MUGEN

MUGEN (stylized as M.U.G.E.N) is a free two-dimensional (2D) fighting game engine released on July 17, 1999 by Elecbyte, developed using the C Programming Language that originally used the "Allegro" programming library. The current version uses the "SDL" library.

The name of the engine is derived from the Japanese word Mugen (無限, mugen^? , infinity), due to the infinite or unlimited possibilities that it offers.

License

MUGEN's license is defined as free and non-commercial use, that is, it is distributed without authorization for non-commercial purposes. Alternative versions such as NOMEN have been developed, based on exclusively open components under the GPL license.

For a time between 2002 and 2009, the distribution of MUGEN was not legal, or at least, not entirely, as Elecbyte disappeared without renewing permission for users; however, it did not prohibit its use either. In fact, users of this game engine have continued to use it, saying that Elecbyte released MUGEN as a BETA version and under the promise of renewing the permission, when this did not happen, the product (MUGEN) passed from be shareware to freeware, that is, it went from being a loan by Elecbyte to being a completely free program, which, according to sources, is false since in the MUGEN manual it can be clearly read that each legal version of MUGEN is "borrowed". » for a certain period and at no time was it mentioned that there would be new versions. The last "legal" version of MUGEN expired in June 2002 at 12:01.

However, MUGEN quickly became one of the most used programs around the world, since thanks to its ease of use you can create a dream fighting game. When the Elecbyte company confirmed its return, it released a "new" version of this engine that promises to fix bugs in the program, as well as add more features, improve resolution, Winner Messages for characters, etc. At the moment it is unknown if the original author of the improvement is Elecbyte itself or a group of users who intend not to make this system obsolete, although at the moment there are no legal indications that Electbyte is behind the new updates, which due to expiration of the beta license are considered "dubious legality" updates.

Development

There is a lot that can be done with the engine (but in subjective opinion, for many it is a game), from emulating already established systems like the method vs. from Capcom, the gameplay of SNK/K.O.F. or create a completely new one.

It is possible to have fighters from any game, and even create new fighters with new and different abilities. Within this is what is already established among the professionals and creators of MUGEN as "original characters" and the edited or modified of an already existing material.

Following the same premise, completely original scenarios, life bars and background music can also be added to the game, as long as certain MUGEN limits are not exceeded, which will be discussed later.

How to program for MUGEN is not a very complex topic.

Types of game design

Regardless of any type of classification in terms of gameplay or versatility, there is a common factor in the usual classification of classic fighting games: aesthetics. The aesthetic design of a game is one of the most important and expensive parts of a fighting game, and perhaps the most difficult to define. Due to the great impact that the good use of aesthetics in a game causes on the player, we can classify fighting games (especially those developed with MUGEN) into 3 basic types of design. It should be noted that the aesthetics of the characters themselves can be as varied as the inventiveness of the developers, although guidelines are usually followed for each type of design in particular.

• Classic: are those classic games that have some main theme or a clear and specific general plot (a fight to death, a martial arts tournament or street struggle; for example). They often share common aesthetic traits among the intertwined characters and stories whose meeting point is the central theme of the game and the fights themselves. Some famous examples of video games with a classic aesthetic design are Street Fighter, Tekken, Mortal Kombat and The King of Fighters.
• Crossover: to achieve a greater attraction of the fighting game, many developers and game producers choose to merge two or more famous "classic" games and do what is called a crossover. Basically, a crossover is composed of characters, scenarios and/or aesthetics of two or more popularly recognized fighting games. The theme and orientation of these games is a little side by side for the encouragement of facing characters from two different games in singular combat or in couples. The main motivations of the characters and their stories tend to be a little side-by-sided and make a parentheses by merging these universes, sometimes with illogical or "hypersurrealistic" explanations, and because often certain characters "arouse powers" by entering other universes, the gaming experience may not be satisfactory. In some cases these mixtures result in parallel stories or sequelae, although in many others they are simply a claim to revive certain licenses, without greater aspirations for the player than to reuse characters from other games with greater or less success. Some games like Super Smash Bros. o Marvel vs. Capcom are good examples of crossovers.
• Custom: with the development of the new technologies and the versatile and open licensed struggle engines, developers are increasingly adding character-creation engines or leaving an open door for the customization of the fighters. Since the start of the fighting games, it has always been a dream for any player to be able to customize his favorite characters to the taste, creating the perfect killing machine that adapts to each player's fighting style, either in appearance or way of fighting. From an aesthetic level, this ambition has become increasingly popular, to the point that the editors of characters are on the agenda. Games custom they are based on that the player himself designs aesthetically or mechanically his desired character. This design option has led certain pioneer companies to be the subject of complaints for copyright infringement, by introducing components and options that allow players to design characters that are very similar to those that appear in other sagas or under other trademarks. However, intellectual property laws are increasingly permissive about these new trends and technologies, and more and more games that incorporate this philosophy of play into their basic mechanics. Examples of custom games in recent generations are for example the Soulcalibur IV for PS3, Tekken 5 for Ps2, Tekken 6 and Tekken Tag Tournament 2 for Xbox 360 and Ps3. In addition to some MMORPG games that are not exactly fighting like the City of Heroes / City of Villains for PC.

Types of character designs

Basically MUGEN works with the characters in an "individual" way, that is, there are no character packs specially prepared for the same design, but the user can combine a selection of characters to his liking. Therefore, it is not surprising that many players configure characters in the likeness of, for example, John Cena (professional wrestling fighter), Ken (Street Fighter), Megaman (Capcom character), Shiki Tohno (Melty Blood) or Chuck Norris (renowned action actor); or even anime characters like Naruto, Goku or Ichigo.

Some freely distributed characters can be found on the Internet. The use of search engines like Google may well help find characters for M.U.G.E.N. in a very simple way. By the way, if you already own a copy of the engine, among its documentation there is precise information on how to add them, and even how to create them from scratch. Although the characters used by this engine are 2D "inside it" (ie in the sprites used to create them), some characters that can be found on web pages appear to be in 3D. This is misleading, as most M.U.G.E.N. works with 2D sprites, and may be due to designs originating from other games, made with other programs, or falsely created as 3D characters (known as 2.5D graphics).

The main program for editing the characters is Fighter Factory, developed by the company VirtuallTek, which contains a C language editor (with which the definition files are created ".def", of constants and states ".cns and.st" and of execution of commands ".Cmd"), a compressor image file compression (packaging PCX sprites into SFF files), sound file compressor (packing Waveform Audio Format sounds into SND files), and Adobe Color Table editor for sprite palettes. In later versions of the program, an image format converter was added, which automatically converts sprites in BMP or PNG formats into PCX format.

There are 16 types of characters according to their creation:

• Edited characters: those that come from images or sprites of existing but edited or modified creations. Within this category are the Characters Arrange, which no matter its origin (original or ripped) have a specific game mechanic of an original title (Marvel vs. Capcom arrange, Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 arrange, etc) or of some creator or publisher in specific (the POTS Styledeveloped by the editor Phantom of the Serverwhich combines different aspects of Capcom games, etc.)
• Original characters: those who have been created from scratch and are not related to any other existing and registered character (although they may look like any), provided that the creator's motivation has been to create a unique character and the coincidences are casual. In order for a character to be "original" both its origins, its background and history, and its clothing, physical appearance and animations must be more or less new or invented (depending mainly on the intentions of the developer). It is possible to rely on animals, mythological beings, characters of tele or media, commonly accepted stereotypes, instruments of daily use or even on mergers, imitations and parodies of other characters, as long as they exist notable differences that do not bother the original creators of the characters that were intended to parody, merge or imitate; and that allow them to differentiate them clearly from these.
• Echo character: those characters who reproduce totally or partially (and consciously by their creators) the movements, aesthetics or background of other recognized characters from other trademarks. Direct copies of other characters are not included in this category even if they are modified, either by changing textures, parameters of their attacks or the execution of their movements. For the character to be considered an "eco" there must be differences with the original, although the similarity between the original and the echo must be explicit. The echoes of a character with other clothing, colour or shape are not considered echoes to differentiate them from the original in combat mode P.V.P (Player Versus Player). Within this category are the EX characterswhich are alternative versions of other characters, whether possessed by a force or entity (like the Satsui no Hadou Street Fighter, the Orochi's Riot of Blood of The King of Fighters, etc.), artificially improved (Cyber, Armored characters) or devoid of their original power or improvement (human android conversions, warriors with their stolen powers, etc.).
• Semi-eco characters: those characters that reproduce a little or only some movements, the aesthetic or background of other recognized characters from other trademarks. For a character to be considered a "Semi-clon" there must be differences with the original, although a certain or short minimum detail should be made explicit between the whole original and the semi-ecos. Semi-ecos can be considered the semi echoes of a character with another dress, color or shape to differentiate them from the original in combat mode P.V.P (Player Versus Player).
• Copyed and glued characters: are characters that are direct copies of other recognized characters from trademarks. They are very useful when creating themed Mugens or simply to relieve the curiosity of a crossover with another character of different brand.
• Ripped characters: a ripped character is the one that has sprites or images extracted directly from a video game. They are not considered copies if they are exactly the same both in original background, appearance and attacks on the character of the game that has been taken from. If there are several versions of the same character in several games, it is only considered ripped from one of them and cloned from the rest.
• Chiefs: are those characters that serve in a special way on the plot and are generally more powerful than the rest. In addition to being Heads can be Rippeados, cloned or original, with the only condition of keeping their status as head in the game to which they have been incorporated. Examples of Chief might be Shao Kahn, M. Bison,Rugal Bernstein, or adaptations of heads of other style games like Bowser, Dr. Robotnik or Shredder
• Bonus characters: are those characters who act as a minigame itself. They are usually not essential in the plot or in the development of the game, but they provide an incentive for the game, especially in multiplayer modes. Unlike the special characters (described below), the functionality of these characters is beyond their power, as their goal is to have fun and make the game more interesting, not to give better characters to the players.
• Hidden characters: most of the fighting games have some hidden characters that have to be unlocked to be playable. Many of these characters are more powerful than usual (or even bosses), and they must always be unlocked by some "secret" procedure, which sometimes includes completing the game under certain conditions, and others must take a series of concrete steps. Some examples could be Smoke of Mortal Kombat III or Dr. Boskonovitch of Tekken 3.
• Characters hack/cheating: Some players with computer or very right knowledge in the modification of MUGEN create characters with certain features or movements that unbalance the game. These players hope they can always win without taking into account the playability and fun of other users, such as Omega Tom Hanks, Chuck Norris or Nightmare Broly. It is also possible that a character is poorly raised or unbalanced and produces an imbalance without its creator being aware of it. These characters are undesirable, and you need to adjust them or remove them to ensure a fun and exciting game, and as long as possible.
• Character texture: similar to clone characters, texture characters keep the characteristics and movements of the originals changing the physical appearance. They may vary in colors, clothing or physical appearance, but they are essentially the same character. The difference with a clone character is that the texture characters serve to differentiate the same character when fighting itself. It is essential that among the fighters of the game, the original character is found in the template in which the texture character will be chosen, since in essence they are the same fighter. An example of texture characters could be Panda/Kuma from the Tekken saga.
• Economic character: in English they are called Cheap Chars. They are exaggeratedly powerful characters who, in fighting with a common character, always win. However the cheap character could lose with another stronger character. The emblematic case is the character F1which parodies the specific function of the F1 key in the Mugen Debug mode, which is to reduce the opponent's life to zero.
• Box characters: refers to the characters created by one or a group of people dedicated to creating Box of characters specially designed to respond to the attacks, provocations and presentations of other characters from their same box, among them we can cite Andrés Borghi or Warner Cortez. These characters are usually better designed and texturized than others, they are the most difficult to get since most are handmade. Also, a Box character can interact with other characters if these are coded for such interaction, examples are the adaptations to the "Fatalities" of Mortal Kombat characters or the "Midnight Bliss" attack by the Demitri Maximoff character of the Darkstalkers saga
• Characters delayed (delays): also known as crap chars, refers to the wrong characters made or created; either due to lack of sprites in their movements, sprites with bad colors, created without permission from the original author or with pack of voices (in English it is said voicepack or soundpack) made with much exaggeration. These characters gave rise to the "Beatdowns" and "Vs. Retards Battle" on YouTube, where they show well-made character fights against this type of characters, eliminating them. In addition to that this type of fight is quite popular and is fought in battles by turn 4 against 4, 3 against 3 and even 2 against 2 simultaneously.
• Characters chibis/JUS: These characters are based on the style of "Jump Ultimate Stars" video game sprites for the Nintendo DS portable console, those sprites are less detailed and generally smaller than usual, so they become little compatible when playing with a standard character. The playability of this character style is also simpler than the rest, since they are only programmed with three of the six buttons offered by the engine, so they do not have much content on their Moveset. Nowadays the JUS Characters have more of the anime fighters, since the authors edit a base character to produce them in a lot of effortlessly, and because many can edit their sprites for their simplicity, there is also a lot of sprites sheets of style.

At no time should JUS be confused with other characters because of their sprites (as is the case with Sonic Kirby characters or characters from Nintendo and other video games or sagas without any sprite style in the style of the JUS game).

• Simplified characters: Like the previous ones (in how much to play), they are very easy to control and many of their special attacks or combos can be executed with 3 of the six buttons (sometimes 4) during the fight.

These are also modified from time to time by other users to create "Mods" or "Edits" with sprites of other games or creators and even improve them both mechanically and visually, among other things (for example, the TP characters).

Very often they are confused with the JUS because of how easy they can be to handle during the game (they are often called that, especially on YouTube).

This only applies to non-anime manga or Jump Ultimate Stars style characters.

Scenarios

Scenarios represent the environment in which the fighting takes place. When downloading and installing scenarios for MUGEN, keep in mind that since the appearance of WinMugen Hi-Res, there are four kinds of scenarios:

• Scenarios to normal resolution (Low-Res): are those that are scheduled for a resolution of 320x240 pixels in size. The details will be lower and the quality is worse.
• Scenarios in high resolution (Hi-Res): these are scheduled for resolutions of 640x480 and above. Increased quality of details (Perfectly compatible with the new Mugen 1.0 and Mugen 1.1).
• Scenarios with super jump (super leap): these are used to have longer backgrounds, perfectly for characters like Marvel vs Capcom, Melty Blood, Guilty Gear, Arcana Heart, among others, as they perform air combos (in English Aerial Rave or Air Combo).
• Scenarios without super jump: contrary to the above these are used for any character other than Marvel vs Capcom (an example is King of Fighters or Street Fighter).
• Interactive Scenarios: these are used 2 scenarios in one where the ground is located; where the combat is carried out it is broken and another completely different appears (an example in Mortal Kombat, with the "Stage Fatalities").

MUGEN's window size setting is independent of the resolutions displayed within it.

In these you can add music of any kind, either: original from a specific game, from an artist (or Performer), soundtrack from a television series, Anime, etc. in any audio format: MP3, MID or OGG.

Screenpacks

Screenpacks —in Spanish “screen packs”—, are file packages that change the visual aspect of MUGEN, that is, the way the game menu screen appears, selection of characters, life bars, energy, etc. In this way it is possible to obtain the appearance of Marvel vs. Capcom, KOF 2001, Marvel vs. Capcom 2 or Guilty Gear among others, just by downloading or copying their contents.

It is possible to create custom Screenpacks of any of the elements (including characters, settings, etc.) that combine parts of two or more games (remember copyrights) to create an environment to our liking. For example, you can have a character select screen that looks like Street Fighter while the health bars resemble those of KOF 1998.

Complementary applications

Parallel to the development of the engine, applications were created that complement the game experience by providing elements that the engine originally could not provide:

• IKEMEN (silized as I.K.E.M.E.N.) is a clone engine made to play online, in a local area network or through a connection to a web server. In addition, add several extra features. It was launched in 2015 by Suehiro, who made a last update was in May 2017. Today, the engine is updated by Gacel and K4thos, and not only has compatibility with the vast majority of MUGEN engine creations but also adds aspects such as interactive scenarios, story mode and hikes.
• 3v3 & 4v4 Patch: It is another modification of the executable file of the engine, which allows the Simultaneous Mode teams to be 3 or 4 characters, depending on the executable that starts. It was launched in 2013 by the programmer NotAGoodName.
• MUGEN Story Mode: It is an extension that can create a "history"for a certain character, making him fight following a script in certain scenarios with certain enemies, unlike the Arcade modes in which the enemies are random. It was developed by the programmer Kamiloxnumetal.
• Add004: It is another extension that in this case allows the mode "tag"or "of relief". This mode replaces the default Simultaneous Mode of the engine, offering a system similar to that of the Marvel vs saga. Capcom. In this case, Add004 modifies the C language files of the characters instead of acting on the engine itself. It was launched in 2014 by the programmer Shiyo Kakuge.
  • A similar extension is OneTagcreated by the programmer Onewhich also modifies the C language files of the characters. The differences with Ad004 are in the compatibility with the 3v3 & 4v4 Patch (Ad004 is compatible, while UnoTag no), in the mode of modifying the files of the characters (Ad004 has an application called Ad004Pie, which automatically modifies the files, while UnoTag is a pack of files that sticks in the folders of the characters) and in the mode in which the characters are only attending. Both extensions are also compatible with IKEMEN, but are not compatible with each other.
• Applications focused on editing the game:
  • Swiss Army Knife: a C language viewer in real time while running the engine.
  • VSelect: an editor of the character selection screen.
  • AI Generator: Application that gives artificial intelligence to the characters.

Example of some Characters created for the Engine

• Miku Hatsune
• Gogeta
• Barney
• Fat Albert
• Pepsiman
• Ronald McDonald
• Master Chief
• Peter Griffin
• Chester Cheetos