Links

M.U.G.E.N

https://web.archive.org/web/20150325162333/http://www.elecbyte.com/

M.U.G.E.N is a freeware 2D fighting game engine designed by Elecbyte, written in C with the Allegro library.

The engine was originally released July 17, 1999. Beta versions of it were made to work on DOS, Linux and Windows platforms, distributed through their website. The engine allows users to insert created characters, background stages, and other game objects through interpreted text files, graphics, and sound compilations to create a functioning fighting game similar to commercial games. While the engine is set up primarily for fighting game development, several other game types have been developed using it, including shooter and platform style games. Officially, Elecbyte claims to have forgotten what the acronym M.U.G.E.N stood for, but the readme documentation states that its meaning referred to the days when the engine was meant to emulate shooting games as opposed to fighting games.

The development of the DOS version ceased when Elecbyte switched to the Linux platform in November 2001. For a time, Elecbyte had posted a request for donations on their site to legally obtain a Windows compiler to make a Windows version of M.U.G.E.N. However, the development group discontinued the project in 2003 and shut down their site. One version for Windows, WinM.U.G.E.N, circulates on the internet. The website resurfaced in 2007 with a FAQ, though it has not been updated since. Only the software itself is part of Elecbyte’s license, so creations such as characters and stages for use with M.U.G.E.N are covered. Elecbyte itself has not made a public statement since 2003, when they stated that the project had “hit a snag”.

The engine allows for seven buttons for gameplay along with the directional keys, in order to accommodate six-button fighters, four-button fighters, or any other variation. The main mode of play is Arcade mode, where a character fights a set number of random characters. It also has a versus mode that features one on one combat and team combat. The survival mode allows for an endless stream of opponents to be fought with one or two characters until the player is defeated.

Elecbyte created a single character, Kung Fu Man, for the engine. He is a practitioner of karate with hair spiked straight up and closed eyes who wears a gi with a black shirt underneath, blue shoes, and a headband. His movelist serves as a guideline for basic coding techniques in the engine.

Although M.U.G.E.N is a 6 button game engine, you can also set button combinations such as F+A to add more attacks to the character.

Ikemen GO

https://ikemen-engine.github.io

Ikemen GO is an open source fighting game engine that supports resources from the M.U.G.E.N engine, written in Google’s programming language, Go. It is a complete rewrite of a prior engine known simply as Ikemen

Ikemen GO aims for backwards-compatibility on par with M.U.G.E.N version 1.1 Beta, while simultaneously expanding on its features in a variety of ways.

Fighter Factory Studio

https://www.virtualltek.com

Fighter Factory is a general purpose content/asset editor for 2D games. Born to be a M.U.G.E.N. (fighting game engine) only editor, its wide support to almost all needed asset types, ease of use and rich feature set has been expanded to a brand new modular design in the latest version, Studio.

Fighter Factory Studio moves all generic core functionality to a shared library, and each supported engine extends it to support their content formats and exclusive functionality, in its own library. Obviously, M.U.G.E.N. is the first and currently the only engine supported, and we’ll be moving to MUGENext (our M.U.G.E.N. replacement engine) as soon as it’s released. OpenBoR support is under development, but has low priority right now. Other engines can be supported and we’re looking at Blugen (under development) and Ikemen GO, maybe at a later time.

The program is notably one of the best tools for 2D game development to date, and is totally free for any purpose. Many Game Maker Studio creators actually use Fighter Factory Studio in their workflow, as its sprite and animation editing tools are supperb and unparallel.

Instead of one main screen with the game itself running in real-time, like commercial game engine tools (because they have the engine inside the editor, of course), Fighter Factory focus on individual files, so each asset type has its dedicated editor. This approach allows the future support for more engines, without the need to make too much specialized tools for each one, and keeping the same interface pattern no matter for what kind of game you’re working for.