Sounds great, I expect a screenshot and a link/attachment copy of your finished first version for us to try.

It makes a huge difference when you take smaller steps to learn the basics at the beginning. By posting your projects you can also let others see how it's coming along as well. Some errors or bugs can get pointed out and we can give tips on optimizing and polishing up any glitches or bugs we run into. Plus it helps to show activity in the area of programming here too.

If you need further help with graphics (I recommend starting with the BMP bitmap graphics format before you go off and try getting PNG and all kinds of other formats involved) sound or anything else, just ask, we like helping others. (Just try to post in the related forum categories ) As for the 'time consuming stuff', we all go through that too. I personally get some joy out of looking at the project running where you don't see much of anything in my game window/screen, but after plugging away at it for a couple of hours I give it a run and wow what a difference you see after. That's what has always kept me going making games for all these years.

Though lately I mostly write about game development and manage sites and edit magazines.

Nice job! Keep up the good work and it'll be completed in no time.