Meticulously Isometric: Pavilion
Pavilion's beauty is best communicated through the medium of a video rather than my keyboard-rattling gasps of pleasure, so I won't keep you long before directing you toward the trailer below. Instead of typing words to bore into your eyes, I spent the last twenty minutes trying to remember the name of another exquisitely crafted game that concerns itself with manipulation, sometimes metaphysical, rather than direct control of an avatar. That game was Gorogoa and you can play the demo now. You can't play Pavilion yet but I reckon you just might want to.
That's rather lovely.
Observing from an isometric perspective, your fundamental purpose is to guide the main character through an environment so that he can reach his target destination. This is accomplished by either manipulating physical objects in the world or by interacting with sound, light and other subliminal elements that will affect the perception of the character and his behavior within the environment.
I've been waiting for someone to tell me what my 'fundamental purpose' is for a long time. Phew. There's more footage, taken from a demo playthrough, showing areas that won't be included in the final game. Even though the trusty cursor has been replaced by an actual human finger, the game will be released on PC and hopefully not just those PCs with the sort of monitors that like to be poked.
This sort of thing has come a lot way since Brat.