Iso Middle Earth

An isometric Middle-earth builder for crafting maps across multiple realms, tile by tile.

Features • Demo • Getting Started • Usage • JSON Format • Collections • Tech Stack

Demo

Live: https://isomiddleearth.com/

Features

• Isometric canvas with hover preview
• 7 realms: shire, gondor, mordor, lothlorien, rohan, moria, rivendell
• mixed mode for cross-realm builds
• Adjustable grid size from 3x3 to 20x20
• 6 grouped tile categories: Terrain, Water & Bridges, Trees & Vegetation, Dwellings, Buildings, Decorations
• Asset picker tabs for Buildings and Characters
• Character overlays (currently includes 8 Hobbit sprites)
• Paint with click/drag, right-click to clear
• Undo support (Cmd/Ctrl + Z)
• PNG export
• JSON export/import from the toolbar
• Community collections browser at /collections with pagination
• Deep-link loading with /?collection=<id>
• Persisted local state via Zustand (localStorage)

Getting Started

Prerequisites

• Node.js 18+
• pnpm 9+

Installation

git clone https://github.com/hasanharman/isomiddleearth.git
cd isomiddleearth
pnpm install
pnpm dev

Open http://localhost:3000.

Usage

1. Pick a realm (or Mixed) from the top location selector.
2. Choose an asset tab in the bottom bar:
   • Buildings to place terrain/building tiles
   • Characters to place character overlays
3. Click or drag to paint.
4. Right-click to clear (character clears first if present on that tile).
5. Use toolbar actions for undo, grid resize, PNG export, and JSON export/import.

JSON Format

Toolbar JSON import/export expects this shape:

{
  "schemaVersion": 1,
  "id": "my-map",
  "name": "My Map",
  "author": {
    "name": "Anonymous",
    "github": "your-github-username"
  },
  "createdAt": "2026-02-24T00:00:00.000Z",
  "location": "mixed",
  "gridSize": 7,
  "map": [
    [[0, 0, "shire"], [2, 4, "gondor"]],
    [[1, 6, "mordor"], [3, 2, "rivendell"]]
  ]
}

Notes:

• map tiles can be [row, col] or [row, col, realm]
• row and col are non-negative integers
• gridSize must be between 3 and 20
• current JSON import/export is tile-map based (character overlays are not part of this format yet)

Tile and Character Assets

• Tile source: public/tiles/<realm>/r<row>-c<col>.png
• Character source: public/characters/<character-realm>/<character-id>.png
• Sprite canvas size: 130x230
• Isometric tile footprint on canvas: 128x64

You can add new tile coordinates with any non-negative row/col; runtime falls back to r0-c0 if a specific tile image is missing.

Collections

Community maps live in collections/maps and are listed at /collections.

• API endpoint: GET /api/collections/:id
• Schema: collections/schema/map.schema.json
• Docs: collections/README.md
• Validation script:

pnpm validate:collections

To load a collection directly in the editor:

• /?collection=<map-id>

Tech Stack

• Next.js 16
• React 19
• TypeScript
• Zustand
• Tailwind CSS
• Radix UI / shadcn components

Contributing

Issues and pull requests are welcome: hasanharman/isomiddleearth