MUGEN is an acronymous that comes from japanese word "mugen", that literally means "infinite".
It's the best word to represent this fighting games engine. It was created in the end of 90s
by the company Elecbyte, and it's without a doubt the most famous engine to create customized
fighting games and it's easier to do. It started as a program made for DOS system (more known as
DOSMUGEN), which its last version was 2001.04.14, until then, the most used version for this
engine followers.
After releasing a
Linux version (called LinMUGEN), Elecbyte dissapeared in 2002 without
a trace, leaving an alpha of a Windows version that wasn't finished, very limited and only
in the hands of betatesters.
Time after, that alpha
was leaked and modified to be converted
into the definitive WinMUGEN version, which has a big success and continued DOSM legacy,
releasing various "hacks"
that expanded the universe that was MUGEN.
But the King wasn't dead, just came back stronger.
In 2009, Elecbyte got back with MUGEN1.0,
a more complete version and with a lot of new features,
some of them are High Definition as default,
new
controllers, added the
winquotes option and some other advances. Actually, and after made
6 updates (called as
"Release Candidate", or RC),
Elecbyte actually works in its 1.1 version, which
its big advance is the zoom option, one of the big
features lacked MUGEN since their beginnings.
With MUGEN you can create the fighting game of your dreams, putting characters from
different franchises and companies, and even original characters and/or adaptated from other
media like videogames, anime and even TV series) battling one against other as in fighting
games. Also you can combine stages, music, lifebars and even motifs (called as "screenpacks")
to personalize your game, all of this 100% free and downloadable from internet.
And even more,
there're tutorials so you can create your own MUGEN content by yourself, with tutorials provided
for Elecbyte (it comes with the MUGEN package) as well made
by other creators
on the net.
DOSMUGEN (ver. 2001.04.14)
Last version of Elecbyte's Original MUGEN for DOS (Win95-98).
Modified for WinXP by Basara-kun, for Win7-8 use DOSBox.
LinMUGEN (ver. 2002.04.14)
Last version of Elecbyte's Original MUGEN for Linux.
Official Elecbyte's website from 2002 hosted on Wayback Machine.
WinMUGEN (ver. 2002.04.14)
Hacked version by Rouhei, based on LinMUGEN and released time after
Elecbyte dissapeared in 2002.
Website hosted on Wayback Machine.
WinMUGEN Plus
WinMUGEN modification to be used with D4 content.
Download provided thanks to 4shared.
MUGEN1.0 (ver. RC6)
Last MUGEN version and the official one that marks Elecbyte's comeback.
Also contents the Beta version of MUGEN1.1. Both downloadable
through its official website.