I don't know exactly what you think is going to be "stopping everything". I'm guessing you were thinking of using WAIT for animations? If that's the case, we can do better than that.
It's simple enough: in the DRAW function you use SPCHR to change the sprite's appearance.
Use
B3=BUTTON(3) to know when a button is released.
So for example, for attack 1, you can do this:
ACLS
XSCREEN 3
OPTION STRICT
VAR B,B2,B3
VAR PX,PY,EX,EY
VAR COUNTER=0
SPSET 0,u,v,w,h 'Only you know what values go here
SPHOME 0,w/2,h/2 'These coordinates must be at the center of your sprite
PX=100:PY=120 'Sprite's position
SPOFS 0,PX,PY
SPSET 1,u_,v_,w_,h_ 'Enemy sprite
SPHOME 1,w_/2,h_/2
EX=300:EY=120
SPOFS 1,EX,EY
@LOOP
VSYNC
B=BUTTON()
B3=BUTTON(3) 'This one returns buttons that are released
CALCULATE
DRAW
GOTO @LOOP
DEF CALCULATE
IF COUNTER>0 THEN DEC COUNTER
IF B3 AND #A THEN COUNTER=20
END
DEF DRAW
SPOFS 0,PX,PY 'Let's assume the player's sprite is #0
SPCHR 0,u1,v1,w1,h1 'You put the idle sprite here. Look at the documentation to understand which values to put
IF B AND #A THEN SPCHR 0,u2,v2,w2,h2 'Charging attack 1 sprite
IF COUNTER>0 THEN SPCHR 0,u3,v3,w3,h3 'Released attack 1 sprite
SPOFS 1,EX,EY 'Enemy sprite
END
I used a COUNTER variable to have the released animation appear for precisely 20 frames. There are other methods to do this I guess, but this is the first one that came to my mind.
You can also animate sprites with SPANIM, and it won't stop the game or anything.
Everything we're doing to the player sprite in this code can also be done to enemy sprites.
With all of this in mind, you can definitely have both a player and many enemies on screen without any issues.
Hopefully I didn't screw up the explanation, so let me know if something isn't clear.
