Sphere-SFML is stand-alone, runs on .NET. It's just that with SFML you have an option to export/compile to HTML5 in some way or another.
Nope, updatescripts are also meant for the map engine. But you don't need them outside of the map engine, since you can just call any old function from any of your own loops. Consider this:
function MyOwnGameLoop() {
SetFrameRate(60); //Forces short breaks with every FlipScreen() so the frame rate is forced to 60 and not "however much your system can handle". (Note: known for somewhat buggy behaviour in some Sphere versions)
while (true) {
UpdateStuff();
HandleInput();
SomeOtherThing();
RenderStuff();
FlipScreen();
}
}
Versus this in the map engine:
SetUpdateScript("UpdateStuff();");
SetRenderScript("RenderStuff();");