Top-down
Also called bird's-eye, overhead
The camera looks straight down. You see roofs, treetops, and the tops of heads, so walls and faces stay hidden.
- Art cost
- Low
- Hero sprites
- One, rotated in the engine
- Good for
- Shooters, racing, management maps
Learn · Game design
Camera views in 2D games
How many ways can a 2D game look at its world? There's no official list, but about twelve views cover nearly every game, and four of them cover most pixel games. Here is one little scene, a house, a tree, and a hero, drawn through each.
Looking down
The camera hangs above the world. These are the views of RPGs, strategy maps, and shooters.
Three-quarter (3/4)
Also called top-down RPG view
The camera looks down at an angle, so you see the tops of things and their front faces at once. Most games people call top-down RPGs actually use this.
- Art cost
- Medium
- Hero sprites
- Three: down, up, and side (flipped for the other side)
- Good for
- RPGs, farming, adventure
Oblique
Also called cabinet projection, cavalier projection
Each object's front is drawn flat and true to shape, and its depth slants off at an angle. Strictly speaking, pixel-art three-quarter is a loose kind of oblique.
- Art cost
- Medium
- Hero sprites
- Three: down, up, and side
- Good for
- Towns, city builders, RPGs with lots of buildings
Isometric
Also called iso, 2:1 dimetric
The world is turned 45° and tilted, so the floor becomes a grid of diamonds. Pixel art draws it with 2:1 lines (two pixels across, one up), which makes it dimetric, strictly speaking.
- Art cost
- High
- Hero sprites
- Four to eight directions
- Good for
- Tactics, city builders, action RPGs
Looking from the side
The camera stands beside the world, like an audience watching a stage. Down on screen is down in the world.
Side view
Also called side-scroller, platformer view, profile
The camera watches the world from the side, like a stage. Up is up, so jumping and gravity read at a glance.
- Art cost
- Low
- Hero sprites
- One, flipped to face the other way
- Good for
- Platformers, runners, launch-and-fly games
Cross-section
Also called cut-away, ant-farm view
A side view with the ground sliced open, so you see what's inside: tunnels, rooms, and layers of rock.
- Art cost
- Low
- Hero sprites
- One, flipped
- Good for
- Digging, colonies, base builders
Belt-scroll
Also called beat 'em up view, side view with depth
A side view where the floor is a band, so characters walk up and down it as well as left and right. A shadow under each one shows where it stands.
- Art cost
- Medium
- Hero sprites
- One, flipped
- Good for
- Brawlers, co-op action
Point-and-click
Also called adventure view, depth scaling
A side view of a room or street where characters shrink as they walk into the screen. You move by clicking where to go.
- Art cost
- Medium
- Hero sprites
- Three: front, back, and side
- Good for
- Adventure and story games
Looking ahead
The camera looks toward the horizon. 2D games fake that depth with sprites that grow as they get closer.
First-person
Also called front view, dungeon-crawler view
You see through the hero's own eyes. 2D games fake the depth with pre-drawn wall pieces at a few distances, or with raycasting.
- Art cost
- Medium
- Hero sprites
- None: you are the hero
- Good for
- Dungeon crawlers, horror
Behind view
Also called third-person chase, pseudo-3D
The camera rides just behind the hero while the road stretches to the horizon. Everything else is a sprite that grows as it gets closer.
- Art cost
- Medium
- Hero sprites
- The back, plus turning frames
- Good for
- Racing, rail shooters
Mixing 2D and 3D
Flat pixel art, placed in real 3D space.
2.5D (HD-2D)
Also called 2.5D, sprites in 3D
Flat pixel-art characters stand in a 3D world with real light and a perspective camera. HD-2D is Square Enix's name for its own take on the look.
- Art cost
- High
- Hero sprites
- Four to eight directions, plus a 3D world
- Good for
- RPGs, tactics
No camera at all
Some games never show a world.
No camera (UI only)
Also called text game, interface-only
There's no world to look at, only text, buttons, counters, and bars. Many incremental games start here and add a scene later, if ever.
- Art cost
- Lowest
- Hero sprites
- None
- Good for
- Incremental, idle, and text games
In real pixel art
The diagrams above are simple on purpose. Here is a fully drawn cottage through three of the cameras. Seen straight down, a house is only a roof, which is one reason RPGs prefer three-quarter.
Side by side
| View | Art cost | Hero sprites |
|---|---|---|
| Top-down | Low | One, rotated in the engine |
| Three-quarter (3/4) | Medium | Three: down, up, and side (flipped for the other side) |
| Oblique | Medium | Three: down, up, and side |
| Isometric | High | Four to eight directions |
| Side view | Low | One, flipped to face the other way |
| Cross-section | Low | One, flipped |
| Belt-scroll | Medium | One, flipped |
| Point-and-click | Medium | Three: front, back, and side |
| First-person | Medium | None: you are the hero |
| Behind view | Medium | The back, plus turning frames |
| 2.5D (HD-2D) | High | Four to eight directions, plus a 3D world |
| No camera (UI only) | Lowest | None |
Things that aren't views
Two other choices get mixed up with the camera, but any view can use either one:
- The grid: square or hex tiles, lanes, or no grid at all. A hex map can be top-down or isometric. See Grids and tiles.
- The scrolling: a fixed screen, or one that scrolls sideways or up. A vertical shooter is a top-down game that scrolls up.