[pygame] Where Do I Go From Here?

[Kris Schnee <kschnee@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Many questions here; I could use help from someone more experienced.

http://kschnee.xepher.net/pics/061204scurvy.jpg
This is my latest work: "Scurvy," an OpenGL 3D landscape system, hooked 
up to the procedurally-generated island stuff I've been working on, 
controlled by Pygame. For comparison, the underlying "worldsim" is also 
hooked up to a pure-Pygame graphics engine, seen here:
http://kschnee.xepher.net/pics/061201ship.jpg
And a past 3D engine whose look I actually like ("Pearl") is here:
http://kschnee.xepher.net/pics/shiningsea060624-1.png

But what now? Although I could and probably should focus on the
"worldsim" itself -- the physics and gameplay -- I'm not sure about how
to develop the graphics system further. Assuming that I can successfully
combine this landscape with my Pygame-only widget system and with
Pyglyph so that I can do text windows, buttons etc., it's still going to
be ugly! I thought about switching from these awkward-looking textures
to plain colors, but (perhaps because there's full lighting) that turns
the landscape into green soup. And there's still a bad case of the
jaggies (and terrible FPS) from the fact that I'm using 100x100 data
points. _And_ the sky's not animated. And so on.

So, as a lone developer, is it even worth trying to do this 3D system?
My goals are:
-To have a Zelda-like action RPG (single-player!),
-With complex gameplay and AI (starting very simply and building what I
can),
-In a game world with islands and a few villages, caves etc..

That means I don't need full 3D -- but also want something that looks
good enough that I can show it to people and not repulse them.

My reasoning is:
-That bad 3D is worse than good 2D;
-But that a 2D system would need scrolling and has trouble portraying depth;
-That Pygame scrolls slowly (I'm getting just 15 FPS on my non-scrolling 
2D engine with Psyco, vs. 32-34 on a minimal Pygame program with/without 
Psyco);
-That OpenGL is potentially faster if I can make lists work properly 
(it's around 4-7 FPS right now!);
-And that if I'm doing OpenGL, I may as well make it 3D;
-But that I'm tired of being bogged down switching between graphics 
engines and still having the program look bad. I want to build gameplay 
and AI, not write yet another display system!

Thoughts? Right now I'm leaning towards either figuring out how to do a 
decent-looking 2D tiled engine that scrolls well, maybe refitting my 
"Coral" display system ( 
http://kschnee.xepher.net/pics/niss-051202-big.jpg ), or figuring out 
how to refit and speed up the isometric-tiled "Pearl" system ( 
http://kschnee.xepher.net/pics/shiningsea060630-0.jpg ), which is 
reasonably pretty (isn't it?). Using OpenGL at all to speed up 2D would 
probably force me to refit the widget system, which I'd rather avoid. 
Would the "Pygame Extended" project make any sense? What is its license?

Kris