Introducing myself and announcing project..

Hello everyone, my names Larry and i've been hovering around the garage games site for a while now, going over all aspects of the torque engine to see what it has to offer.

I have been designing a game over the past 6 months or so while another project is on hold due to my project partner being tied up with real life work loads. The other project is for the nintendo ds and is an fps thats based on a popular pc franchise.

The reason i have been attracted to torque is because my new project is set on an island thats roughly 3km's wide and 4km's long, and the torque engine looks to handle large outdoor environments very nicely.

I have not had the chance to really go over the site and forums and look at all the projects that people are developing, so if anyone can shed light on any questions i ask it would be most appreciated.

Firstly a little about the project.

The game is a first person perspective action / adventure game with an emphasis on stealth, realism and physics.

It takes place on a tropical island roughly 3km's wide and 4km's long, the island will feature a vast range of flora and will be populated by several species of animals.

The storyline and player history will unfold throughout the game, but basically you awake on the beach and have no idea where you are.

The game will be completely non linear.

Only once you have finished the game you will know what it takes to reach the end goal, and then you can stuff around and complete it as quickly as you wish.

The environment will be as interactive as possible, most objects that are small enough to be picked up can be used as weapons such as; rocks and sticks. Objects can also be thrown to turn them into projectile weapons.

The player will eventually have access to a large assortment of various man made weapons, but where these are obtained and what they are is a story element that i wont reveal here.

The island will of course have a history of human presence, and it will have some form of current human presence, but i wont go into any detail about it here.

The environment will feature many levels of foliage density, ranging from open fields and dense fern covered forest, to lush tropical rain forest and redwood style plantations.

The game will feature a day night cycle, but the duration of the cycle is yet to be decided.

The player will be subject to hunger and hydration requirements as well as fatigue.

The player will be required to maintain thier hydration and hunger levels by drinking fresh water and consuming anything edible you find on the island such as animals and fruit.

Fatigue will be based on sleeping, meaning the player will be required to sleep every so often. Faliure to do so will result in poor perception, delayed responses, etc.. How often sleeping is required is yet to be decided as i want to the game to be fun, i dont want a simulation of real life, this is a fun game with realistic elements.

This should give you a pretty good idea of the game i'm designing without giving too much away.
At a later date i will reveal more about the project and show its true potential.

I'm currently designing all characters and world objects using lightwave, which i will then import into torque using convertors or something. Any suggestions here would be great.

My initial environment creations have been with Lightwave, Photoshop and Earth Sculpter, but i have just purchased L3DT professional version which i will create the island with then add further details within torque's terrain editor as its needed. Torque's terrain and texture editing potential seems really good so far, if anyone has any suggestions for really detailed terrain editing it would be appreciated.

One final note about this project is that i had originally intended it as a nintendo wii game, but memory requirements may be a problem, time will tell.

All questions, comments and suggestions are appreciated!
Thank you.