Top-down perspective has multiple advantages. It allows to represent battlefield precisely, players can clearly see obstacles arrangement and distance from enemies. This view emphasizes tactical oriented combat and supports sneaking mechanics.
Despite all that, top-down is rarely used in video games. The reason is a difficulty in presenting the in-game world. There are many objects that don’t look presentable in top-down. Their geometry doesn’t allow to give us much chance to properly display them. In front view a simple wall is like a canvas on which we literally can put an intriguing painting on, but in top-down - it comes out as a line. To make things even more difficult there is also an issue with a lack of depth.
From the very beginning we were dedicated to solving those problems. We didn’t want to give up on all the benefits of top-down just because it was hard. We subconsciously started to design assets with interesting appearance in our perspective. Bridges rather than gates. Pits of pipes in place of columns. Flowery shrubs instead of walls. All of this led us to the unique art style of our game.
There still was a problem with sense of depth thought. We solved it with parallaxing effect you’ve all seen on backgrounds in platform games. Assets are constructed from multiple layers which are slightly displaced depending of the camera position. Combined together they create an illusion of convexity like on the gif below
Hope you enjoyed our update! If you have any questions feel free to ask them in a comment section below :)
Cya Around,
Kuba
P.S Don't forget to visit our kickstarter page: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1752350052/soulblight