Wow has it really been this long since I posted a journal entry. Man time really flies right by it is just insane.

Over the last few months I have been going through the motions of designing a project. The project is rather over ambitious for sure and
99% of the worlds population would probably call me insane. Even as I was going through and laying out the design I realized how insane
I really was but it does not matter I want to work on something long term a huge almost impossible endeavor just because I can. I know I have the
capability to complete said project and at this point it is more figuring out how to approach the project effectively. So lets get into some of the
decisions I have to make to do so after I give a brief layout of what it is I want to do.

First and foremost my game is a RPG but not the typical RPG. I don't want to create just another RPG or ARPG to add to the meat grinder.
I want to create a RPG that can evolve and hold longevity without costing a player 1 penny. This project is not about making money or creating a
business it is about creating a community.

The key goals of this project all combine around this fact of community and having friends be able to gather together and adventure.

• A modular scenario based system (the ability to mod in your own custom adventures in a easy way)
  
• A Turn based Action system
  
• The ability to customize the rule set
  
• The ability to customize various actions in the game (spells, attacks, etc...)
  
• The ability to use premade or custom assets for the scenario's
  
• The ability to play solo or with friends
  
• Open Source/Cross Platform (This project is very ambitious and 100% free + I love open source)
  

As far as technologies to use I have no clue at the moment. I ruled out Unity/UE4 simply because the do not fit the open source motto even if
they would be great to use they just do not fit the project. I also need something very flexible that will allow me to create the necessary
tools needed to create a good environment for building the custom scenario modules.

Since I have a wide variety of applicable programming skills I began evaluation of some potential target technologies. Currently I am evaluating
JME3 which just so happens to be very nice to work with despite some of the quirks and lack of direction in its tooling the core engine itself is
really well done and easy to pick up on. +1 for great documentation. The only thing I really do not like here is the Netbeans based SDK as I find
it very off putting for some reason or another, however, it may be possible to work outside of the sdk and develop some custom tooling to replace
some of the features. The goal is to abstract creators away from needing to actually touch the programming language behind the game and from
having to install the whole engine + sdk to create scenarios.

I have also looked at SDL/SFML way back in the past but the new versions for sure are very slick, however, I am not sure I want to go the route of
a 2D game. It for sure would work and it would solve the issue quite quickly of having to work around the JME3 SDK system. This approach could
however remove some people from wanting to help contribute to the project due to the use of C/C++ . Sure there are other bindings but they tend to be quirky and awkward to use because they rarely follow the structure the other languages are known for.

Any input on other tech that I did not mention would be much appreciated just leave it in the comments and if you want you can even just
comment to call me insane.

Can't think of anything else to type so see you again soon.