Im curious how you might handle this in sgdk2. I consider the fact that game time is directly connected to FPS to be a disadvantage in 1.4.x. There is a frame limiter but it conflicts with vsync which will cause a nasty jitter if they don't match or if the frame limit isnt diviable, ex: 30 fps 60hz vsync. If a project ran slow frame skipping could be imployed to keep game time consistant as well as making sure the gaming experiene was roughly the same for all users. I don't know what frame skipping effects would be on collsion detection and the like though. If there will be any syncing with music it would be a futher concern. I also hope that you add vsync controls for running projects. It is true video drivers can force vsync on or off but the default is 'application specific' leaving the control to the application.
As this ties a bit into rendering and the fact you are using dx9/d3d I'd like to know if control of the render/blitting will be made avaible as far as linear (blur) or nearest ( blocky) and if the games intended resolution can be overidden by such. It is of particular importance for LCD's but in general as well. Game system emulators have to deal with some of this so perhaps lookinto into something like VBA
http://vba.ngemu.com/ would be useful. Something that would be neat is the inclusion of visual filters that run independantly of the game/project in question. A resolution doubler, fake scan lines, fake lcd, motion blurr, etc. If you could invoke different filters per project that would be a plus too but I dont know how feasbile this would be. Motion bluring would rock though =]
I suppose this is pretty much engine related which I know hasnt started yet but just throwing some ideas and thoughts out there. I really do want to see some measures taken to insure the game i run locally runs the same speed for someone else. The frame limiter in 1.4 feels like something incomplete and hacked in.
Render effects
I'm hoping that there will be some tools for lighting and other effects. SGDK2 will be dx9 and its pretty much the norm for modern 2d games. example: If I'm iin the dark but have a glow around the player to see what is immediatly infront of me or there is an explosion/ etc producting light. The level editor could drop various styles of lights like droping a path on a map, be it fixed, moving or in relation to a sprite/object. Particle effects for exploisions, weapons, etc could be scriptable.
With translucany I can do a lot of things like shadow maps via tiles but dynamic lighting will be more tricky depending. Basiclly I'm lookin for coded effects where producing them from a png/file is not the best option. This could be considerd for transition effects, fading or flashing a screen to a color etc as well. I suppose I am invisioning a gfx scripting engine for effects plus light droppin on map. Feel free to tell me I'm out of my gord for the request =P
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