A thought came to me one day while I was creating a level using the orig_fire tileset. Specifically, I had placed a vertical line of the flamethrower hazards, and while playtesting I thought "Wouldn't it look cool if those flamethrowers were staggered, instead of all firing at once?"
What I am suggesting is an ability to offset the initial frame of constantly animating objects, such as fire hazards, water hazards, traps with animated idle states, and exit animations.
This should have absolutely no impact in gameplay (i.e. clear physics); it would merely be a cosmetic change.
My idea will of course require changes to the level save format, requiring an extra (optional?) piece of information to specify the frame offset.
But I imagine that it should be easily backwards compatible: if an item does not specify this extra piece of info, then it is treated as having no offset - the item plays from frame 0 as usual.
I would love to hear feedback/ideas/criticisms.