I am working on a simple platform game. The game is going to have some platforms that the player (and monsters) can walk and jump on and so on. I am wondering how I should render the platforms?

I am using a sprite class for the player, monsters and stuff like that. Should I use sprites for the platforms as well? Or is there some smarter way to do it? Perhaps a background image (with painted platforms on, rendered just before the level/stage starts) and some data structure to calculate collisions is advisable?

One problem I see is bad performance if I use sprites for platform graphics. If I have a screen with many platforms that is painted by using 32x32 sprites, I roughly need to use 300-400 sprites. Tests shows that my ?¢_ogame/graphic engine?¢__ can handle 500-600 32x32 sprites with smooth moving sprites and no performance hit, but I hate the idea that more that half of my sprites are used just to paint platforms.

Any help is very appreciated