Stone of the Citadel: My new CRPG project

I've been talking for some time about creating my own Computer Role Playing Game (CRPG) based on my favourite computer games of the 80s and 90s and I've now finally started that project. My intention  is to capture the spirit of those classic games such as the Ultima series, Bards Tale, Eye of the Beholder, Might & Magic and Alternate Reality. As well as trying to bring together the best features of these older games, I also have many ideas of my own which I plan to add and hopefully create something new and enjoyable to CRPG players today. The games that really interest me today are not the big commercial titles but the smaller games from independents where people have made the games they want to play. I'm also interested in the roguelike games where there are a great deal of features and innovations despite their simple appearance. I'm currently calling the new game "Stone of the Citadel" though this might change.

So what can you expect from the game? I'm expecting this game to develop and evolve over an extended period of time but my initial plan and goals are as follows:

• Party based - Control a party of up to 8 characters
• Single, shared inventory
• Multiple races, professions and skills but without many of the common restrictions
• 3D View but limited to the 4 cardinal directions
• Varied environment - Wilderness, towns, dungeons and many unique places to explore
• Build up a community of players who contribute their ideas directly into future developments and share their stories of experiences within the game
• Regular releases as the game and features develop
• Runs on Microsoft Windows initially (using C++ and SFML) with ports to Linux and Mac in the future

Coding is already going very well but I'll save details of that for a future post.