Isometric

What settings are need to produce an isometric effect? What angles are used?

Thanks very much

Depends on the kind of game.
Angles: 30 / 45 / 60 degree
Beside this you need a lot of tiles and an isometric engine, that is able to deep sort the tiles correctly, so you have the "front - back feeling" which is needed to fake the 3d environment.

I was planning something in the way of Alien8 ( )

This is just the beginning, so I have a lot of research to do.

I remember Alien8 on the Amstrad CPC464!

I tried the isometric method for a while until I realised that stacking
tiles in a vertical/horizontal configuration will look and behave
just the same.
If you're interested, download the rpg engine in my sig and see what I mean.

For sorting the tiles, I gave them all z values and made the engine
sort them for me. It works well.

why not try my iso engine too. check the sig for wisp. its open sourced so you can do what ever with it.

the old gfx looks genial

Thanks very much chaps! I'll have a look at both of your engines and let you know how I got on