/888059/3_1_Axonometric.jpg

And these are all forms of parallel projection we're talking about. And then there are screenshots of the game, like this one:

http://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steam/apps/345480/ss_5b5761dbc288f7bb8c30752501b2b9376d86a088.1920x1080.jpg?t=1464090638

...And if there's any kind of parallel projection going on there, it's far too subtle for my eyes.