One of the first things that caught my attention when I noticed ColdStone was that the game engine will be top-down and not isometric. I however am Curious how exactly an isometric view would differ from top-down, aside from the angle at which sprites and other game elements were rendered. Or by Isometric do you mean that the layout grid(I don'e know what its really called) is not parrallel and perpendicular to the screen?, but rahter diagonal?

Technically speaking could I make an isometric style game if I made all my own graphics.

Coldstone is neither top down or isometric. It is tile-based, but if I'm not mistaken StarCraft is tile based as well, and that is an isometric view. It would say that it is possible to make an isometric game, as Beenox have proven with screenshots from the game their making.

------------------
(url="http://"http://www.armanus-zero.f2s.com")Armanus Zero(/url) Coming soon from Negative Influence Software
(url="http://"http://www.ohhla.com")The Original Hip-Hop Lyrics Archive(/url)
Hip Hop Recomendation of the week: the Wu Tang - The W
------------------

from the faq:

Quote

This is a standard top view map engine, not an isometric view.

The degree of top-down perspective depends on the sprites you use. While the screenshots for PoG seem to use a camera angled 60 degrees down, for my game I'm using a camera angled 45 degrees down.

If all your sprites fit inside a single tile, you could create something graphically similar to Exile, Realmz, or the SNES Final Fantasy games.

You can also make sprites as big as needed and not be constrained by the size of the ground tiles, as they're doing in the screenshots for PoG, as I'm doing, and as I'm sure many other artists will.

You could in theory fake an isometric view by using mostly diagonal wall sprites.
------------------
"Sanity is the trademark of a weak mind." --Mark Harrold (not that I know who Mark Harrold is...)

(This message has been edited by sanehatter (edited 01-07-2001).)

-29°

...excellent

------------------
"With an icy glare of indignity..."
"Lock it down"
--------------------------
(b)this week's hater:TheGlueBubble