early 2000s FANGAME HELL

WHY EVEN POST THESE?

i just think it's neat. it's neat that this stuff still exists at all, and it's neat that these are the beginnings of so much of what i do now. it's neat that if i never made this stuff, i have no clue where i'd be or what i'd be doing today. there are some good-natured laughs to be had at how cool i thought these projects were, or how amazing i thought my vision was, and i feel like there's a lot of charm here. i remember putting moving platforms in my games and not knowing how to move the player along with them. i didn't care. i put them in anyways, and you have to move yourself while you're on them! "it's a challenge!" i'm sure i thought. a true testament to my mule-headed self, always reluctant to dig deeper into game creation than i have to. just saying "alright, that's fine, good enough, it works" and moving on to the next cool thing i want to make instead of expending the energy on something so strictly technical. that's the MuleNgine spirit, yeah. thankfully, now i enjoy learning new techniques quite a bit...

ultimately, i think of the stuff here as a testament to a simple fact: if you create something, there's a very good chance you will create more, better things. so CREATE SOMETHING! ♡ ♡ ♡ ♡ ♡

KIRBY ON ZEBES | The Games Factory | 2000.07.27

As far as I can tell, this is the oldest thing of mine still available on the internet. I made this when I was 12 and recall being very proud of it, even though I knew a lot of things were broken. The controls use default TGF platform movement, the firing mechanics are strange (you have to be either pointing exactly left or right, so you can't shoot while jumping or after landing unless you press a direction first - they can be cancelled by other animations, too), and it's really easy to get stuck on platforms - especially the moving ones that don't carry you. As awful as it all may be, it certainly serves as a piece of strange nostalgia for me. There's a control tutorial at the start of the game.

MEGAMAN 3D | The Games Factory | 2000.09.24

Oh no. This is a pretty laughable top down shooting game using Megaman Soccer sprites and I believed based on the 3D voxel example found here, or at least something very similar. The enemies just bounce around the stage (mostly randomly, thanks to Clickteam's "bouncing ball" movement preset) and their shots all target you directly while they're on the screen. The tiny, 320x200 screen.

YOSHI'S ISLAND PC | The Games Factory | 2000.12.06

This certainly doesn't play much better than Kirby on Zebes. It does, however, use IT files converted from SPCs for the music, which is neat. I mean, comparatively neat. It also has quite a lot of secrets in it, which I remember feeling clever about hiding.

POOCHIE  (prototype) | The Games Factory | 2001.11.06

Actually somewhat neat, especially given that when I was going through my files, I thought I made this after Mario Left the Cheese Out. Apparently not! Still uses the default Clickteam platform movement, but this has a kind of neat "dash" mechanic used to attack enemies. I believe the concept was well-recieved at MFGG. The game was never finished, though. As an aside, I adore that "difference clouds" Photoshop effect title screen. Impressively gaudy.

MARIO LEFT THE CHEESE OUT | MULTIMEDIA FUSION | 2002.01.19

This one kind of put me "on the map" at MFGG. Some of the visual effects are pretty neat, but it's still got a wealth of issues I never got around to learning to resolve. It still uses Clickteam's default platform movement, and I still hadn't figured out how to make the player move with moving platforms. Still hadn't got around to that whole "learning about hitboxes" thing. This game features some of the MFGG community in it. I don't remember a whole lot about my time there, but do look back fondly on what I do recall.