Fangame Engine

An engine is the coding for a computer application, particularly one of entertainment, such as a video game. Fangames of Mario Fan Games Galaxy, use this term to refer to the coding used in the actual gameplay, although it can refer to any aspect of the coding or all of it as a whole. Engines can be seen in a fairly isolated form as howtos.

In respect to Mario fangaming, engines are usually expected to contain features normally seen in the official games, such as slope support, variable jumping, and decent collision checking. It is common to see other features implemented to help make the game feel more unique.

The abundance of full-featured open-source engines is a controversial issue; while they allow inexperienced or non-programmers to easily create their own games, in many cases the engines are barely modified, if at all. Bugs, annoyances, and a general "cookie-cutter" feel tends to persist with games produced with these engines. The Hello Mario Engine in particular is often cited as being overused and generally unchanged.

Klik Engine Taxonomy

Static Engine

Static engines are created without using the programming environment's default movement, if there is one. Instead, any and all movement on the object is done by manually changing the X and Y positions -- by how much is what the engine determines.

Ball Movement Engine

These engines use the Bouncing Ball default movement in combination with principles and techniques of static engines, which in some situations is preferable. This is a popular choice for Sonic fangames.

Platform Movement Engine

The platform movement is a built in engine that comes with all clickteam products with minor changes depending on which program used. It is very glitchy and is lined with bugs, however it has on occasion been used to produce good fangames. Static engines are usually favoured over it as it is easier to start from scratch rather than fix the built in problems, however some still make use of the Y-axis features as it is easier than implanting manually.

Various Mario Engines

Game Maker: Studio

• Hello's "Hello Mario Engine"
• Gatete's "GMEAnniversary" (WIP)
• Gatete's "Super Leaf Engine"
• Gatete's "Fusion Engine"

Legacy Game Maker

• Hello's "Hello Engine 5"
• Hello's "Open Source SMB1 Engine"
• Gatete's "Gatete Mario Engine 8"
• Ultramario's "Ultramario Engine"
• djrellik's "Mario Bros. 3 Engine"
• Tri's "Trisoft Engine"
• Supernova's "Supernova Mario World Engine"
• VinnyVideo's "Bibby RPG Engine"

Clickteam

• Retriever II's "High Precision Movement Engine"
• Soniro's "Open Source Mario Engine"
• Xgoff's "COSINE" (in development)