Isometric perspective games sorted by release date

Released in 1982, Novatron is one of those early DOS titles that tried to imagine the future using about twelve pixels and a prayer. It’s an arcade-style shooter that borrows...

In Bert and the Snake, you are Bert. And yes, there's a snake. That’s the plot. It’s a maze game from a time when naming conventions were refreshingly honest and graphi...

Q*bert is a classic arcade game that was created by Warren Davis and Jeff Lee and was released by Gottlieb in 1982. The main goal of Qbert is to change the color of every...

Tapper is what happens when someone gamifies bartending and gives you the reflexes of a caffeinated octopus. You’re a mustachioed bartender juggling multiple counters, pourin...

Back in 1984, Zaxxon was the future. Isometric graphics? Whoa. Shadow effects? Mind blown. But mostly, it was a game about flying a chunky spaceship through a heavily fortified spa...

Cyrus is a chess program that doesn’t just play well—it plays with personality. The AI adjusts to your skill level, offering a challenge whether you’re a beginner...

You are Sherlock Holmes, and someone has committed a crime, possibly because they couldn’t handle the game’s UI. 221B Baker Street is a detective board game where your ...

Pyramid Power (1986) is what happens when archaeology meets abstract strategy. You’re not dodging mummies or solving hieroglyph puzzles—instead, you’re stacking t...

As a prisoner of war, you must find a way to escape a prison in Germany in 1942. The prisoner has a daily routine which will follow if not controlled by the player for a certain am...

In Airball (1987), you don’t play a knight, a space marine, or a plumber - you play a literal ball of air. Trapped in an isometric nightmare of spikes, fans, and poison gas, ...

Infiltrator drops you into the boots of a helicopter pilot who also happens to be a stealth operative—because the ’80s had no patience for specialization. Between air m...

La Abadía del Crimen (1987) is famously unforgiving, and it knows it. Inspired by Umberto Eco’s The Name of the Rose, this is an isometric adventure where breaking the...

Marble Madness is an abandoned isometric action game designed by Mark Cerny and originally published by Atari as a successful and iconic arcade game. It was later converted for man...

You’ve never really lived until you’ve watched a rook pick up a pawn and slam dunk it into the floor. Battle Chess (1988) turns the world’s most intellectual boar...

Released in 1988 for DOS, Fast Break is basketball distilled into pure late-80s computer logic. Don’t expect flashy presentation or TV-style commentary; instead, you get a to...

Infiltrator 2 basically asks: “What if we took everything from the first game and doubled down?” The result is a sequel that’s larger, louder, and just as gleeful...

Paperboy was one of (if not THE) arcade hit of 1985. It was developed by Atari for the arcades and later published by Mindscape for DOS in 1988. More conversion were made for quite...

UMS, short for Universal Military Simulator, is a computer-based wargame simulation developed by Rainbird Software in 1988. It was designed with the intention of providing players ...

Zany Golf is what happens when someone says, “Let’s make miniature golf, but with teleporters, hamburgers, and anti-gravity pads.” Part mini-golf simulator, part ...

Part puzzle, part platformer, part “what is even happening,” Bombuzal (1989, DOS) is a game where your job is to blow up every bomb on the screen—while not accide...