vanilla ice asked me to start a topic regarding this, and thanks to zeak6464 there's a surefire way for this to actually work
q: the hell is ikemen?
a: an open source mugen clone, basically. you can get it here
q: how's the quality of the netplay?
a: generally pretty smooth. of course this all depends on you on your opponent's connection.
q: haha alright! now i can go into ranked lobbies and sic f1 key on them
a: whoa slow down there, hypothetical question guy. that is not how this'll work. this all works in terms of clientside. meaning, you and your opponent MUST have the same exact ikemen set for this to work at all. so if you wanna go that route, your opponent would also have to be as masochistic to include such a 'god' character. however you can change your controls to your own liking. more on that a little more below
q: how does one connect to one another?
a: using lanbridger. there, you can host a server, and once that's up, click the button that says 'share link', and give it to your opponent. of course they'll have to know the password as well. if you want to host the ikemen session, boot ikemen up, hit 'netplay', enter nothing in the prompt, and wait for your opponent to connect. if you are the one joining, boot ikemen up, hit 'netplay', copy their i.p., paste it into the ip prompt, hit okay, and it should direct both of you to the select screen.
q: what are the controls? i can't seem to find/change it
a: Look for the ssz folder and find config.ssz, and open it with notepad.For the pad/stick players, you are lucky cause there IS controller support. IMT posted a useful tutorial about it. If you want, you are welcome to use xpadder or joy2key, the default keys are:
(actual key = how ikemen interprets it as mugen controls)
directional keys - up, down, left, right
A = X
S = Y
D = Z
Z = A
X = B
C = C
RETURN = start
imt's supplied control layout is a bit weird for me, but i THINK i learned how to customize it more to your liking. here are the numbers for the buttons on an xbox360 wired controller;
2 = X
3 = Y
4 = Z
0 = A
1 = B
5 = C
7 = start
q: why is there no common.snd, fight.snd, or system.snd in-game?
a: Vanilla IKEMEN includes a system.snd (located in the script folder). For things like common.snd/fight.snd, that's all lifebar based, so you can just add your own (best if you just wanna replace the existing lifebar).
q: how do i add characters and stages?
a: open the 'script' folder, open 'select' and basically add them how you would normal mugen.
q: i don't believe this. i'm gonna need some video proof.
a: here ya go! the video recorder i use actually lags ikemen up a bit, so it's best to record replays then LIVE matches.
q: i can't open lanbridger. are there any other alternatives?
a: LogMeIn Hamachi, Tunngle, Evolve, Zerotier One, or even port forwarding works.
q: are there glitches that happen with certain characters?
a: Many mugen characters work fine, but as you might have expected, there are a few kinks. Generally, IKEMEN runs characters very smoothly, but from time to time there can be a few chars that can cause a few glitches in IKEMEN. (Note: Some issues could have been patched out from older versions, and there are work arounds in case someone wants to make a certain character more accurate to IKEMEN).
q: what characters are glitchy/incompatible with ikemen?
a: Some examples (Note: The list could be outdated):
Minor Glitches
Spoiler, click to toggle visibilty
Hashi by Borghi
turns invisible during his dark force-esque super (wears off after mode ends)
Joker by NGI
level 1 super will sometimes not hit entirely
Kira Yoshikage by Amarimono
qcb+heavy makes him enter his crouching turn animation for some reason and the tank crawls across the ground rather than in the air
Remy by Homura
medium sonic boom doesn't come out (the rest do)
Major Glitches
Spoiler, click to toggle visibilty
Dio by Warusaki3
various serious glitches (stand doesn't come out sometimes, enters into invalid states, etc)
Warakia by Rajaa
"When he uses his claw related moves. The GFX get stuck to him when he uses some moves. And his claw moves have a SUPER small hit box." - _Data_Drain_
if there are any other glitches that need attention, feel free to report them
if there's any other questions i'll try to answer em and add them to the first post of this topic. hope all of this helps!