It is still all smoke and mirrors. I just wanted to see what a level would look like.

I've got a good deal of the isometric rendering code (the stuff that plots tiles and scrolls around the map).

The game will be keyboard controlled.

You can only move X+1,Y+1, X-1 or Y-1, which to our view is diagonal.

Many isometric games, when met with this sort of interface, assign the up arrow key to a particular direction, and then assign the other arrow keys in relation to it.

Hitting the arrow keys will map to a direction, as in these games, but I feel I should also map Home, End, PgUp, and PgDown to directions as well.

So, on the numeric keypad, 8 and 9(up arrow and pgup) will both move towards the upper right corner; 6 and 3(right arrow and pgdn) to the lower right; 2 and 1(down arrow and end) to the lower left, and 4 and 7(left arrow and home) to the upper right.

So, if the player wants to wrestle mentally with making the up arrow key mean something other than "up", they can do so, and I am following an established convention in doing so. But if they don't, there is a logically based alternative.