I guess he referred to 2D polygon-based game engines :) Which is actually taken care by 3D game engines anyway nowadays, since it's a subset of it.

I know your post was tongue-in-cheek, but it's not quite that simple, I think. For one thing the design aesthetic is almost completely different -- if look at the (awesome!) Another World[1] there is very little in the form of shading and such. It's much more like an old-school cartoon than an actual realistic rendering -- which is what most 3D games (and cartoons!) tend to strive towards these days.

EDIT: Btw, IIRC this is the only game that I ever played where I didn't actually realize when it had started. The intro -> gameplay transition is so seamless that I didn't even notice it. Pure genius.

[1] Just in case you haven't had the chance to experience it first-hand. Here's a play-through video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zgkf6wooDmw

Exactly. I mean an engine that's optimized to render vector polygons with 2D animation. Maybe OpenGL is all you'd need, but it seems like there could be libraries that let you focus on the animation rather than the low level details.