# isometric.nyc

52 Hacker News commenters recommended isometric.nyc and 8 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 3 of 13 months.

**Verdict:** People enjoy zooming around this giant isometric map of New York, finding their own buildings and recalling SimCity. Critics say it does not look like true pixel art.

## Why people recommend it

- Fun to explore and find familiar places (5 comments): "Amazing. Took forever but I found my building in Brooklyn as well as the nearby dealership, gas station, and public school." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46723909)) "there's enough interesting things in "real new york" to make scrolling around this a fun thing to do" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46733811)) "I see things now, that I never saw before, in areas I'm intimately familiar with." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46733077))
- Captures the SimCity feel (4 comments): "It scratches that SimCity itch while still being recognizably New York." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46729353)) "this makes me want to play simcity again! really cool" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46724775)) "You definitely captured the SimCity vibe. Well done!" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46732755))
- Beautiful, detailed and fascinating to view (4 comments): "Spectacular! I'm morbidly fascinated by the variance in how well different streets have been plowed." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47125174)) "It's beautiful and very interesting to look at, because of all the details." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46730344)) "This is kind of beautiful. Great work! I mean it." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46723565))
- Accurate, best map of NYC (3 comments): "this map is a dream and the best map of NYC I've ever seen" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46724639)) "I'm just happy this seems to be about 99.9+% accurate." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46734050)) "it's my new favorite map of NYC" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46725805))

## What people warn about

- Doesn't look like real pixel art (4 comments): "This is a cool concept, but it's definitely not pixel art by any definition." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46723906)) "This doesn't really look like pixel art; it looks like you applied a (very sophisticated) Photoshop filter to Google Earth." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46724529)) "it just looks...bad? Just a strange blurry mess that only vaguely smells of pixelart." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46725100))
- Not working or CORS errors (3 comments): "Not working here, some CORS issue." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46722584)) "Not working here either. Two different errors with two different browsers on Arch." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46722656)) "Same in Safari on macOS here, FWIW." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46723101))
- Looks AI-generated or off (3 comments): "realized how many of these look like ... well AI" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46724000)) "what AI does for "pixel art" is very off" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46725596)) "Looks badly AI generated." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46725334))
- Missing areas and stitching artifacts (2 comments): "But not all of NYC. Where's the rest of Staten Island?" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46723698)) "there are some very obvious inaccuracies (stitching artefacts?) in this map" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46730358))

## Alternatives hackers recommend

- [Map of Metal](https://hackerapproved.com/p/map-of-metal.md): 34 recommend
- [CheapFoodMap](https://hackerapproved.com/p/cheapfoodmap.md): 29 recommend
- [Isopolis](https://hackerapproved.com/p/isopolis.md): 27 recommend
- [Shipmap.org](https://hackerapproved.com/p/shipmap-org.md): 23 recommend
- [Middle-earth interactive map](https://hackerapproved.com/p/interactive-map-of-tolkien-s-middle-earth.md): 22 recommend

## Cite as

Hacker Approved, "isometric.nyc", https://hackerapproved.com/p/isometric-nyc/ (counts from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026).