Why Are We Doing This?
Two words: Pure Passion
Back when the popularity of fighting games soared in the early 90's, kids and adults alike have come to the arcades and put their quarters in to challenge random strangers on games like Street Fighter, Mortal Kombat, Killer Instinct, and so many more.
There was competition and lots of it. People like showing off their skills and telling everyone their favorite character is at the top of the food chain. In the midst of all these fighting games vying for gamer attention, there has always been talk of who would win if Ryu fights Scorpion or Raiden fights Akuma and so on. But alas, the Street Fighter vs Mortal Kombat crossover never happened (or will ever happen?).
In the comics world, there was a major event that took place when DC and Marvel came together and published DC vs Marvel. It was truly epic and we hope that this eventually will see the big screen. But beside that point, a crossover like this was so monumental that both companies profits to this day on sales from that title.
While there has been crossover games that's happened in the last several years (as of 2014) such as DC vs MK, Marvel vs Capcom, major titles clashing in a single game has yet to happen. There is still no SF vs MK nor DC vs Marvel or better yet all four fighting game universe in the same title!
But then E.L.E.C.B.Y.T.E. came along and gave the world the means to make every fighting game fan's wish come true. Enter M.U.G.E.N.. It's a game engine that lets anyone put together a fighting game to include pretty much any character and stage they want. Best of all, no programming experience is required to do all that.
Although not official, mugen games can serve as a platform to bring together fighting games and comics fans and build an awesome community centered on what we all love to do and talk about. This is why this site was built.
What's Currently Available and It's Shortcomings
This is where we come in. While characters and games made in MUGEN and the community are plentiful, there is still much to be desired especially for true die hard fans. Here are some observations we had over the years relating to MUGEN.
- Characters are made by different authors and not necessarily made to be put together in the same game. If you do put it together, you'll easily see that they belong to different games i.e. character sizes in relation to each other doesn't make sense, certain characters deals too much damage, etc.
- A lot of overpowered characters. i.e. characters that constantly replenishes their health, characters that can use hyper moves anytime, too much invincibility frames, moves that deal 100% damage, unblockable/unavoidable moves, etc.
- A thousand different versions (with ridiculous names) of Ryu, Akuma, and others. i.e. Shin Orochi Evil Ryu
- Characters created by different authors are all over the internet and some of them are very hard to find (rare chars)
- Games created by MUGEN can only be played on a pc.
- Not all characters are created equal in terms of overall quality, AI, move set, etc.
- MUGEN can't be played online
- A lot of chibi, goofy, non-fighter characters i.e. Homer Simpson, Bugs Bunny, etc.
- There's a lot of ego going around with the many different authors with them wanting to impose restrictions on the use of their creations. There's a lot of squabbling about character use and people not asking their permission first for whatever reason. This dynamic prevents us from truly maximizing the full potential of MUGEN and create the very best fighting game.
- There's not a dedicated team of programmers, animators, artists, project managers, etc. that work together in making a game. A team working together using their expertise is much better than any one individual trying to do it all themselves.
- There's currently not a place where comic book and fighting game fans can hang out and talk about a massive crossover fighting game where people genuinely want to contribute to putting together (whether it's with programming, sprite ripping, general ideas, etc.) one big crossover fighting game and have tournaments centered on that game
We Are Aggressively Looking For As Well as Putting Together a Balanced Crossover Fighting Game
The tournament that we're holding is currently based on a fighting game, The Multiverse Final Battle that includes characters from the Big 4 (Marvel, DC, MK, SF) and from other well known fighting games. While the game has a good amount of balance in it as well as a good roster, there are still many improvements to be made. We made a guide that shows how the game was balanced to a certain degree as well as resources on how you can put together your own custom fighting game without any programming experience.
We are planning on making the Mutiverse Final Battle game even more balanced. Here some of the aspects we're looking at:
Damage delivered by basic, special, and hyper moves
Damage taken by the character
How often a hyper move can be utilized
Moves Priorities
Range for each move
Moves Spam Factor
Recovery traits
Etc. - everything else that affects the balance of the game
We've already started making adjustments to each of those aspects and more. We have started testing for balance by letting the characters duke it out (AI vs AI). We then made further adjustments based on our observations. Each character was tested against 7-20 other characters in our efforts to balance out the game. And there were several rounds of testing since we have to test out the character again after we've made the necessary adjustments. Needless to say, this took a very long time to do and the job is not really done. But we're at a point where we have a sufficiently balanced game to start using it in a tournament.
Every time we reach a milestone in terms of improving the game (better roster, better stages, better balance), we plan on having a tournament to do a "field test" for the game and see how everyone performs.
Please note that you too can put together a game like this yourself for free. There's plenty of resources out there. Just use Google to get started. It just takes a lot of time and thought to actually balance out every aspect of the game. We did not create the game from scratch nor are we taking credit for it. The whole purpose of putting a game together like this is so we can have a platform for holding tournaments and eventually have discussions as to what would really happen if these characters ever face off in an official game.
There's no greater passion and more competitive spirit than those of people that love fighting games as well as those that believe their favorite comic book character is the best.
Now you might say, how can a Street Fighter or MK character even measure up to a top tier Marvel or DC character like Silver Surfer or Superman. Simple, as any writer would tell you, you can come up with any story to give everybody a fighting chance.
In the Multiverse Final Battle, the merging of the different realities changed the physical and mystical laws resulting in a more level battlefield. What really matters is strategy, overall offensive and defensive skills/moves set, and alliances formed with other characters.
So Game On! It's anybody's prize for the taking.
Back to the guide, we put together The Ultimate Fighting Game Guide so you too can start playing many games that are already out there or put one together yourself. But like we mentioned above, none of the games out there come close to what we're using in the tournament although you can definitely make it that way too.
We provide the guide for free for all that joins the tournament or those that tell their friends about it. The guide has links to ready-to-play games including the Multiverse Final Battle. Get more info about the guide in the Get the Game page.
What Else Is Ahead
Add more characters - while our goal is not to add every single MUGEN character our there (there's literally thousands and most our crap or characters we don't care for), there are some really cool characters still being made and updated.
Continue updating existing characters - if we see an update for an existing character, we will include it and replace the old one. If we add a new or updated character, that character will undergo testing and modification so that it's balanced with the rest of the cast.
Update Character Portraits
Update Stages - same principle with the characters. If we see beautiful stages, we will include it in the game. Although we will not include stages that have a very large .sff file since it will slow down the game
Add Interactive stages
Screenpack - as the number of characters grow, we will eventually move on to another screenpack so it has enough slots to hold all the characters we want in there. As of right now, the screenpack we're using is a small compared to our roster and that's why many of the characters are "hidden." There are screenpacks out there that can hold many characters but they're not that great looking so we'll wait until we see one or we'll make one ourselves.
Screenpack Wish List
Holds 300+ characters but less than 500. Too many character slots will make the character select boxes too small.
Can do character select using categories (which universe the character came from)
Theme not specific to just 1,2, or 3 fighting game universe
Add More Fighting Modes - story mode, tag mode, etc.
Hire programmers to make the game playable online
Organize online tournaments
Which Universe Are Being Considered For Inclusion of the Final Version of the Ultimate Fighting Game?
Street Fighter
Mortal Kombat
Marvel
DC
Killer Instinct
World Heroes
Star Wars
DBZ
Samurai Shodown
Tekken
Olympian Mythology
Movies
King of Fighters
Darkstalkers
Red Earth / Warzard
Martial Masters
Misc. Characters
Let us know what else we need to include and please give us a good reason why we should include it.
How Do We Plan To Accomplish Our Goal
Put together an initial version of a crossover fighting game where the very best version of the most important / famous fighting game / comic book characters are included.
Make the initial version available for people to review and make recommendations
Do Field Tests for the game by holding Tournaments
Do further improvements on the game based on Tournament performance as well as reviews and recommendations from the community
Build/Maintain a community for the purpose of having community members contribute to the game by doing one OR more of the following:
Watch fight videos and send us their observation and recommendation on how to improve the characters and how fighters are balanced out
Do edits to the characters themselves. Anyone who has extensive mugen experience is welcome to contribute to our project
Make characters and/or stages from scratch.
Make a donation so we may use the funds to possibly hire more experienced mugen developers, better equipment, etc.
Continue developing the game and holding tournaments all for FUN!!!