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Do people still make games with the Hello Engine? - Printable Version

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Do people still make games with the Hello Engine? - VinnyVideo - 09-22-2018

Once upon a time, in a land far, far away, MFGG was a Clickteam-centric community. Clickteam's various products - Klik & Play, Multimedia Fusion, The Games Factory, and so forth - sought to make game development accessible to those without extensive programming knowledge. These Clickteam products included lots of built-in mechanics for basic gameplay - such as platformers, racecars, and bouncing balls. Unfortunately, these systems were often inadequate - and almost always buggy! In MFGG's early days, lots of members developed engines that improved on the built-in mechanics. These engines usually focused on Mario (or other playable characters) or individual enemies (for example, someone might make a tutorial showing you how to make a Thwomp). You probably couldn't use these engines to make a full game, though.

As time went on, more people started using Game Maker instead of Clickteam. As with Clickteam, MFGGers made oodles of engines and examples demonstrating how to do things in GM. While some of these engines were simple, some of them included a wide array of items, power-ups, enemies, and obstacles - enough resources to make a full Mario fangame without needing to program much by yourself. The Ultramario Engine was an early example of a "fangame in a box", although the Hello Engine soon eclipsed it in popularity. More recently, Gatete's engine has become the most popular fangame engine on MFGG.

The use of nontrivial premade engines was perhaps the biggest source of controversy for a big chunk of MFGG's history - especially during the phpBB era. Being able to make an entire game without much programming knowledge was appealing - especially for new users or people who were more interested in using the tools as a level editor. However, games made with these engines were often criticized as "Hello clones". Many of them were dull and generic, and users rarely bothered to change the default mechanics and graphics - often they even kept the placeholder music. In my own case, I found that a lot of these engines had iffy documentation, organization, and coding practices, and using them in my early days was ultimately more confusing than helpful. Still, a number of good games were made with these engines - Super Mario Dimensions and Luigi and the Quest for Nothing both used Gatete's engine, for example.

Interestingly, however, I don't see many games made with premade engines anymore. It's been many years since I've seen a game made with the Hello Engine - other than Hello's own games, of course, as well as a couple of joke games or older projects. The Gatete Engine has been more popular than the Hello Engine for quite a few years now, but I'm not seeing a lot of Gatete Engine games either.

My theory is that when Mario Maker came out, a lot of the people who used premade GM engines as level editors flocked to Mario Maker instead. It's also possible that more of these people have moved to SMBX or ROM hacking instead - I'm not sure.

What do y'all think? Do you still find full-featured fangame engines like Hello's or Gatete's to be useful? If not, why aren't you using them - are you making your own engines, or are you using something like SMBX or ROM-hacking tools instead?


RE: Do people still make games with the Hello Engine? - Vitiman - 09-23-2018

I once replicated the Hello Engine (or more specifically, a shoddy gag interpretation of it) in Clickteam for the sake of a large scale joke game. Does that count?


RE: Do people still make games with the Hello Engine? - СМБХфан - 09-29-2018

I think that one of the reasons that not as many fangames with pre-made engines are out is because of the stigma behind pre-made engines, especially that of Hello's engines. People criticized Hello's engines for being to slippery, and fangames were criticized for being lazy Hello Engine edits. 

I also think that the MFGG community is shifting to a quality vs. quantity mode, because less fangames are flooding MFGG, and overall, are just getting better. It's because people are actually trying to make the best quality fangames they can make, with people actually programming by themselves.


RE: Do people still make games with the Hello Engine? - PixelatedIvan - 09-30-2018

Nobody really makes "Hello Clones" anymore, and because of how infamous those are, nobody uses the engine. Funny to think since back 5 years ago those were flooding the website, especially with Hello themselves making them a lot. Most games that use anything premade use Gatete engines (at least from what I seen), and the ones that do use Hello Engine either end off being closed as a project before even releasing or gives enough addons to the base engine to make it feel different. I do feel like another reason is that Hello Engine was not really given a satisfying update in a while.


RE: Do people still make games with the Hello Engine? - Q-Nova - 09-30-2018

I have tried to use engines by Hello and Gatete in the past, but I didn't get very far (they are older versions and I didn't have as much experience and motivation back then as I do now, though, so it may possibly be quite different if I used them today). I did learn some GML stuff from the engines, however, which is nice. At some point, I decided to make my own engines, since MFGG seemed to generally discourage usage of premade engines at that time. Right now, I don't know if I'd use an existing engine or make my own if I were to make my own Mario platformer, but an existing engine would certainly save time (and if it's well made and user friendly, there wouldn't be any harm).

As for why there doesn't seem to be as much engine games as there used to be, VinnyVideo's Mario Maker theory sounds right. I also feel like discouraging people from using them has contributed to that. I'm alright if people want to make their own engine, but I think engines should be seen as more of a good thing than a bad thing. Yeah, people can makes clones with them, but if the engine is well-documented and user friendly, that would be unlikely. Even if it did happen, I wouldn't really blame the creator of the engine for that. I think Mors has said that the Sonic fangame community is quite alive and most of the fangames they produce are made with an engine. So, I don't really see the harm with using an engine if it saves time and the engine itself is quite flexible. WreckingPrograms' Mega Engine seems to be a good example of how to make a premade engine from what I've seen.


RE: Do people still make games with the Hello Engine? - Mariotroid - 10-04-2018

(09-29-2018, 09:36 AM)SMBXFan Wrote: I think that one of the reasons that not as many fangames with pre-made engines are out is because of the stigma behind pre-made engines, especially that of Hello's engines. People criticized Hello's engines for being to slippery, and fangames were criticized for being lazy Hello Engine edits. 

I also think that the MFGG community is shifting to a quality vs. quantity mode, because less fangames are flooding MFGG, and overall, are just getting better. It's because people are actually trying to make the best quality fangames they can make, with people actually programming by themselves.
This x1000. I honestly believe this is due to AM2R becoming a thing. 10 years in development and people realized "holy hell this is possible". It is the biggest fangame I've ever played. Thunder Dragons games and DJ Cocos games, while old, set the standard for what fangames can be. (Of course there are other developers who made impressive fangames, sorry for not mentioning you). Everyone seems to see the light in creating games that are imaginative and impressive, and they have moved on from simple engines that dont require much skill or talent to create.


RE: Do people still make games with the Hello Engine? - OssieTheOstrich - 10-04-2018

To be honest, i'm glad that no one is using Hello's engine anymore (due how it's reputation is), and that we are now going for more original based engines created by us and not using other member's engines.


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