I experimented with lighting and normal mapping today, and it brought noticeable changes to the image! However, the lights or normal mapping flicker from time to time, and I can't figure out what's wrong.
Regarding the flickering, do you have a video demonstrating it? My guess is that you need to use floor() at the final position of your camera; or increase the resolution of application_surface. I've had something similar before and this solved it.