M.U.G.E.N™
1.0 Release Candidate 8
(c) Elecbyte 1999-2010
elecbyte.com

- README
- RC8 new audio system notes
- Update History

Contents

- Overview
- Contents and Files
- Documentation

## Overview

M.U.G.E.N is a 2D fighting game engine, originally released in 1999. M.U.G.E.N is designed to be highly customizable, allowing very fine control over each character's behavior, as well as allowing customization of almost all screen elements.

The majority of content created for M.U.G.E.N tend to be distributed as individual characters, stages or motifs. Assembling a game is as simple as downloading the content of your choice, and configuring M.U.G.E.N to know about it.

M.U.G.E.N is designed to be used by people with little or no programming experience, but with some artistic talent and patience to learn. Of course, having some programming background does give you a bit of a headstart. However, if you are just looking to play with downloaded content, all you need to know is how to unzip files and edit a text file.

Here's a sampling of features you can find in M.U.G.E.N:

- Customizable title screen, character select screen, life and bars, game sound effects, fonts and more.
- Characters can have any number of sounds and sprites of any size limited by your computer's memory.
- Choose from multiple resolutions, ranging from 320x240 up to full HD at 1920x1080.
- Cutscenes.

Game Engine

- Use up to 7 buttons for a character.
- Regular moves, special moves, super moves, etc.
- Projectiles and special effects.
- Move cancels and combos, multi-part moves and throws.
- What your character can do is defined by a scripting language (and your imagination).

## Contents and Files

### File List

File or directory | Purpose
mugen.exe | The main M.U.G.E.N executable
chars/ | Directory containing character files
data/mugen.cfg | Preferences and settings (text file)
data/select.def | Character and stage config (text file)
data/ other files | Motif files
docs/ | Documentation
font/ | Directory containing font files
old_tools/ | Tools from older versions of M.U.G.E.N
sound/ | Directory containing music files
stages/ | Directory containing stage files

### Global File Types

Files with these extensions can be found in various subdirectories in the M.U.G.E.N directory.

File extension | Type
air | Animations (text)
def | Definition file -- has various uses depending on the filename (text)
fnt | Font file -- old version; new font files are a pair of .fnt and .sff
sff | Sprite file
snd | Sound file

### Character Files

Character files are located as subdirectories in the chars/ directory. The files may be named differently for different characters.

Example file | Type
player.air | Animations (text)
player.cmd | Character commands and move definitions (text)
player.cns | Character states and behavior (text)
player.def | Basic info and filenames of files used by the character (text)
player.sff | Character sprites
player.snd | Character sounds

### Motif Files

Motifs are located as subdirectories in the data/ directory.

File | Type
common1.cns | Behavior information common to all characters (text)
common1.snd | Sound effects that all characters can access
fight.def | Defines the look and feel of the fight screen, i.e. lifebars, etc (text)
fight.sff | Sprites used in the fight screen
fight.snd | Sounds used in the fight screen
fightfx.air | Animation data for in-fight effects, such as hit sparks
fightfx.sff | Sprite data for in-fight effects
select.def | Defines what characters and stages are included in the game
system.def | Defines the look of the system screens, such as title and character select screen
system.sff | Sprites used for the system screens
system.snd | Sounds used for the system screens

## Documentation

### Reference

Technical reference for M.U.G.E.N.

- AIR format
- Background / stage documentation
- CNS format
- Coordinate space notes
- Fonts
- Languages and localization
- Looping BGM guide
- SpriteMaker tool
- Sprite standard
- State controller reference
- Storyboard documentation
- Trigger list

### Tutorials

New to M.U.G.E.N? Get started with our tutorials.

- Character Tutorial 1
- Character Tutorial 2
- Character Tutorial 3
- Character Tutorial 4
- Stage/backgrounds Tutorial