Beginning Python Games Development : With Pygame, Second Edition

CHAPTER 8

Moving into the Third Dimension

Games generally try to mimic the real world, or create a world that is not so far from reality that the player will still in some way be able to identify with it. In the past this required a real leap of faith on behalf of the player because technology wasn’t yet capable of creating visuals that looked much like reality. But as the technology advanced, game designers began to push the hardware to create more convincing graphics.

Initially everything was in two dimensions because drawing a 2D sprite is a fairly simple operation that consoles and computers can do rather well. Even with only 2D capabilities, ...