From Euclidean Space to Albertian Gaze: Traditions of Visual Representation in Games Beyond the Surface

This paper argues that the visual analysis of video games has been dominated by perspective, the mathematical "simulation of the gaze" descended from Alberti, and that this emphasis obscures the wider repertoire of representational traditions games actually draw on. Its central claim is that game imagery must be read through multiple systems, particularly parallel projection, which preserves parallel lines and represents all three axes from a single viewpoint, and that the choice among these systems is governed more by functional and gameplay demands than by artistic lineage. The analysis moves from oblique projections such as cavalier and cabinet, through axonometric variants including isometric, dimetric, and trimetric, to perspective, drawing on examples ranging from Paperboy and SimCity to Ultima IV, Ultima VIII, Diablo, and Fallout.

The paper's core analytical contributions include the observation that the 26.6-degree dimetric angle yields a clean 1:2 pixel ratio, which explains why isometric and dimetric projections persisted in pixel-art games. It contrasts subject-centered perspective with object-centered parallel projection, the latter favored for management and tile-based design, citing SimCity 4 against Red Dead Redemption as a case in which genre rather than tradition determined the mode. It also proposes the Axial-Spatial Play (ASP) model, which maps gameplay across the screen surface and the diegetic game world, distinguishing decorative depth cues such as parallax scrolling from depth cues integrated into interactive play.

Historically, the paper finds that 8-bit and 16-bit titles such as Double Dragon and Super Mario Bros. 3 combined parallel projection for navigation with perspective for immersion in a bimodal arrangement. Drawing on Juul's notion of levels of abstraction, it argues that game space is structured by rules and collision logic rather than visuals alone, as illustrated by the absence of a diegetic Y-axis in Wolfenstein 3D's ray casting and by the invisible bounding boxes of polygonal 3D games. The authors conclude that these projection systems continue to coexist with polygonal 3D, and that the hybrid, composite character of game imagery is a productive direction for future research.