"A Really Retro Game" Early Development (Recruiting)

[Vipershark]

I got about a quarter to halfway through that post and had to stop reading.

This is REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEALLY ambitious, and the fact that it's your first "real" project only amplifies that.
This is such a broad scope that most full on game developers wouldn't be willing to take it on, much less a tiny team of indpendents.

Everyone's got huge ideas for the dream game they want to make, and I applaud you for actually learning to code so that you can work on it yourself.
But you REALLY need to scale back, here. Start off with something simple instead.