Pardon the noobish nature of this thread, but…
Where can I find information on isometric game development? I don’t even know where to get started on it!
That said, I’ve never made a true scrolling game before (one I’m working on right now just uses objects moving downward to create a sense of motion). Should I try a “normal” tile based game first? Help!
Isometric games are the best, I agree 
I first started working on isometric engines about a year ago, but it still took me over 8 months to figure it out.
I didn’t get any help from anyone, no samples, no posts. Just some good old fashioned algebra and a little trial and error.
Today i’ve got a tileengine like the one in the Rollercoaster Tycoon games,
and i’m damn proud of it. So in the intrest of “my big ego” i’d gladly help you out,
BUT if you have litte experience from top-down games, scrollers and such, I am affraid
that some of the isometric stuff will seem a bit complex.
where do you want to start? i could show you some of the simple stuff first
Start with a tile-based game, work your way up. if you go with something too daunting to start, you’ll get frusterated. Learn concepts iteratively, make each succeeding game more complex or different. I’ve done that, and it’s worked well. It helps keep you motivated.
My first games were single-screen. Then, I did a J2ME project with a tile-based engine. Now I’m doing a server/client RPG with tile-based engine. In the future, I will do another RPG (based on something very popular!) that has some icnreased capabilities like better AI.
Harvest your game brain. 
Somewhere around here might be a demo I wrote a few years ago called “Scroller”.
It does all the basics of an isometric scrolling game using the AWT Full Screen Exclusive Mode.
90% of it should be readily applicable to other drawing techniques.
I based all my Isometric code on the one and only really good book I knwo on the subject:
The code is in C, and written for DirectX, but the text explains the preinciples and if you read C code
the examples are easily ranslated (much of which I already did for you in Scroller.)
I dont know much about tile-based games, but i have learn alot from a big free tutorial (which is meant for flash), just search for
tonypa tile based tutorial or something. it explains normal tilebased, isometric, pathfing, etc… (and is easy to read to, doesnt dive in to complex stuff)