A few very productive days with lots of progress... lots of momentum.  That's always trouble when you come up to "the wall."  The momentum you have gained certainly works against you.

So in the few days, I created a usable map editor for the game:

I created a test application to walk through the created maps:

And then I created the graphical version using XNA:

So I'm thinking I'm good to go.  Even though I've written everything in VB, I should still be able to make it work.  It's all .NET, right?

First, I make the C# XNA game project and reference my VB.NET DLL.  Point the code to the proper methods in the DLL as needed and now compile.  But it doesn't compile.  Some error about needing a reference to Xna.Framework and Xna.Framework.Game.  Well, of course I have those.  After deeper investigation, there are two different Xna.Framework (and.Game) DLLs.  One for Windows and one for the Zune.  Guess which one I was referencing?  The other one.  That's why it worked so well in the Windows build of the game.

More juggling of code, DLLs and references and eventually rewriting all my XNA code in C# (Gah.), I got a good compile and deployment to the Zune.  However, now it just doesn't start.  The Zune reboots before starting the game.  How do you troubleshoot something like that?

I've hit the wall and it's time to walk away.  Just walk away.