Pseudo 3D...? How does it work?

If you dont know, Pseudo 3D games are basically a game that looks 3d, but isnt, like Doom, or Prelude of the chambered, by Notch. s3.amazonaws.com/ld48/index.html

So im just wondering, how does it all work? Is there like a special sauce that one must understand, that is the core of fake 3d games. Im assuming that there will be ALOT of maths. Im willing to learn all this math, but there must be more than just hard math.

tl;dr:
How does pseudo (fake) 3d work, what kind of maths is involved, and how complex is the system for doing this?

shot.

edit: I just noticed how ridiculous the title “Pseudo 3D” looks in the Java2D subforum. But from viewing the code from “Prelude of the Chambered” (A pseudo 3d java game) it seems that it uses core java2d. No special API’s.

The magic google term you’re looking for is ‘raycasting’. I’ve used this article before to pinch related algorithms, so maybe start there.

Hi

I already answered to this question here:
http://www.java-gaming.org/index.php?topic=24761.0