3D tile engine... any pitfalls?

Long story short, I'm working on a shmup engine that'll be entirely done in 3D (gameplay will of course be 2D -- think Einhander), and I know enough to make the game, but not enough to work on a cross-platform world editor of decent quality (I'm not experienced enough in GUI-specific things at the moment, I just never really touched the subject).

I'm thinking of having levels made in a way that you can edit them in a text format, constructed of "tiles" that are .MD2 models of widths that are multiples of 64 or something like that.  A sample level definition file might look something like:

activecolumn 5    ; column where action occurs (in this hypothetical example, all the road tiles are in this column), every other column is foreground and background

skybox images/storm.tga
music audio/level3.ogg

tiledef X [emptytile]
tiledef 0 tiles/road1.md2   ; 64x64
tiledef 1 tiles/road2.md2   ; 64x64
tiledef 2 tiles/terrain.md2 ; 128x128
tiledef 3 tiles/factory.md2 ; 128x128
tiledef 4 tiles/foreground1.md2  ; 512x128

mapdef
2 X 2 X 1 4 X
X X X X 1 X X
2 X 2 X 1 X X
X X X X 0 X X
2 X 2 X 0 X X
X X X X 0 X X
3 X 2 X 0 X X
X X X X 1 X X
end

...

From a programming standpoint this can save time on learning GUI programming just to make a world editor (and there's other things about custom level editors that I see complications  from, such as if I change something in a custom-made file format... I've self-imposed an artificial deadline on this project to get it done before December).  From a design standpoint, however, this can potentially make it a pain in the ass to model tiles in such a way that their geometry and textures would look seamless when placed next to each other in the game.  Perhaps I can write a Python script in Blender that can let me visualize tiles next to each other as I work on them, without affecting the ones I don't want to change?

Also I don't think modeling the whole level in Blender would work, because I don't know any free file formats that I could use, along with other technical concerns I have with limitations on textures (also I cannot model the entire level and export it as one big .MD2 file -- the format has a limitation of 4096 triangles per model).

>>3

Primarily because my resume looks like shit with a sub-3.0 GPA, no extracurricular activities or campus club memberships, no references because all my professors hated me because I avoided homework, and no prior employment record whatsoever, so I want to make something substantial that's a at least slightly "show-off"-y so I can at least have a modicum of a chance at getting interviews, if not actual jobs.

If I don't make an actual game, the least I can do is make an engine that other people can build games from.  I have the education and know-how as far as algorithms, optimizations, and fundamental mathematical theory of calculus and linear algebra is concerned, but I tend to be pokey because I obsess over every detail.

The sciencey shit doesn't scare me, but implementation-level things get on my nerves.  I'm what job interviewers refer to as "smart and useless", and I want to get myself out of that category.  I want to look the interviewer in the eye and say, "yes, I can and have written a game engine."