The MUGEN Fighting Engine Thread

[The Amazing Death Agent]

If you've never heard of MUGEN, first let me clarify, its not a car engine. Its a computer program. A very unique computer program, that in a way allows you to create your own 2-D fighting game.



The story of this program is that it was created by a company by the name of Elecbyte. They wanted to design a a customizable homebrew shooting game. The result was MUGEN. A customizable fighting game where you can add the characters, the music, the stages, whatever! It can be customized. Cool huh. Well I decided to make this thread to guide newbie with this cool yet rather complex program as best I can. If you have questions, leave your feedback in this thread and I'll respond every Friday.

Your first step would be to get MUGEN. This isn't too hard, Googleing it makes it easy. However you might wanna be sure about what to look for. You see there's been many changes in the computer landscape, and one version of MUGEN isn't compatible with everything available.

LowRes MUGEN: Its a low resolution version . This is the one I tend to use.
It has more things that are available.

Hi Res: Like before, name explains itself. You'll notice things that might seem different when you use things you used on the low res on this one. Low Res add-ons tend to look smaller on the Hi Res version if they are Low Res.

Next you'll notice that there are different looks to the MUGEN game if you look online. These aren't upgrades, they are called screenpacks. They are what make the game look different. There are hundreds of screenpacks out here, so look around for those you like. Don't worry if you don't know how to install them, I'll walk you though that soon enough.

Next come the characters and stages. These are easier to find. Look for the ones you like, and download them. They are pretty easy to install, but if you run into trouble don't worry, I'm covering that next week.

The music. This is even easier. You don't have to download, you can use your own if you like.

If this feels like to much of a challenge for you to get, down freak out. Once you learn the basics it gets easier to learn. Be curious, but be careful. You might want to copy and paste oftenly if your gonna mess with the programming. Its not that hard to mess with. You open them up with Notepad and read, they're in English so it should be straight forward.

If its still too much of a challenge here is some more useful info. Some people get together and for sort of a homebrew programming company and make games using the MUGEN engine. They've made some very awesome games. Here are some I would recommend exploring for:

1) Super Marvel vs Capcom: Eternity Of Heroes
Its my personal favorite and also the easiest to find.

2) Marvel vs DC
This one can be a bit of a nag if you don't know how to work the flaws, but if you get by them its a fun attraction.

3) Marvel vs Capcom vs DC
I still haven't found this one completed, but it looks very cool.

4) Megaman: Robot Master Mayhem
This one's not released yet, but I'm keeping my eye on it. After all a lot of people here know that I'm a huge Megaman mark. Its being made by the same people as Eternity Of Heroes so when its released, it should be easy to find.

There are a lot of more MUGEN made games out there, so look around. Or if your interested like me, try to make your own. I'll be updating this thread every Friday to guide you through the basics of this great little gizmo. If you have any questions, leave them here and I'll cover them in my next post.

Hope you enjoy it.

Spoiler for MUGEN DBZ:

Spoiler for MUGEN EVE Battle:

[The Amazing Death Agent]

CHAPTER 1:
BASIC INSTALLATIONS

So. Have you tried MUGEN yet? WHAT? No!? Why not? Don't you wanna make your own game? Its too complicated? Dumbass, I'm trying to help you. If you downloaded MUGEN, a screenpack, some characters and stages, then let me tell you how to install them. Its really simple really. But pay attention, one mistake and it wont work so read carefully.



See those folders? No? Open your eyes, it helps. Anyway, all characters should be unzipped and placed in the chars folder. Make sure to look for a file inside the characters folder with a .def extension. This file lets you edit the characters name, his pallets and even his durability in battle. But for now just look at the files name. Make sure its the same name as the folder. If not change the folders name to match the .def file without writing the extension of course.

Example:
Folder name: character
.def file name: character.def

After verifying all of your characters its time for the stages. The only files you'll need from the file you download have the extensions: .def and .sff. Copy and paste these in the stages folder. Easy as that.

Next is the screenpack. The first order of business is to go into the data folder as shown in the picture above and look for the configuration file. It should be named: mugen.cfg

Take it out of there and put it in a safe place. Next copy and paste the data folder in the zip file you downloaded and paste it to the main directory (the place in the picture). It will replace everything in the data folder, so hit yes to everything. Take the .cfg I told you to take out earlier and put it in the now replaced data folder. If there's already one in there, it your choice to replace it. But if you wanna keep the settings you had on the previous one then yes, replace it.

In case you don't know what that .cfg file does, open it up and explore its options. It controls the display, sound and even some of the gameplay of your MUGEN game.

Next we install. Go to the data folder and look for a file called select.def. Here's where you follow the instructions dictated on the file.

For characters:
Under the characters or chars line, you'll punch in the characters folder name, his signature stage, order of difficulty and theme music. Aside from the characters folder name, everything else is optional but must be written in the order I wrote it. Otherwise an error will be marked when you open up the game.

Example:
character,stage/stage0.def,order=4,music=sound/song.mp3
^ ^
Write this to indicate on what folder the file is

Replace "character" "stage0".def" and "song.mp3" with the names you desire.

*To leave a space in blank because it blocks something in the character select screen, just write in the desired space: blank

*To create a random select space in the character select screen just write: randomselect in the desired space.

*For random stages just replace the stages/stage0.def line with random.



Stages:
Under the stages line, which is under the characters line, simply write the stage name.

Example:
stage0.def
stage1.def
and so...

It might seem complicated to do, it get really easy with a little practice. If not, I believe there are some programs out there to remedy the installation. I can't give you the links cause its against the forum rules but you can find them.

Here's how the select.def file looks:

Spoiler for select.def:

Any questions? Post them here if the answers yes. I'll respond soon enough.

Next time I'll show you how the gaming aspect and the controls work.
Until next time.

[bryanskrantz]

I've heard of MUGEN through a friend when I was in highschool. I tried it once but couldn't really get into it because of all the folder creating you had to do. plus it wouldn't work in XP at the time heh

[DigitalNight]

I rock out on Mugen every once in a blue moon. My 'Everything' game is about 5-6gb in size and I have several hundred of the older characters.

I've also poked around a couple mugen sites and picked up some newer and beta characters the past couple months.

Good stuff all and all.

[For Those About To Doc]

Back in ninth grade, I had a massive MUGEN set up on one of the school computers. Sadly, it got purged at the end of the year.

Let me tell you, though, it was something else. I used to have a blast assigning music and stages to various characters, making final boss fights, and using Fat Albert to beat up Mario. If you like programming or can struggle through it, MUGEN is a ton of fun. It's possible to create a dream fighting game, with just about any character under the sun.

[The Amazing Death Agent]

CHAPTER 2:
GAMEPLAY

MUGEN's gameplay is fairly simple. But before you even turn on the program, plug your controller (if you have one). If you don't do this before opening the program, oddly enough it doesn't respond. The control scheme is simple for most characters:
A-Low Kick
B-Mid Kick
C-High Kick
X-Low Punch
Y-Mid Punch
Z-High Punch
Start-Taunt

Some characters, like the Mortal Kombat, based ones, don't follow that scheme so you'll need to toy a bit with these to figure them out.

To change the controls, go to options in the main menu and head for input configurations then select for your keyboard or your joystick.

Onto the actual gaming.
The actual game has several modes. 1 on 1, 2 on 2 (ala Tornado Tag) and 4 on 4 or variations (1 at a time, no tagging). Theres no tagging in the game sadly. The end boss is selected by you. For details head to the previous chapter.


1 on 1


2 on 2 Yeah, that is Barney and Homer vs Peter and Fred

The characters usually are made with special attacks.

Super combos: Don't consume energy bar.
Hyper combos: Do consume energy bar.

Most characters don't come with a moveset list so go discover them.

Next time I'll teach you how do some cosmetic changes to the game. See ya next time.