Something to code...

I had said that I wanted to steer my programming efforts toward creating some piece of software.  It's the end of January and I still don't know to do yet.  The trick to this is to pick something you're excited about and build from that.  I'd do well to create a program with the most recent stuff I've been working on.  That would be OpenGL.  Boy that really narrows down the possibilities.
The main problem is that it's OpenGL, 3D graphics and all the sizzle and pop that comes with them.  The first hurdle is that you need a whole lot of graphics resources to make that work.  I've tinkered around with Blender and discovered that it's a little more involved than I've got time for.  There are sites out there where models are offered for free, but this still leaves textures and animations and I have a hard time imagining that I'll find enough matching sets to make anything useful out of.

Now were I to take one of those dimensions away, things become immensely simpler.  I can probably create some simple graphics for a 2D game, so long as it's more original Gauntlet than say Earthworm Jim.  This is possible, still probably won't look great but something I could maybe pull off.

Let's assume that I get graphics on the screen along with some sort of keyboard and mouse controls.  Will it have sounds?  I really don't know.  I know less about creating sound effects than I do about making 3D models.  Again there are places where free sounds are available, but is it worth hunting down effects?  I mean, the whole things going to be crude to begin with so it's not like it'll gain any sort of audience so who will care if it's silent?  I suppose it might be worth learning how to play sounds, just to know how that all works.

So I've got 2D graphics and maybe sounds, I'm still not sold on trying to work audio into this.  What exactly will the player be doing?  You know what, let's just keep this simple do a side scrolling platformer type thing.  No enemies, no weapons, just an avatar running and jumping on the screen.

By the time I've managed whatever art is needed along with all the coding to support such a thing, it's pretty likely I'll have learned enough about how this kind of stuff works to hate all the stuff I'll have written.  May as well stop there and evaluate the project, see if it's worth taking any further before putting together some grand vision that I won't be able to pull off.