Detailed Development of Visuals - Game Design Essentials - page 121

FiGuRe 5.6 This overhead (or bird's-eye) view of the game board for Weird Helmet lets
the gamer see all the tiles they can chose from to make a path for the avatar (seen at upper
left in this image), who moves very quickly across the field.
These top-down and side-view games often use what is known as an orthographic
projection . This type of projection lacks perspective: objects don't recede, or
get smaller, as they get closer to the horizon. Oblique projections are occasion-
ally used, although they aren't as popular because images can appear severely
distorted. However, for some games like Pac-Mania, Ultima VII , and EarthBound,
the distorted look matches the gameplay quite well.
A variation of side-view games is the side-scroller, where instead of the avatar
moving across a static field, the environment actually scrolls side to side or up
and down to create the illusion of the character moving.