I was recently approached to develop a children's educational computer game
version of a real (wood etc.) game
(looks like a pretty good game).
I said I would only be interested if I could do the first implementation in
Smalltalk (Squeak or Pharo).
But if I develop this game in Smalltalk what am I dealing with in terms of
releasing this product
to a customer (over the Internet).
1) I know I have to build a suitable executable but I have never done
this. I have only written Smalltalk code that I then
use. So how do I build such an image and how big is it (assume code
for game is small (say 3000 lines of code)).
2) How do I get the virtual image on the customer's machine. Keep in mind
the customer is someone somewhere
on the Internet who probably knows little about how to install
Smalltalk or anything else. I am assuming here that
installing the game and installing the VM are two different tasks. Is
there a way to make this a single task?
3) So far I am assuming the target machine is Linux/Windows/Mac on a
Desktop/Laptop.
But can Smalltalk be run on any of the IPad/Notebook/etc out there?
These machines represent a larger game market I believe.
4) Assuming I can arrange for my computer game (if I write it) to be
installed are there memory/cpu usage issues
that I need to worry about (the game itself will use a minimal of
memory/cpu except for graphics which also
is pretty reasonable). I am thinking here of IPads etc. For
Desktops/Laptops there should be no problem.
Download time and subsequent storage space is also a concern;
remember the device is probably used for
lots of other things so the amount of space allocated for games may be
small compared to the space on the
machine?
5) Sorry for the redundancy if these questions have been asked before
(which I am sure they have).
Thanks for any feedback; I am sure others are interested in this question
too.
Ralph Boland
