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Project Expectations
This document serves to solidify Pine's goals and the community's expectations from it. This is the canonical reference point for the direction and vision of the project. This is not a technical document, but rather a high-level view of what we are trying to achieve.
Video gaming has gotten complex. With rising mainstream gaming expectations, video game software and hardware has become less approachable for those who are not tech savvy. It should take minimal or zero interaction from a user to boot a device and play a game. Playing a video game should not require an online identity, account, or credit card.
Pine aims to create a low cost, low complexity platform for gaming. It will provide a minimal user environment and ecosystem for streamlining game distribution and management. Games will be built on top of web standards (HTML 5). All source code for the platform and the games that run on it will be open and free whenever feasible.
Since we are targeting low cost hardware, games must be optimized for the environment. The initial goal is to support games with SNES-ish graphical quality.
A Pine-powered computer should be able to plug into a TV and work with standard USB input devices. Users should not have to deal with desktops or file systems. Pine's target is educational and independent gaming. A focus on mainstream gaming may come later.
If a revenue model becomes necessary to enable continued development and network upkeep, it will be considered. However, this is not meant to be a for-profit project.
HTML 5 is Pine's game platform. HTML 5 development tools are extremely mature and powerful, and deployment is nearly frictionless. Making games should be easy, so we want to minimize technical barriers for game developers. Hobbyists should also be able develop games with a completely free, open source and robust toolchain. Developing games should not require special hardware.
HTML 5 gives us all of this.
There will be several components to Pine.
This refers to the software stack that powers the hardware. The stack must be completely open source, to benefit both users' freedom and developers' sanity.
Pine must provide an online ecosystem to distribute games. This ecosystem will be curated (LIBERALLY) to protect users. This is the distribution process by which users will obtain games.
Users will not be required to create an account or online identity to obtain games.
Another function of the ecosystem is to enhance the gaming experience with leaderboards and achievements, as that is what modern gamers have come to expect. Unless a game is an MMO to some degree, this integration should not be forced upon users. In most cases, playing a game should not require network access. It is merely an enhancement to the gaming experience for users that want it.
A Pine game must take unique technical considerations, mostly due to the low cost hardware. A goal of Pine is to provide a toolchain for optimizing games for the platform. The toolchain will also provide ecosystem integration tools.