The A-Engine: A new Beat 'em Up game engine

[A-Man]

@Someoneelse: A buzzword? I think not. How's a spacecraft made of chocolate innovative in the functionality sense? You explained it by yourself right there. Replacing the main "menu" with a stage, however, alters the way you operate between the modes. Don't compare apples to oranges. A better analogy would be comparing a spacecraft operated by a terminal, where you'd give it commands on what it'd do next, and another that is operated by a wheel and pedals.

What is important here is whether it is going to appeal to the players or not in the first place. If the problem is just with the time, one can just assign shortcut keys (say the numeral keys) for each room, or even have a popup menu for that purpose. It can be made to just be a stage in VS mode, and it will actually be, but in that you can't allow stuff like letting the player get into the closed rooms.

As for the effort, it wouldn't really be much different than creating a stage since every menu is a game instance by itself where every item is an object affected by gravity and all. I am still going to give it a go and see how it works for myself. You made some very good points though, and I should bring them up next time I discuss this with the team guys.


@Rashar: Replicating the LF2 feel into the an A-Engine powered game should not be a problem at all. Actually, I am planning to write an LF2 to A-Engine character converter, but not until I get a stable A-Engine build first.