Clearly there is a lack of fan game related information on the web. I hope to fill the apparent void.
Despite all the game-making programs available here and there, especially Mugen, RpgMaker2000 etc. The best way to create video games is with a programming language with all the necessary tools.
(this probably isn't as true as I thought it was. making a game is insanely hard so just do it the easiest way you can.)C/C++ is an informal standard choice for the development of games due to its high efficiency code. Since they can write operating systems and compilers they are suitable for games.
Within the realm of fan games the biggest resources that would be lacking are time and money, which is probably a norm in the business world. Time, money and information.
The popularity of Mugen and the tremendous amount of work put into character creation suggests that there are a lot of fan game creators out there. I feel that within the confines of a game-making engine, there are limitations to what can be created.
RPGMaker2000, for instance, doesn't exactly support Final Fantasy styled battle animation. And limited control, eg. Sabin's Blitz attack in final fantasy 6. Also there is no support for 3D, so final fantasy 7 as it were would be impossible with this.
Mugen is great but, I feel that the characters are still limited to fighting only. Within their fighting game form, these characters can still do more than fight. Hybrid RPG/Fighting Games are unlikely to show up in any form with Mugen.
(What I'm sort of trying to get at here is that there aren't really many tools to create new genres.)So, what can be done…
Standardisation would help people share. Sharing creations is the way to reduce work. For fighting games, Mugen-like sharing of characters for instance.
Game design and innovation are important issues. Hybrid game genre's offer potential that will unlikely show up on shelf games. I am yet to see a streetfighter rpg. Also, streetfighter characters could be interesting in a platform game.
Dhalsim could teleport past walls. Ryu could blast a line of blocks away with his fireball. Imagine streetfighters in the mushroom kingdom.
(There is a SF VS megaman. Made by a fan, in flash, the main trouble here is that it's still megaman running through the levels. I think flash games are really the be all and end all of everything this page is talking about. I mean, how can I put this. There's flash games hosted on websites which all kind of suck. And flash games hosted on newgrounds which .. erm... it's kind of true that all commercial games these days basically suck. This includes "free to play". It isn't the money that's the problem. i tried not to be negative above with these bracketed comments but i have to.Dragonball Z suggests a new level of fighting action and excitement. Upon looking up Mugen in a search engine I discovered DBZ to be a favourite topic for character creation.
Shigeru Miyamoto of Nintendo, creator of Mario said "Making games 'fun' is our only objective, and we are always making an effort to accomplish this goal. I believe that the creation of game characters is simply one of the processes to achieve this goal. If Mario hadn't been fun to play, the character wouldn't have been popular at all."
(There's an old Nintendo arcade game named Sky Skipper, which features someone who looks slightly like Mr. Game and Watch named "Mr. You!" who flies a plane to rescue these cards from wonder-kingdom being held captive by these gorillas. I think that a lot of ideas for super mario bros might come from this game. Particulary the weird story in super mario bros about mushrooms trapped in bricks. And I think the castle with a queen inside it from this game is the same castle you see at the end of most levels in super mario bros. and i think the queen in this game is infact princess peach.I have been working on a game which I would describe as a cross between kung-fu and Mario. Especially in this hectic modern world I find it hard to spend time on hobbyist works. There is a lot of motivation required to create games.
It is a reality that do-it-all game creators are few and far between, and basically, a game will not be very large with only one creator. This means that more than one person working on a game will likely improve it, or at least save time.
Common resources needed for fan games can, it would imagine be found in the other forms of fan art. Fan drawings, Fan fiction, Sprites. All these resources can be useful for a fan game programmer, and it is no wonder that there are not many fan games when all the resources are distributed as such.
Fan art can be useful for ingame graphics. Apparently, few programmers are great artists, so it can be of help to them to get art from outside. Music is another aspect. A game relies on music and sound effects for much of the experience. Shared sound resources would prove of great help to one making a fan game.
Fan Fiction could provide storylines to games, particularly for RPG's. Surely it would be nice to have your story turned into a game. Background stories for characters could also be devised in this way.
In addition, source code itself could be shared around. There are many areas of games that could be formed into a source code resource. Artificial Intelligence for game-enemies could be useful.
Game and Graphics libraries to support the programming languages too.
Amidst all this there is still room for all forms of fan games. But there must be reasonable space given for C/C++. RPG Maker's would be great for most RPG's and Fighter Makers would be best for most fighting games. C++ is useful where maximum flexibility is required.
C++ also allows features like network play to be easily added. It also allows 3d games to be created, which is however a lot of work. Animation is also a useful resource, particularly for ingame cinema's. Or possibly for ingame character drawings.
Dragonball Z offers great ideas for fighting game leaving streetfighter behind. Final Fantasy and Zelda offer ideas for RPG's. Mario offers ideas for Platform Games. 3D Shooters are probably out of the realm of homemade games.
Sports, Classic Games; eg Pinball, Space Invaders, Pong, they all have inspiration to give.
Perhaps, also useful would be tutorial information on the C++ programming language.
This site has actually been getting hits.. so i thought i would put a bit more on here. Most of ya'll are coming from google search.
People are searching for mugen source code, anime fan games, final fantasy fan games.
These are all great areas of interest for me too. I think what the modern technology has to offer for improving these old games is multiplayer aspects.
Well.. here is a link to my project named Turbo Fight:
https://www.angelfire.com/indie/tidusrenewed/turbofight.html
Its a 2d client/server based multiplayer platform/fighting game.
Theres still heaps of features which are missing, that are needed to make it good, its almost ready to have custom levels.. Custom characters are a bit more far off.
[edit 2nd February 2005: custom characters and levels are in there but still a bit unwieldly]
The greatest nintendo fansite I have seen is http://www.nintendoland.com/home.htm
. That site is most impressive!
Dbz Fan Games
Everyone seems to be looking for these.
Mugen, is a good source of dbz fighting-genre fan games, however for unusual genres like platform games, war, rpg, simulation etc, you wont find it for mugen. Naturally thats because Mugen is a fighting game engine.
I make special mention of Mugen here because the most common Mugen characters are for DBZ.
At some site, with the name "byond" somewhere in the title there is a system of online fan games. I haven't looked at it. The games are created by fans using a special language specific to byond that lets it work how it does.
I think its worth mentioning the europeans seem to be the most actively involved in fan games, particularly anything to do with sprites.
YO DBZ FANS.. here is a link to an insightful interview someone had with Akira Toriyama! Where DID dragon ball come from? Find out here: http://www.stormpages.com/ssjsean/ati.htm
Mugen Source Code
This seems to be a popular subject.. so i thought id say something about it here.
As far as i know the Mugen source code is not open source, however, they have had the file formats available for quite some time. If you wanted a program that could use mugen characters, that would be of help. The problem is that you would have to interpret the files yourself.
Mabye its only some parts of mugen characters that you are interested in for your program.
If it is then you could do the hard labour for that bit and leave other bits out. I don't know if thats possible though either.
Good luck anyway, who knows what people have already done in this area.
An Interactive Development Environment (IDE) would be a nice thing for people who make characters. Probably have to wait and see what happens with a windows version from elecbyte too. They havent really detailed the features that will be included, but i can't help but expect some networking, the game is crying out for it.
Homemade C++ Games
This is something im interested in.
I think a lot of work is done with this using the djgpp compiler with the allegro games library.
There are other free compilers out there, borland c++ 5 free commmand line tools and there is the lcc compiler which comes with an IDE and apparently supports the C99 standard. I personally have the borland one, but ive got a free windows resource editor called weditres which is part of the lcc package.
I havent managed to use directx with the borland free thing, but i suspect its possible and if i do it i should tell you all how. Still, the windows api functions are available, and along with some kludge's(inelegant solutions) found at msdn, essentially everything is possible in windows api, that can be done in allegro.
