It's an ambitious undertaking, but your timing is good. Stanford's Programming Methodology class is free online and teaches Java: http://see.stanford.edu/see/c

It's an ambitious undertaking, but your timing is good. Stanford's Programming Methodology class is free online and teaches Java: http://see.stanford.edu/see/courseinfo.aspx?coll=824a47e1-135f-4508-a5aa-866adcae1111 http://see.stanford.edu/see/courseinfo.aspx?coll=824a47e1-13... There are many technology specific classes at JPassion.com. It used to be free, so I'm not sure whether a subscription is required. As for libraries, there are over 5,300 games written in Java on sf.net: http://sourceforge.net/search/?q=&fq%5B%5D=trove%3A198&fq%5B%5D=trove%3A80 http://sourceforge.net/search/?q=&fq%5B%5D=trove%3A198&#... I subscribe to their newsletter and Arianne and FreeCol are often listed as top projects, so you'll want to check them out. BTW, Steve Yegge did something similar with Wyvern: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wyvern_(video_game) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wyvern_(video_game) I believe that contained hundreds of thousands of lines of Java. Given his bent towards dynamically typed languages these days, I don't think he'd do it in Java again. (Note: I am in no way affiliated with any of the above resources/people.)