Isometric Review

Geometric designs can be pretty cool-looking, depending on their structure. Clean, modern designs have always been a particular favorite of mine. And that's just what Isometric is about: putting together custom isometric patterns/geometric shapes piece by piece. It sounds so simple, and yet it can be surprisingly beautiful.

Isometric is a tool for creating geometric patterns and shapes, nothing more. Users just have to tap the screen to place a shape, tap the shape again to rotate it, or tap and drag to move it around. No need to fret over lining up pieces, either, since they automatically snap into place when close enough. They can also change the color pattern for each of the three possible orientations to ensure a uniform palette, or select a specific color and start painting particular shapes to their liking. It's a very simple interface that can lead to some unexpectedly impressive designs simply through playing around.

This simplicity is Isometric's greatest strength. It's incredibly easy to use just as it's incredibly easy to make awesome looking stuff purely by accident. Of course it's also possible to plan out a design in advance but personally I think half the fun is just messing around and seeing what I'll end up with. If I like the results enough I can also share them or add them to my camera roll easily.

I ran into a couple of small problems with the controls while I was experimenting, though. Specifically when swiping the screen to look around, pinching to zoom in and out, or rotating the view. The typical gestures usually work just fine but when the screen is filled with shapes I often ended up accidentally tapping on one and either moving it around or spinning it rather than simply moving the camera. Although it's a minor irritation and only really becomes an issue when viewing larger projects.

I can't really think of a practical purpose for Isometric other than the simple pleasures of making geometric art easily. On the other hand, there's definitely something to be said about the simple pleasures of making geometric art easily. I'm not entirely sure who would find it enthralling and who would consider it to be a waste of time and money, but any creative types who like mucking around on their iOS devices to art stuff up should probably give it some consideration.