C Roguelike game

I've started to code a simple Roguelike game in C but shit tough. First, I'll have to learn to use fucking ncurses. Not that difficult, next step: write the fucking game engine. A shitload of algorithms ( from fucking Dungeon generation to Pathfinding through evolving AI...and worst thing is some shit requires compression algorithms as well ). After I get this shit done, a harder quests will start: class system, quest system and battle system.
I've tried to read some RL games sources but shit is either obsolete ( I've seen inline ASM snippets ) or long as fuck ( Nethack's source...and it's pretty tough to understand, as well )
Can you RL programmers tell me where to start? I feel lost.

>>22
I'm moving to SDL + SDL_ttf
Good idea, but then please make a Unicode roguelike.

C+SDL is always more portable and efficient than Pygame
Bad idea. Why the fuck are you going to waste your time like this for a roguelike of all games? You can implement this thing in Tcl and it'll be far faster than enough. (In fact, some are implemented in Tcl.) Use Python+Pygame (which uses SDL underneath) or whatever you fancy; go for features and comfort, not after --fomg-optimized. Concentrate on your game, not on inline assembly inner loops.

Since I'm writing this app to kill time and to enhance my skills I don't think FIOC would be a good choice.
0/10

Python allows you to exercise far more skills than C, develop far better abstractions, and work far nicer and more conceptually nice. Python is about functors, about coroutines, about decorators. C is about luk I save 36 CPU cycles looool. In fact, if you want to exercise more skills, consider even Lisp (PLT Scheme, maybe) or Haskell.

I'm thinking about moving to C++ for an OOP approach but I see no need for classes, abstractions and constructors for a RL game.
Nooo, faggot! Now you want objects? Use Python or Smalltalk then! Why would you want all the immense stinking failure and mess that C++ is? And you don't even want classes? Then try Self, Io, whatever, but the last part really made me RAGE. You always need abstraction. If you want to write shitty code use QBasic. Otherwise, work properly.