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[Eclipse]

I got extremely surprised when I saw the weapon stick through a door, it went through it like polygons intersecting, not like sprites being layered. After some playing around I came to the conclusion that the game actually was some kind of odd russian 3D

oh no, that's quite simple, each sprite has a depth version of itself so it actually make per pixel depth tests... just like how the zbuffer works in 3d.

I did a topdown shooter too and i did both the graphics and almost all the coding:



I was very proud about both the tileset and the lighting It's not bad for a flash game isn't it?


( oh btw you can play it here btw http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/488731 )

[Pietepiet]

Can't believe I or anyone else hasn't posted this in this thread yet:







Mother 3 is one of the prettiest topdown games I've ever played. Here's a link to one of the most beautiful scenes in the game. Don't want to post the picture here in case anyone wants to play it, because this is one of the best moments of the game and I wouldn't want to spoil it for anyone. Click at your own risk :

http://tinyurl.com/qz6qr9

[Adamski]

I actually dislike those graphics 

[Pietepiet]

Any specific reason why you dislike them?

[Farbs]

There's always Alien Breed for pure top-down prettiness. I remember it looking cooler than this though.

[Evil-Ville]

I actually dislike those graphics 

I dislike you for disliking them

[HannesP]

Tibia!



JK :D

[Eclipse]

Tibia!

Ultima VII 

[deveah]

Roguelike! Topview graphics at their best!

Code:

#######
#.....#
#.....+
#..@..#
#r....#
#...>$#
#+#####

[Robotacon]

Loaded for PlayStation.
It's a weird mix styles. It looks like it's 3D but you can only move in 8 directions and the animations seem almost frame-like. The game play is brain dead but we were talking art styles here.

[Super Joe]

capn hands was cool

[SelfTitled]

I know this is a old post but for others who find this thread while searching like I did.

Hot line Miami is an awesome example of top down.
http://www.hotlinemiami.com/

[Siilk]

Teleglitch. Love their minimalist pixelart and their gritty aesthetics in general.






Mageslayer and Take no prisoners(same 3d polygon/sprite hybrid engine, similar to GTA1).


 


Red zone

This game, being a sort-of Desert strike clone, had both chopper and infantry gameplay sections, both done in top-down perspective. The engine was also a polygon/sprite hybrid, and a rather nice-looking one, for a 16-bit game.

[oahda]

Just started playing Minish Cap and got reminded of how much I hate the perspective inside of rooms in 2D Zelda games. All perspectives at once. On the walls only. It messes with my head and I don't like the look of it at all.

[Jad]

I BEG TO DIFFER

... that's all

i don't actually have anything to say

i just like the broken zelda perspective

i'm sorry

[mankoon]

Yea the Zelda perspective never really bothered me. But if I was doing a top down game, I would try to avoid that, unless the seeing that bottom wall was really important to a game mechanic.

[joseph ¯\_(ツ)_/¯]

Zelda perspective is super weird. The most interesting thing about is that there's not a single perspective for all of the environment arguments -- you might have a cliff wall that is in regular tilted top down perspective (can't see sides, front), an interior wall in 'zelda' perspective, or the same structure viewed from outside in 'zelda front view' perspective. I wonder if it's a thing the team planned out with consistency, or just kinda got right by feel.

(a game I'm doing work for is in zelda perspective, so I've been giving it some thought)

[s0]

zelda perspective actually looks more "natural" to me than "realistic" birds eye perspective. only seeing characters' heads and shoulders makes everyone look like a weird blob and makes it a lot harder to differentiate characters. it also just looks plain awkward imo, i mean how often do you actually look at people from a 90 degree angle irl? some games manage to look good despite it, e.g. hotline miami and teleglitch, but it still always bothers me a little.

zelda perspective seems like a mix of perspectives that are pleasant to look at, that somehow works really well despite having 0 to do with reality.

[Fenrir]

zelda perspective actually looks more "natural" to me than "realistic" birds eye perspective. only seeing characters' heads and shoulders makes everyone look like a weird blob and makes it a lot harder to differentiate characters. it also just looks plain awkward imo, i mean how often do you actually look at people from a 90 degree angle irl? some games manage to look good despite it, e.g. hotline miami and teleglitch, but it still always bothers me a little.

zelda perspective seems like a mix of perspectives that are pleasant to look at, that somehow works really well despite having 0 to do with reality.

Oh yeah I totally agree, I realized how hard it is when we started to design the characters for our game, and we also considered faking the projection but it would have brought other problems (for the lighting system mostly) so we tried to do our best.

[heyguy]

Awesome topic guys! I'm currently creating my own top-down/overhead tile map and I'm very interested in discussing all things related to top down games and art styles! I want to create something unique, aesthetically pleasing and cohesive but it's one of my first attempts at pixel art so it's difficult.

Anyway, I wanted to post a couple of images from some great looking top down games. I think they all have a sort of simple and stylized look to them. I'd like to replicate something minimalistic but stylized like these games.


Crawl

Hyper Light Drifter

Children of Morta

I've got a question. Couldn't you hypothetically create isometric buildings, sprites and isometric tiles and place them in your overhead game? Creating some sort of combination of primarily top down world with some flat
isometric tiles? I mean something like this image!


Earthbound

And like this! Check this game out!





It's one of the Lord of the Rings action games on the Game Boy Advance. I think it's a weird mix of topdown and isometric. Sure, the game world is probably more isometric overall but it kind of looks and feels a little flat, doesn't it? I think the game looks and feels more like an overhead game like a flat Zelda as opposed to a straight isometric game with more depth like Landstalker or Shadowrun 16 bit. Maybe it's just the hack n slash gameplay and the close camera that makes the game feel flat for me.

for Ultima 7 perspective! Very high isometric, almost birds eye top down view. Playing it for the first time and it looks amazing in Exult!