alt Hacker News> For example, why is it 'isometric overhead'?
That's design exactly. There's no technical obstacle to making it over-the-shoulder instead, but it changes the aesthetic. The animations focus on what the jeep does to things, so a racing view that helps you avoid running into things wouldn't be appropriate. It also changes how you see the assets. And you'd lose that 'RC Pro-Am' feel.
> Rather, it's just easier to program a camera that never changes angles and input controls that never have to re-interpret camera position/rotation (lookat vector) to function correctly.
Not really, you just put the camera on a spring arm attached to the vehicle. Vehicle movement isn't harder either. You get this stuff practically for free with any game engine.
What do game engines have to do with this?
You're welcome to your counter-opinion about the design, but you haven't convinced me. I've played plenty of games with third-person views where the gameplay was quite conducive to running in to things. I can also appreciate that the design is faux-retro, but that's kind of my whole issue with it. Sticking to a design because it is nostalgic is not user-focused. It's demographically limiting, by design. It's specifically niche-targeting. That's the opposite of trying to make the best kind of thing for the most kinds of people. Which is a business interest of a portfolio site. Building a little game for people who likes those types of games? Sweet! More power to you. But if you're showcasing a demo for wide audiences, a critique of the niche-targeting is valid. Not nearly as important as the people claiming they can't even play the game, for sure! But if you bounce one person because they press up on the keyboard and the truck moves "forward", and they don't like that - it's a marked negative for the site's intent.
You can't worry about pleasing everyone, and you especially can't worry about broad, overall, two-paragraph critiques on literal months of dedicated work. But neither of those make the critiques, themselves, improper or even wrong.