First of all, I want to say hi to all the members of PGD.

In my school, we're all required to make a simple game for our Computers class at the end of our graduate year.
The only bigger restriction is that it's developed in Free Pascal.
Which is not a problem, as I have quite some experience with it.

We're allowed to use any graphics and such libraries we want. So I'm kinda stuck at choosing one (I was thinking OpenAL for sound).

The game would be a 2D sidescrolling (or not if it's too complicated) platformer OR a simple 2D shooter like Soldat, only not so advanced.
That are my two ideas for now.

So, basically, I'm looking for a graphics library that's not too complicated, but not too restrictive either. Savage recommended using SDL. What do you think? (just looking for different opinions )

We have about a month to complete, so I think the platformer is a better idea, since it doesn't require advanced stuff like AI and such. But then again, I love a challenge, so I would LOVE to make a 2D FPS, but I just don't know if it is possible to finish it in such a short time...