The Fork In The Road

Oy vey, it's been a pretty crazy week already, and I still have 2 days of work to go. Fortunately, I've been able to balance my work load with just the right amount of fun time to keep my mental and physical stability in check. I've played guitar, played some WAR, done some coding... sadly, the coding hasn't gone too far too quickly. It's become a real beast and now I've come to that fork in the road... I'm been working with some small scale stuff up til now. The organization was a beast, but that's aside now. I've got the controls working and the enemies working and the weapons and guns and all that... at least superficially, but now... now I've come to a crossroads. From here on out, what would really benefit me the most are the large components of the game. What good are flashy guns if they don't impact things? What good are flashy bullets without the fancy muzzle flash and animation associated with it? What good are ships flying around if they can't effect each other? All these depend on large scale functionality so the time has come for me to dig in to these.

Allow me to list those larger scale things that I feel I must tend to now or soon to progress my game:

• Physics - Need this for my bullets to hit things, to restrict movement, to crash, to smash. Don't really see this as being a minor undertaking, or something that can be done in small increments. It's pretty much all or nothing. However, I think I've just about decided to integrate an existing solution... Farseer. It's 2D. It's come a long way since I used it last. It's finely tuned. It's fast. It's fairly easy to integrate, though it will take a decent chunk of time to do so.
• Sprites - Need to allow my sprites to attach various optional Parts. This would allow me to attach a muzzle flash to the player ship when he fires his gun(s). These need to be able to be drawn if necessary and not, if not. Also, need to set it up so that the ship's movements are reflected in it's thrusters. This will also require special consideration for how and where they're attached and how they're drawn and animated when required. The multi-Part aspect is all setup already, but I need to allow them to be optionally drawn, optionally animated, and swap-able with minimal impact on appearance and performance.
• Animation - This ties in deeply to the previous item. My multi-part sprites must be animated. This is also no small undertaking and I don't see this as being something that can easily be broken up into tiny pieces. Like Physics, it's also all or nothing. Fortunately, I don't see a need for too complex animations, but even to get simple ones going is a real trick. To top it off, I think I'll need to create a toolkit or editor to set up the animations. I've done much of one already I can borrow from which will make it easier, but it's also a time consuming endeavor, and also the step of development that I've crapped out on in previous projects.
• Map - Sooner or later I'm going to need to flesh out what constitutes my levels. This will have to go hand in hand with the physics implementation, as the levels will dictate where the physical landscape exists. This will also require an editor and will also require a great deal of work. However, I do have much of an editor complete already so I'm halfway there. I will probably leave this for later, as my current test-level will be sufficient for the time being.
• AI - Finally, the always present looming challenge of AI is there. This is a large undertaking, but fortunately, is one I can get away with doing in smaller chunks and with smaller finer tuning. Does this mean I should tend to this before tackling the huge undertakings? Your guess is as good as mine.

So I've got many choices ahead. What will benefit me the most the soonest? How do I prioritize things that are equally important? What might serve best to aid the creation of the following components? How should I tackle what I inevitably decide to pursue first without getting burnt out too deeply into it like I have in the past? I guess I'll keep you posted. :P