I like the idea for the kiddie game, but I don''t know how much I like it. I suggested it to my partner and he liked it less than I did, but I had an idea. A parental lock that when activated switches the game into kiddie mode. What do you think.
We are planing the game to be very modular. We are doingsome coding now (interfaces for mesh objects, math type stuff, the type of stuff we KNOW we will need). We a are keeping the interfaces for these classes as siimple as possible sto allow us to easily integrate them into our actual engine. The current basic outline for the project is as follows:

-build and test engine.
-make some multiplayer stuff(levels weapons etc), this part will be completly disposable. It is being done to test the snot out of the engine before actual game logic is put into place (some simple stuff will exist)
-interfaces will be built to allow access to the Synapse programming language (custom OO language that I have been working on and is a a stable and usable point at the present)
-build game logic and single player campaign

This is an extremly simplified (build engine in one step) outline, butit gives a general overview if the process as we are approaching it.

Hmm, sounds like a very interesting project. You already have an entire scripting language set up? How did you go about that?

The cel-shaded idea is pretty cool, but what I think it would be a fine line between cool and too cartoony. I think a game would be cool if it still looked distinctly 3D, but with celshaded textures and whatnot.

A good plot is a must, with a main character that the player sympathizes with and cares for, not one who the player doesn''t like obviously. A character creation feature where you create your own character and can choose stats for him as well as modify his personal appearance and personality. That would make the character unique to the player, and not contrary to the player''s personality (unless the player wants it that way).

For the scripting language, i first wore through the c++ scripting language tutorial that was on gamedev. Then I heavily modefied it ie, started from scratch making it completly oop. I have structured it similar to java, but with a bit less features (RMI, and others). I am working on a java interface for Synapsis(the lang) kinda like JNI. with this interface, you should be able to extend the language indefinatly. For the shading, I''m thinking of something more along the line of flat shaded 3d than cartoon.