# Isometric Tiles — the diamond map view

Isometric Tiles draws tile maps at an angle, as a grid of 2:1 diamonds, so buildings and trees stand up out of the ground. It is one of two map views for the shared Tile Rendering engine; the other is Top-down Tiles. The same maps, events and saves work in both.

![The village of RPG Plus at noon in the isometric view: the square, lamps, houses, villagers and the hero on the path; past the map's edge the background is empty.](assets/village-isometric.jpg)

## What is different from the top-down view

- **Diamond cells.** Each map cell is drawn as a diamond twice as wide as it is tall. The logical grid is still square: a cell has the same four neighbours as before.
- **Standing objects.** Buildings and other multi-cell objects that a tileset marks for it are drawn as upright pictures or as several flat faces, instead of flat tiles.
- **Characters** pick the sprite row that matches their direction on the diamond grid.
- **Clicking** on the map selects the diamond under the pointer; the RPG map editor uses the same rule.

![The same village map drawn in both views: top-down on the left, isometric on the right.](assets/same-map-two-projections.jpg)

What does not change: walking rules, collisions, events, battles, saves, lighting and time of day are owned by the RPG mod and Tile Rendering and behave the same in both views.

## Limitations

- **Keys follow the grid, not the screen.** Up and down (W/S, arrows) move along one diagonal of the screen, left and right along the other, because they move the hero one cell on the square grid.
- **The edges of a map show.** Near a corner of the map you see the empty background beyond the diamond's edge, as in the picture above.
- **Tilesets must be prepared.** Objects look upright only when the tileset describes them as groups; ordinary tiles are laid flat on the diamonds.

## Turn it on

In the game's scheme (**Mods & Collections → Collections → the game → Edit scheme**), include this mod and set **Map projection** to **Isometric**. The value of the `tile.renderer` setting is `isometric`:

```json
"settings": { "tile.renderer": "isometric" }
```

To try it once without changing the game, start it with `--tile-renderer=isometric` on the command line. RPG Plus already includes both renderers, so only the setting needs to change.

## If something goes wrong

1. **The map is empty.** The game's **Map projection** asks for a renderer that is not included; include this mod or choose another projection.
2. **The hero walks diagonally.** That is how the keys work in this view (see Limitations).