MUGEN - general opinions?

[vidmouse]

Just wondering what general opinions are on MUGEN?

It seems like a really cool creative outlet for some people, and I love the idea of being able to match up virtually whomever I want, but the play mechanics aren't quite the same as some of the original games or newer games.

I've been playing around with it last couple of days, finally got around to putting it on my cab.  On my cab it's a much better experience than on my PC.  It keeps crashing though but I think that's b/c of the screenpack I'm using.  I'm taking back to ground zero and maybe going to build my own screenpack eventually.

I've been looking at some of the MUGEN communities but I was wondering what the cab-building community thought, really...

-  what characters do you put on your cabs?
-  do you put your own music to it?
-  how do you control both characters in team arcade mode? 

[garnerb350]

I was hoping to find out the same also ....I'm interested in getting MUGEN
(ive never played it, just only seen it in action)

[FrizzleFried]

I could not get Mugen to work full screen for me on my cab with Soft15khz running.  In a window it was fine,  but full screen it errored out with some "cant change resolution" error.  Even though the machine was in the resolution and color depth it was trying to change to already.

Seems like something fun to mess with...but that's about it.

I deleted it from my cab once frustration set in...it's not worth the frustration is what I concluded.

[Malenko]

its best if you make your own people, too many "authors"  over-done super versions of everyone and its a giant stale-mate

[Ginsu Victim]

It's okay, but I would never use it for serious fighting. Too many better games made professionally.

[ViciousXUSMC]

With the right character pack its great, but they are probably few and far between to have everything balanced.

[MrMojoZ]

Its fun to play around with but you would have to spend alot of time getting it to a state where it was worth putting on a cab.

[vidmouse]

Re:  super versions and balancing

I used to think this too but some more people have
done some good work since I messed with it more than
4 years ago.

Looking at it yesterday I was especially impressed with
the work on Scruffydragon and Infinitymugenteam.
I downloaded a lot of the DC/Marvel stuff and am loving
putting that together.  I'm not too keen on their front end
(seems to be giving my version of Mugen the fits) but
other than that it's good stuff.

I'm thinking of putting together my own 2D version of
DC vs Mortal Kombat with this, just for kicks.  Just an idea...

[Turnarcades]

Depends on how far you want to go with it in terms of programming it yourself. Some people have compiled some nice stable versions with few errors and a more reasonable balance of characters (leaving out cheap characters like omega tom hanks and master hand). I'm running a great version called MUGEN Fighting Jam, which is fairly balanced, relatively error free and neatly presented.

[vidmouse]

I looked at some of those and have started my own programming,
if that's what you call it (I dunno, seems more like scripting since
I'm not actually compiling anything)

So far I've just modified the system.def to give me more characters
(about 100 but that's what I wanted vs 1000's since the images come
out sooo tiny w/ too many characters).

What I'm thinking is that I'll have several versions of mugen running
w/ specific matchups, plus a large one for sandbox-type battles where
I can select any character.    Each of the special versions will have
specific characters I program into it then, like only DC characters
etc and so on...  that way I can limit character selection to just a few
balanced choices and tailor the frontend a little better, graphically.

[ghettodish]

This is a good one to try: 

http://www.mininova.org/tor/1910148

Hundreds of characters. I like Popeye & Wolverine vs. Tom Hanks & Optimus Prime.

[vidmouse]

Thanks, may do that.

Played around w/ the coding/scripting yesterday and made
some progress in learning... am now confident I'm able to
change the look and feel of the mugen menus to whatever
I want, play w/ and manipulate the sprites, etc.  I did some
tests where I played around with adding more character slots
and changing the size of the cursor sprite.  Also changed the
randomselect sprite to a character of my own design.  The
hardest part was getting the transparent backgrounds to work,
but was able to do it via working with paint.net and irfranview
and figure factory (free tools)

Now I just need the ideas for a good design.... going to sleep
on it.

[DeLuSioNal29]

MUGEN is very buggy so is hit or miss and will crash often.  That's the breaks.  However, to me it's worth it because the concept is great and it's fun to play.

I've tried many versions of MUGEN, and by far my most favorite one is: "SNK vs CAPCOM Ultimate Mugen War".  It is very polished with a nice intro and the characters are VERY balanced.  That is, one player won't kill the other one with only a few hits, etc.

I'll see if I can post a video of it in action soon! 

~ DeLuSioNaL

[vidmouse]

It's been a LOT more stable since I ditched the DC v Marvel screenpack
I was using (along w/ the other screenpack I had put on top of it, that
may have been my problem).

I'm not planning anything too fancy, but since I'm a big comic book/ cartoon/
action figure fan mainly, I'd like to experiment and try a few things:

- set up my own screenpack of the Ultimate Superhero Showdown,
maybe in a comic book issue format with a character selection screen
grouped so that each set of heroes is grouped in its home locale
ie.  Hall of Justice, Hall of Doom, the X-Mansion, the Avengers Mansion,
Doomstadt, etc.

- play around with making a few of my own characters/sprite models
etc.  Maybe even see if I can photograph my action figures in certain
poses to see if that will work.

- build character intro/bios that play when a character is selected to
start the story; and maybe cutscenes (is that possible to do in mugen?)
and endscenes... this would be if I decided to do my own translations
of some comic book stories I think would work:

Panic in the Sky
Secret Wars
Last Hero Standing I and II
Knightfall
Justice League Unlimited s2

I know I'm sounding like the typical "ideas guy" but I really am trying to learn the
code at least and feel I've gotten a good start anyways.  My plan right now is to
keep learning, trying new things:

- modifying character models
-- playing around w/ the photo/action figure thing
- modifying the title screen stuff
- modifying the select screen background
- trying out Mugen PSP (a little diversion but could be fun)
- reverse-engineering some intro-scenes I've downloaded to see how they did it;
- look for some way to do cutscenes as well
- look into how to balance the characters better -- values in the .def files?
  (I noticed this when playing Galactus -- he barely has to score a few
   non-super hits to drive his opponents down... of course, he's Galactus,
   makes sense, but if you can make someone "super" then it makes sense
   that if you're making your own game SET, you can balance them)