SGDK Version 2.1 Released

Version 2.1 of Scrolling Game Development Kit includes many large updates and enhancements. The biggest is perhaps the switch to OpenGL, which has already demonstrated promise for being able to port the program the the games created with it to Linux (although more friendly support for this is yet to come). For more detail, refer to this complete list of notable updates and features:
1. Upgrade to .NET 2.0: SGDK2 and the projects it generates now rely on .NET Framework version 2.0 and take advantage of new features added in this version. The SGDK2 Project itself requires Visual C# 2008 or .NET 3.0 to compile, but can run on any system that has .NET Framework 2.0. It also knows how to compile game projects on any system with .NET 2.0.
2. OpenGL Framework: Version 2.0 was based on Managed DirectX. SGDK 2.1 uses the OpenTK library to access the OpenGL interface to video hardware, allowing SGDK2 and the projects created with it to potentially be more easily ported to other platforms. This also provided an apparent significant performance boost.
3. Improved Message Functions: Displaying messages is now an integrated function in SGDK2 instead of a custom object. Furthermore, it now uses a tileset as the font instead of using the font support provided by the system. This means that you can use graphics and animated tiles/characters in your messages. A new message preview window is provided to assist in laying out the message at design time.
4. Frame Rate Limit: If your game runs too fast on some systems, you can now use the LimitFrameRate function to control the speed.
5. Cut Rules: It's now possible to cut a group of rules when using a rule editor. This can also be used to delete hierarchies of rules.
6. Upgrade Documentation: This help file is now being built with Sandcastle and Sandcastle Help File Builder instead of NDOC because NDOC did not support .NET 2.0. As a result the build process is somewhat simplified and the content is better linked, among other improvements.
7. Implement ability to convert rules to functions: Sprite Rules and Plan rules can now be converted to functions in custom code objects that can be called with a single rule and edited in the code editor.
8. Implement ability to create sprites from templates using a pop-up menu from the new command (based on templates in the library, which you're free to expand and share by exporting your own templates).
9. Implement ability to call sprite functions from plan rules.
10. Upgrade to FMOD stable release 4.20.06.