Integrate MUGEN Engine with AGS?

[Kalan1988]

Hi,

After I created some small games with AGS und M.U.G.E.N separately, I am currently think about of making a game that combines the "Adventure-Factor" of the AGS and the "Beat'N'Up-Factor" of M.U.G.E.N.

My Question is, can I integrate the M.U.G.E.N.-Engine in AGS or do I have to write my own engine?

--Kalan

[Gilbert]

No, but as M.U.G.E.N. is open sourced (I think) it is theoretically possible to use these codes as a base to make a plug-in for AGS. However, it wouldn't be an easy task, and it may not be easy to make tighter integration as formats for resources may be different for the two engines (it would be a little bit easier if you don't need resource sharing and each engine use its own resources though).

[Wyz]

I figure there are three ways of doing this:

1) Include both engines separate and let the games switch between engine.

• Pros: There isn't much work involved other then to figure out how to transfer the game state.
  
• Cons: The switch might not be very smooth, and you need to use external files to store the game state which is not that nice.
  
  2) Include mugen as a plugin.
  
• Pros: This way you have more control over the game (taken that you make an adequate interface).
  
• Cons: For this you need a fair amount of knowledge about programming C++ and the AGS plugin API, further more there might be compatibility issues since AGS uses allegro internally and mugen uses SDL these days.
  
  3) Create a mugen clone with AGS modules. (only uses the mugen configuration files)
  
• Pros: Now you can make it do whatever you want and make use of AGS' predefined entities (characters, views, backgrounds, etc)
  
• Cons: A *lot* of work.
  
• More pros: If you've finished making something like this you can release the modules and other AGS users can make awesome fighting games or just include them as minigames.

[Shane 'ProgZmax' Stevens]

Integrating mugen directly would likely result in a pretty significant performance hit, though I've not really played with the program so this isn't something I'm positive of.

One thing I do know from experience is that it would be much easier just to write a generic fighter module for AGS.  I and a few others have already made fighting games with the engine and I can tell you it wouldn't be too difficult to write a basic, functional module that handles most of the heavy lifting; for instance, one of the simplest ways to handle environmental collisions is to use the built-in walkable areas and GetWalkableAreaAt() with characters representing each player and a queue of reserved characters for the enemies.  Of course you can do this more efficiently with dynamic sprites, but in terms of quickly generating a workable model it would work fine to use characters for all of the sprites (including weapons, even).