@xianc78 out of curiosity, what's your custom solution look like?

@Binkle I use the MonoGame framework. My level format is just basically an XML file. I have a tilemap and then a list of objects. I have to manually write the XML files because I'm too lazy to make a level editor.

@xianc78 so you're doing it as God intended then

@Binkle Placing tiles isn't that bad because you have some visual representation, but placing objects is a bitch since you have no visual representation of the non-tile objects.

For my next project, I'm considering creating my own (non-XML) format because I fucking hate DOM.

@xianc78 yeah that's true I can imagine that probably sucks

You may consider looking into csd files (very easy to parse, one line per object, etc). I find them useful for quick configuration-related stuff

@NEETzsche Maps.

@xianc78 also don't do an engine unless you know what you're doing. Every game written in the same engine has a samey "feel" no matter what

@NEETzsche Which is partly why I avoid using them. Frameworks like Pygame, MonoGame, and Love2D are good enough if you are just doing 2D stuff. If I was doing 3D, I would probably use an engine.

@xianc78 @NEETzsche Have you looked into Orx at all? I remember it looking pretty good but I started doing my own thing and lost track of it

@xianc78 @NEETzsche this thing: https://www.orx-project.org/

@Binkle @NEETzsche Haven't heard of it until just now. It seems interesting.