That's a bummer, I can't really think of anyway to make the collision better the way it's setup now without too much here, there and everywhere.

Could (well I would assume it could) the collision detection of the sprite engine itself be improved and be expanded on options?, I know a couple of people who have worked on the source before and are familiar with it, they don't come online much but when they do, I might bug them to have a look for me .

So if I use that, at the point I want the game paused, then I would use that after everything has been drawn to the buffer/surface?

Oh and another small thing, I figured I can pause by simply disabling the timer, but then the screen won't re-draw itself, or perhaps I'm wrong on that, I haven't tested that yet.