THE PLATFORM 2D GAME ENGINE
© Copyright 2009 Patrick VanDusen

--!--NOTICE--!--
	The Platform 2D game engine is pre-alpha software; some of what is 
claimed below is not yet implemented and this entire document is subject to 
change!

LICENSE

	Platform is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify
it under the terms of the GNU Lesser General Public License as published by 
the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or (at your 
option) any later version.

	Platform is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but 
WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY 
or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the GNU Lesser General Public 
License for more details.

	You should have received a copy of the GNU Lesser General Public 
License along with Platform.  If not, see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.


ABOUT
	
	An alternate name for the Platform 2D Game Engine is simply
Platform. The UNIX name for Platform is platform-engine.

	Platform is a game engine designed for use with 2-dimensional game
development, in the style of traditional video games from before the 21st
century.


DEVELOPMENT

	Platform is written primarily in C++, and is dependant on libraries 
such as SDL and Lua. Game development using Platform is intended to be done 
in either C++ or using Lua scripting, made possible through the use of an 
included Lua interpreter.

	Although Platform is open source, and therefore can be potentially 
built in any way that the builder might prefer, the official build system 
supported by the Platform project is CMake. CMake works by generating the
form of build files native to the platform currently in use, and then the 
builder is expected to use these native build files to ultimately build 
Platform for use. More information on installing and using CMake can be
found at that project's website at the following URL:

	http://www.cmake.org/

	The Platform project uses the Git version control system. The 
latest development version of the source code can be downloaded from 
Github, at the following URL:

	http://github.com/pdusen/platform-engine/tree/master

	The easiest way to join in on Platform development is to create 
an account at Github, and then use the tools provided by Github to create 
a fork of the platform-engine repository. Then once the changes have been 
made, use Github's tools to request a pull back to the main repository. If 
these changes, according to standards held by the maintainer of the main 
repository, are considered to be of good quality and beneficial to the 
project, they may be merged at this person's discretion.

  The Platform Project has no official standards for style beyond the 
expectations of the maintainer; however, for guidelines to go by for 
general style that may be found acceptable, please us the Google C++ 
Style Guide, which can be found at the following URL:

  http://google-styleguide.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/cppguide.xml

	Information on the in-depth usage of Git itself is outside the 
scope of this document. There are numerous resources available from which 
to learn git, including the Git Reference Manual, which can be found at 
the following URL:

	http://www.kernel.org/pub/software/scm/git/docs/

CREDITS

The following developers have contributed to the Platform project:

VanDusen, Patrick	patrick@pdusen.com	Project Leader, Maintainer