Chapter 20. Isometric Games

Sometime during the early '80s I remember peddling my bike (yeah, we rode bikes in those days) up to the local shop and rushing in, pocket jingling with change, only to find my favorite game machine had been replaced by something new. What I saw made me do a double takeinstead of the typical 2D chomping semicircle or fruity sprites, I was confronted with the mind-blowing new perspective of a game called Zaxxon.

After I recovered from the initial shock (I was only a little kid, okay? This was a traumatic experience!), I found something oddly compelling about the 3D perspective of the game. The little ship was flying over and under walls! I left about six minutes later with empty pockets, vowing to return and master this new dimension.

Even though the ship was flying in three dimensions, this wasn't really a 3D environment; it was a clever use of 2D graphics drawn in a 3D perspective. The effect, commonly referred to as an isometric perspective, is still in use even today in games such as Age of Empires, Diablo, Fallout, and StarCraft.

Because isometric projection doesn't rely on heavy 3D hardware, it's perfectly suitable for J2ME game development as well. In this chapter, you'll see how to give your 2D games that 3D illusion.