Can I just say that when the thought of a community engine dropped - ZenGL was darn high on my list of things to look at for making it. That work you did on ZenGL was pretty darn good IMHO

That said, I see a recurring theme here when looking at pascal and competition entries - pascal seeming less suitable for rapid competition game development than some of the other alternatives. Thus, would it not make sens to build a "system" (and by that I mean tools/framework/snippets/methodology/engine/thing) that would help make pascal more competitive in this space?

For instance, it could be an early compo of the kind Super Vegeta mentioned (with implementing things AI/algorithms/whatnot) to get the base code set. Or one could establish the base code and then launcch a compo to make use of it - which would provide a good data to develop a game engine on.

In short, what I'm saying is that 1. we have a problem in the game-sphere. Fragmentation of the codebase (how many of us have our own personal frameworks/engines/so on?), a high barrier of entry (pascal is currently seemingly unsuited to the compo game development environment) and that 2. we have a LOT of components and people. I realize how hard making an engine/API is - more so for a robust and stable system. (Hey - my prometheus engine is well known at LD. For all the wrong reasons). and finally: were pascal programmers. Our problems are not boredom, lack of projects and the like. Its lack of time. And as pascal programmers we're practical people who seem to be known for being practical people who are good at making things that work and fixing things so they work.

Just some food for thougt. After all, I tend to get kind of excited when community projects are possibly going to happen because its one of the few instances where I can work on something I couldn't do on my own with my limited abilities and the PGD community has a lot of talent that I sure wouldnt mind to see at work on something that could make everyones lives easier and help cement pascal as something that isnt THAT obsolete teaching toy people seem to think it is when reading about what it once was.