This exists already in beta, I was helping test it, I think it was called Star Caster or something like that.

Edit: It's called StarJack Online.

I'm now kinda curious of that Galaxy Buster weapon you mention. Obviously, I don't know the level of detail that you plan on using for this project, but it has me thinking about the physics of using such a thing. For example, it's powered by stars. If you're ignoring of course the massive heat and radiation a star gives off long enough to use it as fuel, then it effectively wipes out the gravitational orbit of that system. That means planets flying away, which in itself might be an interesting weapon if timed, or force the population on them to abandon them. The planets may also be picked up by another system given enough time.

After that, there are some simply massive stars in the universe, to the point of where our sun is the size of an ant compared to a house. I don't know your gather rate, but for something that massive it would probably be stopped part way. That leads to the chance of the star collapsing (Black hole), going nova (exploding), or turning into a red giant if it isn't one already. It's an interesting thought.

Also, I don't know if you plan on having missions or optional objectives, but that would be interesting to simply go to a scientific journal of planetary discovery. For example, it's recently been found that there are solar systems with multiple stars, planets made of pure diamond, and there's bound to be stranger and more unique planets as we explore. Those kinds of details or inclusions would add some realism to your game and add in some strange mechanics that people have to be wary of. But, it's probably also a lot of extra work.

I am a few month's of from 18.

OT, but I'm inspired, I think I'll write my own game.

With hookers and black jack, in fact screw the black jack.

Seriously though, I think I will write my own text adventure with inform. http://inform7.com

/end thread jack

Agreed. Start by modding an existing game with freely available source and a decent SDK. Dungeon Defenders springs to mind :)

Thankyou for the poilte response, I was fearing a flaming response as I've had in the past to such a question.

Anyway, perhaps start a bit smaller? We all have our dream games in our mind, but that shouldn't be the first one you write. There are many projects you could partner up with that could help you to get into the industry, or at least learn a few tricks. Gaming is so big now that I don't think it's practical to just write the game.

My advice, keep knocking that dream along, improving it as you learn more, and write it when you feel ready.

We should really start up a GOG group for 'gaming programmer initiates' get everyone working on a project with community oversight.

But that makes it sound exclusive to programmers. Games are a combination of programmers, designers, artist, Modellers ETC.

Also, if the focus was on programmers, would there be a specific focus on a certain programming language - Javascript, C++, python? Etc. Would a pre-built engine be used or would the team focus on something completely new?

They're just random thoughts, but I feel that you can't make a game if you can't form a team. I was thinking more along the old school lines of a few people get together and say, let's write something. However you need one of those people to have a clue about what they're doing.

Ah yes, the team problem is the main hurdle. I can easily get an artist (one of my friends) but apart from that, we've hit a brick wall. Storywriting however is no problem in particular, As i took a course for writing ages ago, directed by a published author.

I have a quote I keep, maybe it will help keep you working when the chips are down:
"It's a job that's never started that takes the longest to finish."
-J.R.R. Tolkien
So keep at it, and great things can happen. Well, at least you won't live in regret, which is very nice. Good luck Nroug7! :)

Depends on the genre, but an RTS without a team would take so long that it would be way out of date by the time it was released.

A text adventure definitely could be done by oneself in a reasonable amount of time as would one of those old school King's Quest, Leisure Suite Larry type games.

An RPG may or may not be reasonable on ones own.

Yeah, im currently investigating more people i think would be suitable for the team. I found a moddeller, but i have to convince him to join the cause...

A modeller is important, but unless I'm missing something you're going to need to have somebody handling the coding before that becomes an issue. Pretty much any idiot can create boxes to manipulate for debugging purposes if need be.

As mentioned above, ill be handling programming/coding.