Okay, so I decided on a quick side project to my MMORPG engine - a 2D side scroller engine. I've spent three days on this, and so far, I have:

- sprite animation
- maps with automated collision detection
- shooting
- AI enemies that follow and attack (though they're a little bit thick)
- scrolling maps, but without *only* moving the map (if you know what I mean?) player moves freely, map scrolls when necessary

Not bad for three days work, eh?

I've got a small video demo available, which I'm updating regularly. It can be found at the following address:
http://gabehabe.com/...roller/demo.avi

The graphics are absolutely crap, but they do help to demonstrate the functionality quite well.

The engine is unique [I think] in that it requires absolutely no programming to create a game with it. So, [when it's finally complete] you'll be able to simply drop your maps in a certain folder and it'll read them systematically, detect collision points on the images, and play them one by one. You'll even be able to add video files as cutscenes between levels, and sound - all read in dynamically at runtime.