[ From the comments section ]

Well thanks for the feedback so far.

Some details on the project :

It's targeted at windows, using Direct3D under dx9.0c runtime, and FMOD for sound.

Yes, I am working on this fulltime. I am somewhat in demand for 3D graphics consulting, so may do a bit of that on the side, but this is now my day job.

Years ago, I think it was ~1993 or 1994, and I was living in Norcross, GA ( near Atlanta ), working at a crummy job doing LAN installation and PC setup. I was working with a coder friend on a parallax scrolling game, and we needed a sprite editor, so I went about building one, under DOS using Turbo Pascal. So, I played hooky and called into work sick, and booted up into OS/2, put the Velocity Girl in my CD-ROM drive and got cranking!

I put in a solid 8 hours of work, and had it finished by the end of the day. It was the first program on which I had ever utlized the mouse; I had always just used keyboard controlled cursors before that. I remember that feeling of satisfaction and thought 'this is what I want to do every day!' So, I started getting more serious about the game thing.

So now, I don't have to play hooky to get some work done!

But man, it's clearly more complicated nowadays. I'm lucky that I have the 3D graphics background, which really helps with everything from physics to AI. Soon we'll get some real artists working on this, and then it will start to look really good.

The screenshot I posted is 100% programmer art, with the level actually generated from a text file. The new level editor allows much less square & blocky art - supporting a fully general 3d environment.

If there's interest, I can post some early development shots, as well as some shots of the level editor.