The EZBoards are back on the Wayback Machine!

[Q-Nova]

I was looking into the images (like the banner) and noticed a lot of them came from a particular Geocities site. After going to the site itself, I might've found what could be the earliest existing form of MFGG:

https://web.archive.org/web/200401021651...koopa2000/

The capture linked is from 2004, but note that the copyright date is 2001! And the downloads pages have very little to download, as if the site was just starting out! Even MarioQuest 2 isn't listed on the games page! (Strangely, though, Wario's Revenge also isn't listed, despite being TD's first game.)

@VinnyVideo Does Wayback Machine even have a way for exporting its contents? I tried using the "Save Page As" browser function on the main page (just to at least get a few of the important stuff), and I still get that Wayback Machine UI on top. There's a way to view the page on Wayback Machine without the interface (the Archiveteam article I linked explains that at the bottom), but then the images are gone.

I have downloaded the Wayback Machine Downloader tool (you won't believe how long it took for me to figure out how to download stuff from Github). However, I'll have to get Ruby first before I can use it.

Although even if I download all of what's left of the forum, it looks like a lot of work will still have to be done before a user-friendly, accessible archive could be created. For one, the General Chat in Feb. 2002 is in a different folder (fthunderdragonsboardsfrm4) than it is in Feb. 2003 (fthunderdragonsboardsfrm8). Also, note how the General Chat in both said time periods have 20 pages each, but according to the main page (Feb. 2002, Feb. 2003), it had double the amount of posts in 2003. (I read somewhere that ezboard has a thread limit per board and will automatically purge older threads if necessary to make room for newer ones, which might be the case since the oldest threads in the GC of Feb. 2003 seem to be dated quite newer than Feb. 2002.)

I could go on and on about this, but I hope you get the point. (By the way, I like the idea of having the option to switch between the two skins.)

@DJ Yoshiman Well, if there's anything I learned, it's that Yoshi's Island was MFGG's favorite Mario game according to a poll made back in late 2001. It even far surpassed Super Mario 64, the newest mainline Mario game at the time! I guess you guys either really liked Yoshi or really liked 2D platformers (or both)! I suppose 2D games would be much more appealing to MFGG since 2D sprites are much more usable in The Games Factory than 3D models.

But like you and Vinny said, it's pretty fun looking at ancient forums! From what I've seen of them, it seems like things were more carefree back then. The fangames made back then can get pretty wild; you can tell a lot of those fangamers had a lot of fun making them! I'd love to see the modern fangame scene adapt some of the creativity, wackiness, and personal feel of the old fangames, while still maintaining some of the polish and aim for quality. I think TD's newest games (like Toad Strikes Back) are an excellent example of taking the best from old and new fangames! Heck, even back then, there were some pretty well-made fangames, like Super Mario XP and (sadly unfinished) Mario: Pipe Network!

Quillax Ship - Where you can download all of my cool, keen mods and super-marvelous fangames!