09-22-2018, 06:13 PM
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?
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?
![[-]](https://forums.mfgg.net/images/emerald/collapse.png)
![[Image: LBpgMzY.png]](https://i.imgur.com/LBpgMzY.png)
![[+]](/images/collapse_collapsed.png "[+]")
Spoiler![[Image: bingo-bongo-you.jpg]](https://media.makeameme.org/created/bingo-bongo-you.jpg){kind=small}
