The game should be developed with
Delphi, so it could be played on Windows 32-bit OS.
Delphi allows an easy conversion
to Kylix in order to compile the game for Linux OS.
Graphics involved in the game should
be in an open source format, or at least, a graphic format that
can be used cross-platform (PNG should be the best, but GIF and
JPEG are allowed)
Music involved in the game should
be the most compatible as possible.
MP3 allows great quality for a fair filesize but it’s not
the best ever for videogames musics.
The XM (extended module) fileformat
is interesting as it contains only once the WAV files for instruments,
and the melody written in a MIDI-like way. But I don’t know
yet if XM music can be played on Linux OS with a plugin (on Windows,
the library NPMOD32.DLL can allow easily to play XM files in a Delphi
application)
MP3 is an interesting fileformat
for sound effects, unless we find a better format later.
At that point, any ideas are welcome.
The game should not involve requirements
like DirectX which are dedicated to Windows and are not supported
by Linux. The game should remain easy to develop, easy to distribute
and only involve popular-fileformat graphics, sounds, music.
For Delphi as well as for Kylix,
using custom components should be done only if they are available
for both platforms. Components can help a lot and save worktime,
but they are useless if the game could be run on Windows and not
on Linux.
The game should be distributed in
a ZIP file, self-installable for Windows and also for Linux.
This project is still under development.
If you want to contribute, visit our Sourceforge
page for any useful information.