N.E.T.G.E.N

N.E.T.G.E.N (also written as NETGEN), is an April Fools joke created by PlasmoidThunder.

Touted as being an in-development modification of the M.U.G.E.N 1.1 beta that enables native online player versus player functionality, it is actually just a redistribution of the M.U.G.E.N engine with one stage, a modified version of the creator's own Vortex Infinity Lifebars, and an edit of Kung Fu Man known as Net Fu Man, with any apparent online connectivity being spoofed by the screenpack and Net Fu Man himself.

Gameplay
When N.E.T.G.E.N is opened, the player is greeted by a very simplistic menu screen consisting of a black background, the name of the engine stylised in the same manner as M.U.G.E.N 1.0's logo, and the option to either commence netplay or exit the game. When Netplay is selected, which in reality is Arcade Mode, the player is taken to a barebones select screen where the only selectable character is Net Fu Man, with the right side of the screen occupied by a 'SEARCHING FOR OPPONENT... (WAITING ON USER INPUT)' message and the top right corner featuring an icon that displays the connection strength, though both are naturally fake. Selecting Net Fu Man brings the player to what appears to be a connection screen when in actuality it is simply part of Net Fu Man's intro, though it is from this point onward where the chance of N.E.T.G.E.N crashing starts to occur. After a brief period of time, providing N.E.T.G.E.N hasn't already crashed, an opponent will appear to have been found and the previously grey connection strength icon will update to either a single red bar (very poor), two orange bars (poor), three yellow bars (weak), or five green bars (strong), though getting the lattermost strength guarantees that N.E.T.G.E.N will crash shortly after. Several seconds later, the opponent's selected character (also Net Fu Man) will be displayed in a faux versus screen before cutting to the apparent start of the round where the match appears to begin as normal, though the game will suffer from substantial "lag" based on how weak the connection strength is, ranging from 15 frames of pause (weak) to an entire second (very poor); it is here where the chance of N.E.T.G.E.N crashing increases, making it incredibly unlikely for the fight to actually begin, let alone conclude.

Trivia

 * Despite the claim of N.E.T.G.E.N being a modification of M.U.G.E.N 1.1 beta being part of the joke, the executable was in fact modified to some extent to replace certain text strings and the program icon.
 * The forced crashing is accomplished by having a ChangeAnim state controller with an elem value of animelemno(0) that swaps the current animation of either Net Fu Man or one of his Helpers with one that consists of only a single frame that lasts for 0 ticks.
 * Although the debug keys have been disabled, CTRL+I can still be pressed to force both characters to their idle states; as doing so would break the illusion of the connection process, Net Fu Man has a failsafe that activates should this occur, flashing a warning on-screen accompanied by sirens that first reads 'YOU PRESSED CTRL+I YOU LITTLE SHIT' followed by 'NOW I'M GOING TO CRASH YOUR GAME ON PURPOSE', before subsequently crashing N.E.T.G.E.N.