Then you know how a 16x16 pixel texture would look when zoomed in?
They look awesome. I'm serious. Don't have time for anything more than this hit-and-run post now, but I'll be back.
The only game i can think about, which used flat, low res sprites at 1024x768 is Darwinia. And they used colour to distinguish the units from dark, uniform backgrounds.
Even if we'd use them without any blending (nearest point sampling), which would give the game a stylised look, but make the objects recognizable, at longer distances they would fail to convey the information they are meant to convey.
Additionally, assuming the terrain would be made of real-color blocks, the objects might start blending in with their backgrounds. Of course, white dwarf icon, on an obsidian floor would be crisp and sharp, but the same white dwarf icon on sand, would disappear.
Now, it could be solved by making the color of the icon complementary to it's backgrounds, or even use some more advanced algorithms, to allow the sprites to stay visible regardless of their background, but this would produce a huge overhead, as the screen would need to be analysed pixel by pixel, each frame.
As I said, everything you imagine can be done, but I'm not that keen on it. Additionally it provides a nice segue to this:
But really, throwing it onto sourceforge or anywhere else will do the project much more good than just choosing a successor.
As seen in this discussion, a successor is necessary, even if the code is to be open sourced. Someone has to have control, and the final say of the things that go into the code. Otherwise the various ideas will dilute the resources, and lead nowhere, as each participant will pull the project in his/hers personal direction.
And if I'm going to manage the open-sourced project (which I would
hate to be forced to do), I'm propably not going to mainline using sprites, barring a demo, which would dispel my objections.