Fan game facts for kids

Kids Encyclopedia Facts

A fan game is a video game made by fans of a specific game, movie, or story. These games are often based on existing video game series or characters. Sometimes, fans try to copy or remake the original game's look, how it plays, and its characters. Other times, fans create a totally new game using an existing one as a starting point.

Making high-quality fan games has become much easier. This is thanks to new computer technology and tools, like free and open-source software. Fan games are a type of content made by users. They are also part of the fun of playing older games again. You can think of them as a way for people to creatively reuse and change existing ideas.

How Fan Games Are Made
When Companies Stop Fan Games
When Companies Support Fan Games
See also

How Fan Games Are Made

Fan games are made in two main ways. They can be standalone games, built from scratch with their own game engines. Or, they can be modifications (mods) that add to existing games. Each way has its own good points. Standalone games are usually easier for more people to play. However, they can take more time and effort to create.

Making Standalone Games

Many fan games are built using tools and game engines that already exist. Popular engines like Unity and Adobe Flash let fans create their own games. Other programs like GameMaker, Construct, RPG Maker, or Clickteam products (like The Games Factory and Multimedia Fusion 2) are also used.

Fan game creators often pick free and open-source game engines. Examples include OGRE, Crystal Space, DarkPlaces, and Spring. These engines help fans make games without paying for expensive licenses. Developers can change and redesign these engines. They usually cost much less than commercial options. However, they might need extra work to create amazing visual effects.

It is also possible for fans to build a game engine from the very beginning. This uses a programming language like C++. But this takes a lot more time and technical skill. The Spring Engine, for example, started as a fan-made game for Total Annihilation.

Making Mods for Existing Games

Some fan games are made as a mod for an existing game. This uses features and software that come with many game engines. Mods usually don't change the original story or graphics. Instead, they add new content to what the original game already has. Modding an existing game is often cheaper than building a fan game from scratch.

Because making a whole new game is complex, fan games often use existing tools. These tools might come with the original game or be easy to find elsewhere. Games like Unreal Tournament 2004 and Neverwinter Nights include tools for editing maps and writing scripts. This lets fans create mods using the game's engine. Older games like Doom have had their source code released. This allows for big changes to be made.

Another way to mod is by editing the ROM images of older games, like SNES games. Programs such as Lunar Magic let users change data in the ROM image. They can alter levels, character graphics, or other parts of the game. These edited ROM images are usually played on emulators. But they could also be used to create cartridges for older systems. This would let them run on the original game console. A famous example is The Legend of Zelda: Parallel Worlds. Reviewers called it an amazing unofficial sequel to A Link to the Past. Other examples include Legend of Zelda: Curse from the Outskirts and Super Mario World - The Second Reality Project 2.

Some famous fan mods have even been adopted by the original game developer. For example, Counter-Strike, Day of Defeat, and Pirates, Vikings and Knights II were all made official additions to Half-Life by Valve.

Console Releases

Fan games are usually made with a small budget. Because of this, they are rarely available on game consoles. The fees for licensing are too expensive. However, some unofficial fan games have appeared on consoles with a strong homebrew community. These include the Atari 2600, NES, SNES, Game Boy systems, and Sony's PlayStation, PlayStation 2, and PlayStation Portable.

When Companies Stop Fan Games

Sometimes, companies shut down fan games. They do this because fan games can be seen as copyright infringements. This means they use copyrighted material without permission. Original copyright holders can send a cease and desist order. This tells fan game projects to stop. Many fan games even use music and graphics directly from the original games.

In 2005, Vivendi Universal tried to shut down a King's Quest fan project. It was called King's Quest IX: Every Cloak Has a Silver Lining. This game was meant to be an unofficial sequel. After fans protested, Vivendi changed its mind. They gave permission for the game to be made. As part of the deal, the developers had to remove "King's Quest" from the title. However, fan protests in 2004 for Chrono Resurrection (a remake demo of Chrono Trigger) did not stop Square Enix from blocking the project.

Nintendo is known for protecting its intellectual property very strictly. They have shut down many well-known fan games. These include an HD remake of Super Mario 64, AM2R, and No Mario's Sky. Nintendo has also taken down various Pokémon fan games like "Pokenet" and "Pokémon Uranium".

In 2018, a Spyro the Dragon fan game, Spyro: Myths Awaken, was shut down by Activision. Activision owns the Spyro rights. The game later became Zera: Myths Awaken. All content owned by Activision was replaced with original content. After this, other fan-made games like Spyro 2: Spring Savanna stopped development.

In 2021, Rockstar Games' parent company, Take-Two Interactive, sued the creators of re3 and reVC. These projects allowed Grand Theft Auto III and Grand Theft Auto: Vice City to be played on newer systems like the Nintendo Switch. Take-Two said the creators did not have the right to copy or share parts of their games. They also claimed the project caused "irreparable harm." Take-Two dropped the lawsuits in April 2023.

Also in 2021, Osmany Gomez made a game called "I Am Batman" using the Unreal Engine 5. It featured characters like Batman, Joker, and Penguin from Tim Burton's movies. In May 2021, Gomez posted a demo video on YouTube. Two days later, Warner Brothers blocked his video. Gomez did not want to sue, so the project was closed.

Capcom stopped a fan's remake of Code Veronica and the original Resident Evil due to copyright.

In 2011, fans of the TV show My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic planned a fighting game. It was inspired by games like Street Fighter and featured characters from the show. The project, My Little Pony: Fighting is Magic, became very popular. But when Hasbro found out, they sent a cease and desist. This stopped the game from being fully made. However, the show's animator, Lauren Faust, liked the idea. She encouraged it to be made with new four-legged characters she designed. The game was renamed Them's Fightin' Herds and first released in 2018.

When Companies Support Fan Games

Other times, companies have supported fan games. For example, Capcom has shown Peter Sjöstrand's Mega Man 2.5D fan game on their community site. Capcom's Senior Vice President, Christian Svennson, said they can't officially approve fan games. But he also said they won't actively try to stop them. In 2012, Capcom took Seo Zong Hui's Street Fighter X Mega Man and funded it. This turned it from a fan game into an officially licensed, free Mega Man game.

In 2008, Christian Whitehead created his own game engine, the Retro Engine. He used it for the Sonic the Hedgehog fan game Retro Sonic. Whitehead then made a test version of Sonic the Hedgehog CD running on his engine. He showed it to Sega. Sega approved it, and a full remake using Whitehead's engine was released two years later. Whitehead later worked with programmer Simon Thomley. They made mobile remakes of Sonic the Hedgehog and Sonic the Hedgehog 2. Eventually, Whitehead directed a brand new Sonic the Hedgehog game, Sonic Mania. The development team was made up of people known for their work in the Sonic fan community. Mania was also used as the base for Sonic Superstars.

In 2013, Valve Corporation allowed the creators of Black Mesa to sell their game. Black Mesa was a free fan remake of the 1998 Half-Life. Selling it on Steam helped them make the game even better. After its full release in 2020, Valve's level designer Dario Casali called it "awesome" and better than the original game.

The fan games Skywind and Skyblivion are remakes of The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind (2002) and The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion (2006). They are being made in the game engine of The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. Both projects received official approval from the games' developers, Bethesda Softworks. Bethesda even gave the Skyblivion team free copies of the official Oblivion Remastered in 2025. They praised the remake project many times.

In April 2017, Mig Perez and Jeffrey Montoya released Castlevania: The Lecarde Chronicles 2. This game has new art, music, and voice acting. It even features voice actors who were in official Castlevania games. These include Douglas Rye, who played Dracula, and Robert Belgrade, who played Alucard. Konami allowed the game to be released as long as it remained non-profit.