M.U.G.E.N

MUGEN is a 2D fighting game engine developed by Elecbyte. Content is created by the community, and thousands of fighters, both original and from popular fiction, have been created.

Released: 27 July 1999
Platforms: Linux MS-DOS Windows macOS
Genres: Arcade Fighting Indie
Developers: —
Publishers: —
Modes: Single-player
Perspective: Side view
Themes: Action Fantasy Comedy

About

Mugen (stylized as M.U.G.E.N) is a freeware 2D fighting game engine designed by Elecbyte. Content is created by the community, and thousands of fighters, both original and from popular fiction, have been created.

It is written in C and originally used the Allegro library. The latest versions of the engine use the SDL library. The engine takes its name from the Japanese word 無限 (lit. 'limitless' or 'infinity').

›Story

Often authors will port popular characters from 2D fighting engines such as the Street Fighter series, or from TV, book, and game series such as Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, The Simpsons, Pingu, Super Mario, Sonic The Hedgehog, Pokémon, Sailor Moon, and Touhou. Many authors will also create original content. Many websites exist to showcase and disperse the developed content and forms in what is often referred to as the "Mugen Community". Games that are built using the M.U.G.E.N engine often focus around a single franchise, such as Hyper Dragon Ball Z.

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. N authors will often collaborate to produce a full game using the engine. N license.

N Environment free of charge for non-commercial purposes... N Environment, that may be included with third party content for redistribution.

Keywords

Media

The articlegameplay, story, development, reception

Gameplay

The engine uses four directional keys along with seven buttons for gameplay (A, B, C, X, Y, Z and Start), in order to accommodate six-button fighters which use three punches, three kicks and a start button which is often a taunt. However, characters do not necessarily use all seven buttons, nor need to follow a traditional six or four-button format. At most, two players can control characters, with others being controlled by the engine's AI (including Watch Mode, a demo mode where the computer controls all characters). AIs can be brutal, strong or even weak.

The default AI for the engine however, can walk around and jump, and rarely attacks or guards the player's attacks when the AI Level is set to Hard. In addition, several gameplay modes are available via the main menu.

Development

M.U.G.E.N was initially created for MS-DOS by a group of students from the Electrical Engineering and Computer Science department of the University of Michigan. The first public beta release launched on July 27, 1999. 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 donors; a later investigation in 2022 stated that the original developers originally created M.U.G.E.N as a college project and stopped development after the original developers graduated.

Reception

M.U.G.E.N later expanded into a wide variety of teams and communities such as Mugen Fighters Guild, Mugen Infantry, Infinity Mugen Team, RandomSelect, TheHiddenElect, Mugen Free For All, Unleaded Mugen, Mugen Archive, MugenBR, and Pao de Mugen, among many others. Community in-groups and out-groups formed, with websites often being categorized into factions of "creators" who made content for the engine as artists and programmers, and "warehousers" who sought instead to redistribute others' content for the sake of archival and fair use. M.U.G.E.N also gained more mainstream press with the creation of the Twitch live stream called Salty's Dream Cast Casino (SaltyBet), where viewers can bet with fake money on CPU matches played using the engine.

With the dual status as a development tool and as a game itself, M.U.G.E.N has often been reviewed in periodicals and magazines, usually exhibiting a large variety of works from various authors.