Hey thanks for the tip, I'm definitely looking around to network with people. I don't know what direction it will take but I'm thinking of it more in the open world traditional roleplaying sense, though that's not to say people in the game can't build quests, i.e. ask people to do things for them. We have provision for contracts for just such a thing.
I like the Isogenic one too, I think it would require a lot of art assets and it's a little out of vogue in style but there's a lasting charm to that style. And it's the art that will really set the tone. The Pixel Dungeon style is also cool, maybe easier to get off the ground but it could even be the case that the back engine is interface agnostic, and can work with even more than one.
Well I look forward to seeing what you and the-ego-is-you come up with for the foundation. I will find a place I can step in and help and I will do that..
One cool thing about pixel dungeon engine is that in theory you could utilize something like JohnnyClearwater's pixel art challenge to help you create a lot of the art going on throughout the world, they come up with awesome stuff for that challenge. It would get random people more heavily involved in the game, open sourcing art through a challenge.. Give them a shoutout in the credits and they will surely want to own the game just to say see, see what I built lol!
Great idea, I'd love to see collaboration with other projects happening. Key to get here is that there is de facto shared ownership of the game. Everything is released openly, open to use, reuse, repurpose, mix and remix. So it will be much more than credits any contributing artist will get from their involvement.