Traveler; I guess the best possible answer in the shortest and most simple terms is.. "No." I'd love to lie to you or fool myself and say that I am familiar with programming games, but the simple fact of the matter is, I'm really not.

I have written fully functioning games before, but that was back in the day of my Commodore 64 or my Amiga 500 on which I wrote an Artillery Duel / Scortched Earth simulator. Nothing fancy, but fun all the same.

Back in those days though, it was not an objecto oriented / event driven language, but rather very simple basic.. 10 Do something. 20 Goto 10.. etc..

I understood the main "loop" if you will. I guess with a game engine there still must be a main loop, but just don't fully grok the way it happens these days..

A friend of mine had suggested a 2D Isometric engine as well, and forwhatever reason that hadn't occured to me.. I have accepted that as my new engine and am most likely going to go that route.. but graphics engine asside, I still have the game engine to consider.

Once the game engine is written, I should be able to plug in any graphics engine right?

And yes the game can be quite complex, but I can easily start small and still use the book because there are many small areas that *should* be easy.

And thank you for your thoughts on my site.. I have only had a "slow menu" complaint once before... For all seven of my computers, they are near instant. Can you tell me what browser version and computer system you're running so I can try to fix it?


Shadowcore; Actually now that I am going to go 2d, collision detection is way moot but I think I could get away with not using it simply by using a rules system for not allowing two models to occupy the same space. Because this game would be played mostly on a flat "board" instead of in 3 space, collision detection can be avoided.

And I do agree with your NWN rant on some level. Though personally I thought the game would have been way cooler had htey gone even MORE 3D.. Either NO 3D at all, or 100% 3D and make it first person.. But that's for another thread.. heh