I updated the header of the journal with a tentative list of things that have to be done before a true development schedule can be hashed out. In essence, right now I have a good idea of what I want the game to be and what I think will make it special. I want to more clearly define the major characteristics before commiting to a schedule.

A Few More Details On The Game
HydroGen is going to be a 3D game constrained to a 2D plane. I know what you are thinking - 3D constrained to a 2D plane is really 2D, but its not. All of the models are going to be rendered in 3D with perspective, and the camera view angle will be adjustable by the user - so it really will be 3D objects rendered in 3D, but their motion will be constrained to the 2D game world plane.

Why did I decide on this? I decided to go with this design for several different reasons. The most important of which is that the majority of budget priced games are purchased by a more casual game crowd, and I think full 3D turns off some people as soon as they see a screen shot. Since the ultimate goal is to make some money doing what I love, this is a prudent choice.

The second major reason that I am going this route is that the majority of full 3D games require enormous amounts of everything. There has to be a bunch of detail in a 3D world or else it seems somewhat empty. Consider the difference between early 3D games like Super Mario 64 where the game world was relatively open with a more advanced world like that presented in FarCry. Simply by adding tons of vegetation FarCry just simply blew everyone's socks off.

Since I am a single developer, it is not going to be easy to generate lots and lots of artwork/models to fill up a 3D world. So for this scope of a project I am going to stick with 2D. This will actually help reduce some of the CPU intensive simulations that I am planning on using as well, so there is an added benefit.

Hopefully I can have the preliminary tasks completed within about a week, then I can get down and dirty to finish up the schedule.