I have a dream... I''m working on the design for an action/adventure game and I want to make sure I don''t forget anything in the design process. Plus, I want feedback as I''ve never designed a game completely from scratch before. I''d like the game to be from a third-person, top-down perspective - like Zelda, but I''m thinking about using a 3D graphics engine so that the user can rotate his perspective around the hero. Has this been done before? Is it practical? Would any advantage be gained by this? Also, I''m going to design the game to be violence-free! I know, I know... "what? no blood? no gore? no fun!" but I believe I can provide enough challenging, enjoyable gameplay without having the hero kill anything. Thoughts? Suggestions? I''d like to eventually include multiplayer capability (or maybe do that first so I don''t have to write AIs - I''m a lazy jerk). I don''t know the first thing about AI, so any help in that area would be great. Finally, if you''re reading this and thinking to yourself, "Self, there''s no way in hell this guy is ever going to finish that game! He needs to try something a bit less ambitious first." To that I say, BITE ME! I don''t want to hear people telling me what I can and can''t accomplish. I just want feedback on my ideas. I know they''re ambitious, but I''m an ambitious kind of guy and that''s why I''m going to succeed.

I think you''ll stimulate some really good discussion in the Game Design forum. Hopefully one of the moderators will move this there for you so you don''t have to repost.

As suggested by Oluseyi, I''ve re-posted this message under game development. Check it out over there!