Hello all, thanks so much for reading my vague beginner question. I have beginner experience with OOP languages, with rudimentary understanding of python, PHP, etc and have made very small-scale programs/pages, though I’ve never created an entire dynamic website/app from scratch before. Basically, my goal is to create a website with interactive features that’s kind of a blend of Tamagotchi and Neopets:

  • Users will be able to create accounts with unique inventories, currency, etc
  • Virtual “pets” – this is the main focus. I want it to be like an actual virtual Tamagotchi, where the pet moves around inside the bounds of an onscreen “device” and responds to buttons the user clicks 
  • The buttons clicked in the virtual pet device draw from the user’s account inventory, currency, and just overall have to be able to interact both to and from the device itself and the website
  • Every pet will be unique (created/uploaded by me) and there would be an option to customize how the device looks, like the BG, color, etc
  • The pet will have unique animations and walk around/react to user input

I just want someone to point me in the right direction to get started because that’s always been the hardest part for me. I know I’ll need a database like SQL for all of the accounts and such. But what languages would be best/easiest to handle creating the virtual pet area and then having that interact with the backend? I messed around a bit with P5.js, but I’m not sure if that’s the way to go when I'll have so many unique images and more complex animations. Also if there's any specific templating languages or frameworks that would work well for this, that'd be appreciated, too.

Please forgive me if this has been asked before, I tried to search but couldn't find anything similar!