When I was working on my game last night, it occurred to me that I've been creating my game for just over a year now. It's taken me quite a long time to know what to do, and I've made some changes so that I CAN do what I want to do. I still can't tell you the name of it, as I want to register the trademark, and I can't do that until I have a complete game.
Besides learning Coldstone, much of my time has been creating graphics, and still will be for a while. I'm using many of the graphics that come with Coldstone, but I've changed some of it. I've also added my own graphics and have merged them with the existing graphics. For instance, I have desert ground that merges with the grass. I also have graphics that will allow the ground to have levels, so the Player climbs a hill or mountain, all merged with the existing ground stamps. This way, too, I have a town that's on high cliffs and the Player crosses via bridges. I just recently found a way to make interiors -- of taverns, inns, dungeons, castles, etc. so I'm pretty excited about that. So the Player enters an inn and finds characters and things there as well as a bed -- Zelda style.
I have a meter graphic that pops up with a keydown. Like a health meter bar. I have 20 levels in my game, which means that the meter bar is determined level by level. It also pops up with a dialogue when a certain event is run - all determined by different numbers of points in different levels.
The Player has to sleep once in a while. Otherwise, he starts to lose stamina points. Thanks to Stray's timer!! Same thing with eating. And different foods satisfy in different degrees. So you're hungery in less time when you eat an apple than if you ate a full meal. I have apple trees that dump apples, but due to globals, not every time you enter the map. Nearly everything is good for selling and making money, including apples.
I have 52 "world" maps, all linked with boundaries. I still need to finish them. I have a system that, once the Player reaches level 4, he can transport across maps. I've also made road signs -- a must for this game. I have 20 towns.
The story is coming along. There's four main branches of the main story quest before the final quest. I carry around index cards and work on whatever branch I want, especially when I'm stuck somewhere. Then there's the missions that's separate from the story lines. The Player can have fun making money and interacting with characters that way. And, finally, the Player can develop as many skills as the game carries. What I mean, here, is that the Player can learn how to make a bow, and the more skilled he is at it, the more money he'll get when he sells it. Arrows, armor, medicine - lots of things. I have classes, so the Player finds it easier to make something according to his class. The Player can even buy his own shop when he has enough money.
The game is more strategy than action, if you call action killing everything. There's lots of discovery. For instance, once he finds a particular book, then pages from the book become available for him to read, and he finds the pages around the world. But there's TWO books!
There's people here who want to beta test it.
I figure another year.
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-- Debra
Danillitphil Productions
(url="http://"http://www.danillitphil.com/graphics/index.html")www.danillitphil.com(/url)
~RD
) I'd be more than happy to test your game, Debra. Sounds like it'd be a lot of fun to play... and perhaps even more fun to play with the source. 
). This information would have to be present in the hidden textfile for the game to run. Of course the people could just give the game to each other as you said, but it would deal with the simple "download and play" issue. Now to get it to work...