I really miss these building games that used an isometric grid. RC Tycoon, Zoo Tycoon, Sim City, TTD, …

Yes, it's less realistic, but it is so pleasant to work with. Everything you build aligns perfectly and if you want, you can neatly fill the entire map.

In comparison, (even with many mods) my Cities Skylines or Planet Coaster creations never look quite right. Building the roads and paths is always awkward and frustrating.

(I've commented this before.)

As someone who wrote one of those 2D-ish isometric games in the 90s, it was hell. All the problems with trying to render the tiles properly and figure out what tile the user was clicking on when some tiles are semi-transparent etc. The artists need medals though for creating amazing levels with tiny palettes of pieces to work from.

We made it especially hard on ourselves by having 3D characters interact with the 2D tiles:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9UOYps_3eM0

I absolutely adore the look of isometric, though.

Starcraft and The Sims 1 as well! Games that would let one rotate the isometric view once blew my mind, it was like going from 2D to 3D.

Reminded me quite a bit of Populous[1] as well.

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Populous_(video_game)

Came to say this!

Funny, my mind went to OpenTTD

Both Rollercoaster Tycoon and Transport Tycoon Deluxe (which lives on in openTTD) are by the same author, and use the same engine :-)

Chris Sawyer, he made them with a tiny magnet that he used to write the games directly to a hard drive.

I once heard he tickled a butterfly in Brazil to cause a cloud in the UK that diverted a cosmic ray onto his hard drive in the exact right spot to flip the required bit.

The biome button graphics are taken from the OpenTTD main menu.

I like it's also really 3d, while looking like older 2.5d games.

For me, "Briefing" from Ace Combat 2 played back in my head straight away.

https://youtu.be/5uPVGs7bq3s?t=8

This is exactly what I thought of