I'm a programmer with over 6 year experience on web developing and 3 years experience of C++ and decided to develop a game. I know how libraries and frameworks can speed up the work after you passed the learning curve, so I want to grab a game engine, but don't know which!

My project is basicly a side scrolling 2D beat em up, kinda like golden axe and streets of rage, with some RPG elements. Is there a specific engine that could help me? Considering it is not a flat side scrolling (you could move up and down, like golden axe, but still with 2D graphics.

Help :)

PS: I wish it is multiplatform, would prefer something in C++ or Python

I already played with klik&play and RPG Maker around 10 years ago, I assume that Multimedia Fusion is something like that, I was wondering to get something more like a programming engine. Thanks for the tips :)

From top of my head:

• Plain OpenGL
• Plain DirectX (Windows Only)
• DirectX ToolKit (Windows Only)
• SFML
• Allegro 5
• SDL

I would recommend Allegro 5