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[JJoseph]

Hello, I'm new here, and I thought I'd describe a game I've recently started working on.

Put simply, it's a roguelike.  You play an adventurer delving into a nest of monsters hoping to gain from the experience.  I intend for it to have a persistent, procedurally generated world where the player character can repeatedly enter and exit the nest, until eventually the player character destroys the monster queen.  Fairly straight forward.

Here's where I'm having difficulty.  There's a number of additional characteristics I'd like to add, but make the project overly ambitious.  For example I want the monsters to track the PC using scent, and I want the PC to be able to disguise their scent.  Next I'm hoping for an elaborate crafting system where powerful and interesting items can be made simply and relatively easily, as in Dark Cloud 2, where there are relatively few ingredients to make weapons, which allow for a fairly large amount of customization, although it's rendered moot for reasons I won't get into.

I'm hoping for the ability to capture and control monsters, perhaps as eggs, and use them alongside in battle, I'm hoping for way more than I could possibly actually do.

What I'm getting at is that I'm asking for help figuring out what to cut and, more importantly, where to start.  I've never made a game before, so I'm thinking I need to set my sights lower.

The graphics will be at first simple ASCII using JCurses, since I don't have much experience in graphic design.

So far, all I've got coded is a number converter.  It converts an integer into plain english, for example it inputs "25" and outputs "twenty five".  It works on numbers up to two billion, the maximum value for integers in Java.  The intended use is in game to display numbers in a more meaningful manner, since with larger numbers it's harder to notice changes, like with ten million and a hundred million, they look about the same.

http://www.mediafire.com/?6jbpq21o6cowvfb

[kamac]

Giving us some screens would me more that nice. Actually - nobody's gonna try your game if you don't give us any screenshots

It's more like downloading ~ something ~. You don't even know what. Might be a virus too.

[obsidian_golem]

I can help, but I need some details. Do you want 2d or 3d? Do you want top down, sidescrolling, or what. I think that the first thing to do is figure out how you are going to do drawing, collision detection, etc, then do your actual content.

[JJoseph]

I can help, but I need some details. Do you want 2d or 3d? Do you want top down, sidescrolling, or what. I think that the first thing to do is figure out how you are going to do drawing, collision detection, etc, then do your actual content.

I'm thinking 2-D like Zelda Link to the Past, with simulation of 3-D using different levels and portals and so forth, but in practice 2-D.  Top down definitely.

It'll probably be very grid based, and turn based, to make collision detection easier, like most roguelikes.

Giving us some screens would me more that nice. Actually - nobody's gonna try your game if you don't give us any screenshots

It's more like downloading ~ something ~. You don't even know what. Might be a virus too.

I haven't gotten far enough for screens, otherwise I would.  That's a good point, though.  I'll see what I can do.

[obsidian_golem]

My recommendation is to create a plan, then implement it one feature at a time. If one feature is big then break it down into smaller sections and implement them one by one. For instance for a crafting system I'd start with static crafting system. I would then add in randomly generated weapon types, and then link the two with a clever crafting recipe generation algorithm. For specific details, I would not begin with console graphics. I would use images because it would be easier to get art later then to recode the whole graphics engine.