What is M.U.G.E.N?
M.U.G.E.N (also known simply as MUGEN) is a freeware 2D fighting game engine designed by Elecbyte, written in C which originally used the Allegro library. The latest versions of the engine now use the SDL library.
History
Elecbyte released the customizable fighting game M.U.G.E.N in 1999. The engine was originally released on July 17, 1999. Beta versions of it were made to work on MS-DOS and Linux platforms (Windows platform was never officially released until the release of 1.0 RC1 version, previous Windows unfinished versions were "leaked" since 2003), 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 book 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 meaning of "mugen" (無限) in Japanese, "unlimited" or "infinite", may have influenced the naming. M.U.G.E.N later expanded into a wide variety of teams and communities such as Mugen Fighters Guild, Mugen Infantry and Mugen Free For All.
Customization
Users who develop content for the game engine are commonly referred to as authors. These authors create customized content such as characters, stages and screen packs/skins. Often authors will port popular characters from 2D fighting engines such as the Street Fighter series, or from TV and book series such as The Simpsons and Sailor Moon. Many authors will also create original content. Many websites exist to showcase and disperse the developed content and forms what is often referred to as the "Mugen Community".Due to the customizable nature of the game engine, no two versions of M.U.G.E.N. are the same. Each person is encouraged to download their own copy of the game engine and to create or add content to match their personal preference. Groups of M.U.G.E.N. authors will often collaborate to produce a full game using the engine. These full games are available at a variety of quality levels and are released under the general M.U.G.E.N. license."Under this license, permission is granted to use the M.U.G.E.N Environment free of charge for non-commercial purposes... Elecbyte provides a M.U.G.E.N redistributable package, containing a minimal M.U.G.E.N Environment, that may be included with third party content for redistribution."
Development
First released on July 17, 1999, M.U.G.E.N was initially created for MS-DOS. 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. Later speculation pointed at leaks made public of a private Windows-based M.U.G.E.N beta that was provided to a small quantity of donators.
The private WinM.U.G.E.N beta contained a two-character roster limit, locked game modes, and nag screens. With the beta leaked and Elecbyte gone, a "no limit" hack that removed most of these limitations was made available in 2004, followed by subsequent updates to deal with bugs and other issues. This version of M.U.G.E.N is functionally the same as the last Linux release, though with subtle differences and unique issues, mostly revolving around proper music and music plugin support. Because of the changes between the DOS and Linux versions of M.U.G.E.N however, many older characters required at least the SFF files to be modified to show palettes correctly (notably on portraits) as well as some changes in how certain CNS script controllers functioned, causing some minor upset and those that could still run the DOS version in some form sticking to that, as well as DOS patches to downgrade characters to be compatible with the older version of the engine.
In May 2007, a hacked version of WinM.U.G.E.N was released by a third party that added support for high resolution stages at the cost of losing support of standard resolution M.U.G.E.N stages. Later that month, another hack was done to add support for high-res select screens. In July 2007 another hack based on the last high-res hack allowed for only the select screen to be high-res and not the stages. In December 2007, a hack from an anonymous source allowed both low-res and hi-res stages to be functional in the same build. As of June 2007, an unofficial Winmugen was also made available on a Japanese website.
In mid 2007, Elecbyte's site returned, though not without some controversy as to the legitimacy of it, as it only showed a single logo with Google ads on the side. On July 26 a FAQ was added to the site, which went on to claim that they would release a fixed version of WinM.U.G.E.N before major format changes in the next version, and noted the formatting changes would remove compatibility in regards to older works: "Do not expect old characters to work. At all".
On September 19, 2009, Elecbyte made an unexpected comeback, updating their website with various features — including a forum and a downloads section, where a new build of M.U.G.E.N is now available.
In September 2009 a full release of M.U.G.E.N (MUGEN 1.0 Release Candidate) that includes various new features — most notably (official) support for HD resolutions, victory screens and language localization — was made available through the Elecbyte website. Although this current build has various visual glitches and requires a fair amount of adjustments to the previously made content in order to be fully compatible with the new engine, Elecbyte has stated that it is their goal to have the new M.U.G.E.N fully compatible with previously designed content.
In January 18, 2011, M.U.G.E.N made a 1.0 version only for Windows, ironing out most bugs that were featured in the release candidates and is compatible with almost all, if not all, of the previously made content.
As of late April/early May, a download of M.U.G.E.N 1.1 Alpha 4 has been leaked. The new M.U.G.E.N has stage-zooming capabilities and some other features. Although this still has many bugs.
Before the leak, Elecbyte became offline for approximately 2 years. This has led to the leak mentioned. Something has been posted at the website last May 11, 2013 regarding the forums having problems. However, as of May 28, 2013, the forums are back online.
In August 2013, M.U.G.E.N 1.1 Beta 1 was released to the public, which fixes many of the bugs from the 1.1 Alpha versions. Additional releases for 1.1 are planned and currently being worked on. These releases are planned to include significant engine changes that would remove certain character development constraints that existed due to limitations of the old code.
Download
For Download M.U.G.E.N. engine, go to Elecbyte.
