Well, I just started from scratch and wrote the whole first alpha version of Mystery Project in 4 hours. ;)

I decided that writing up a big-arse framework in C++ and then writing the rest of the game would both take a long time, and be a painful process. I was pretty close. :P Took the safe route and went with Delphi, a language I'm very comfortable with, and the Omega game components and got cracking. Sure I'm doing less actual "work" compared to writing my own engine from the ground up, but doesn't actual progress matter more?

Networking. The main rationale I had for using C++ was the feature-packed RakNet library. There's no Delphi port of it, and the best candidate I can find is HawkNL, which someone was nice enough to create a Delphi header for. It looks pretty solid, although it lacks all of the high-level features that RakNet has like encryption, autopatching, or master server/clients. It sports reliable UDP ordered packets though, which is the key thing I was looking for. It'll be more work, but it'll do the trick.

A screenshot for this release would look boring, as would an actual binary distribution. So just take a look at the v0.01 Roadmap for Mystery Project and be somewhat satisfied. I promise when I get to the networking it'll get a lot more exciting. ;)