As I have written before I probably won't have much time due to new job so dates doesn't matter much to me as I will have verrylitle time for the next few months but I'll still try to participate anywhay.

As for the duration of the challenge longer it will be easier it will be for me.

As for theme why not create some simple strategy game or maybe arcade game with larger map.
Not long ago there was discusion about making AI challenge and the main problem for making it was the fact that we would need some base game for making AI challenge.
So why not make this challenge in such a way so we actually develop a game which could then be used as base game for making AI challenge in the future?
Now we don't need to develop it in such a way so that it will use AI right from the start but in a way so that it could be easily modified/extended by adding computer AI to it.