In the meantime I'd like to announce that I've finished ALL the aspects of the preliminary design -- both aesthetic (setting/plot) and mechanical. The design document is several pages long (perhaps 3 or 4 or so, I can't tell because I am writing in Wordpad), and, at least as far as mechanics are concerned, even if I dropped dead tomorrow a very capable director (think Clint Hocking, Sid Meier or Kojima) could take it from my hard drive and go off and complete the game in a couple of years, technology permitting (because the scope and concept of the game is so bleeding edge I don't think there's an engine on the market capable of powering it at the moment, except if it's custom-coded for absurd hardware like four GTX Titan Blacks or something). This as regards mechanics, because as regards plot development and "message", no one can finish this game but me. But I do plan to start writing down the full plot soon, so when that's done, yeah, I could very well drop dead and the game could still be made by someone else at some point down the line.

Here is a list of influences, to get an idea of the kind of complexity I am talking about:

Far Cry 2
Deus Ex
Sid Meier's Pirates!
Orgy of the Will
Blade Runner
Planetary Annihilation
Highlander
Elite
Dune (the Amiga videogame by Cryo)
Iron Man 3
Killer 7

From some of these works I am taking mechanics, from others aesthetics and plot, or scope and "message", or a combination of some or all of these. The design document includes detailed explanations of precisely what I am taking from each work, but I am not going to post it here because... as long as I am working on the project, I don't want anyone to run off with my ideas. Trust me when I say, though, you'd sell off your left kidney to play this game the moment you read the details of my design. Nothing else you've ever played comes close, and nothing remotely like it is being planned for any point in the foreseeable or even the unforeseeable future. You'd have more fun simply READING my design than PLAYING even the best future game that is currently in the planning stages. That's the kind of gigantic leap forward I am talking about here.