I'm around episode 150, and Casey has been mentioning making a big transition once all engine code is complete, so that people who only want to learn coding on top of an engine can jump in, skipping all the engine stuff. Back around ep 150 the goal was to transition at ep 200 or 250.

Is that still a thing/did it happen yet?

Sorry if this has been asked a million times, my google fu is failing me.

He has just started on changing the engine to more proper 3D rendering last episode, so we are probably still a little ways off of the "engine complete" stage

Just curious, is it allowed to use the HMH engine code to make and release games yet, or is something like SDL2 a better option?

Casey has stated on stream that the win32 platform layer can be used anytime (though contact Casey for approval first); however, the game code is licensed for 2 years after the release of handmade hero.

The license is on his front page:

https://handmadehero.org/

How will the source code be licensed?
Two years after the final version of the game is released, 100% of the source code will be released into the public domain. Prior to that, all rights are reserved, so please contact me for permission before you use it in your own projects. This is a precaution to prevent people from directly cloning the game until after it has been out for a reasonable time, since this project is an expensive endeavor and I hope to offset some of the cost through sales of the game proper.

Thanks Brian. The preventing clones is the interesting part.

Hjortshoej
He has just started on changing the engine to more proper 3D rendering last episode, so we are probably still a little ways off of the "engine complete" stage

Okay, thanks for the update