Games Looking for feedback on how to mesh 2D isometric buildings with flat, top-down ground

Hey all!

I recently got some feedback about my game that I feel I need to address. The feedback was that it feels like the game has three conflicting perspectives: isometric buildings, top-down ground, and facing-forward plants. My problem is that, as a non-artist, I'm not sure how to go about meshing the style. My desired style is isometric, as that's the style the building art is done in.

For some context, I'm using SpriteShapes rotated and arranged randomly to create the ground. The reason I went with this instead of tilemaps is that I wanted more natural looking islands that didn't conform to an obvious grid. I like the island shapes it produces, one seen below:



The problem, of course, is that they're flat non-isometric surfaces. This clashes with the isometric buildings, seen below:



So, what to do? One thought I had is to give the ground a more obvious isometric texture, with one test I did being below:



I feel like that might be better, but it's still not quite there. One of the most obvious things that I think is off is the fact that the buildings aren't casting shadows on the ground. This causes them to feel detached from the buildings themselves. Besides that, I'm not really sure what else to try and would really appreciate some feedback and additional perspectives. When I look at the waters edge in a game like Red Alert 2, I'm not seeing what about it makes it look more cohesive than my game.

Thanks in advance for your time!

 

Shadows for sure!
You should also try to render the landscape contours in an isometric fashion. Like if you place these buildings on the grass you have and there aren‘t any shorelines (or hills) in the view, it works as is. It‘s the shorelines that aren‘t giving an isometric feel. To the north you have rather deep shorelines and just south of it the shoreline (sand) is rather short. So make sure that shorelines facing the camera are drawn „longer“ whereas those pointing away from the camera are shorter. The same goes for cliffs. In RA this is particulary noticable when you look at the individual cliff tiles. Cliffs facing south show a lot of rock whereas cliffs facing north only have a small „row“ of rock indicating that there is a cliff falling down that you can‘t see from that angle.

 

Thanks for the feedback! That all makes sense. I'm going to experiment with adding cliffs using SpriteShapes, should work theoretically.

I also did a quick and dirty test with a free isometric mountain asset and feel like it's definitely moving in the right direction. Not 100% of the way there yet, but an improvement for sure.

 

As a retired professional illustrator, animator and graphic designer I feel quite OK with the clash of perspectives that you are concerned about. It all falls under artistic license, which gives artists unlimited scope to 'cheat' on reality to achieve a specific purpose. Top-down island with isometric detail is all part of the style. I agree with what CodeSmile has to say regarding the island shoreline. I see that the building has its own shadows so casting shadows onto the island I feel is unnecessary and would be difficult to achieve unless it was a 3D building placed on the island with lighting that casts shadows. The mountain is great, no need to cast shadows other than having a lighter side on the left and a darker side on the right. Otherwise it is all looking very good!

 

Thanks for the feedback! It's reassuring to hear that I'm not completely on the wrong path hah!