This paper describes technical and educational issues related to the development of SIMMPATICO, a multimedia tool for the teaching of Portuguese as a foreign language. The first section presents an overview of the motivation for the project. Package organization is discussed in the second section, including the linguistic approach and its methodological organization, and the hypermedia structure and interface/icon study. The third section covers technical aspects, including hardware requirements, sound, image, computer-generated animation and images, and video. The conclusion addresses evaluation methods and plans for the prototype testing of the system, as well as the goal of developing an online version of the system and anticipated problems related to this goal. Three figures illustrate: hypermedia relations; the background image, dialogue icons, and video control buttons; and SIMMPATICO's font and main character. A table presents the video production chain. (DLS)