I’ve converted my latest side scrolling flash game into an engine over the last couple weeks. I’m making it to simplify a lot of the “loops” that need to be run through when creating a new game.
For instance all the listeners that need to be setup to load xml/images becomes just a bunch of bloated code. I’ve specialized the loader classes to take care of that, so all you need to do is load an image- and check when it’s ready. Since you have a main loop, needing listeners seems to be just an extra step.
The engine will be setup to provide a good foundation for all 2d genre games.
Levels are seperated into “screens” so that I can patch existing screens together, and may be able to even re-use screens with separate graphics.
I was able to integrate box2d as the physics engine, but have an issue with it simulating everything, rather than just what is on screen (for a scrolling game). I might have to take it apart and customize it for what I need. For instance my RPG game has an enormous amount of tiles, and if a similar game needed physics, it should never be done on more than 4 screens at a time (assuming you stop in the middle of all four).
I have posted the side scroller created without the engine on facebook, but will finish it up with final graphics and with better transitions using the engine. After that, I will redo my asteroids game, and start on an arcade game like bejeled/tetris/connect4!