Board 8 > Monthly Multiplayer Asynchronous Randomizers (More new games added!)

(+) Yeah! (+)

I let the last topic purge, whoops. Still, it might be good to have the opening post list some of the recent popular additions (like Pokemon and SMW)

Website: archipelago.gg
NOTE TO MODS: While some Archipelago games require emulation, they don't provide any of the hardware or information on how to get it. They're very careful not to break any laws so please don't delete this topic just for linking to them, thx

What is a randomizer?: Most games have a linear progression. Item A unlocks Area B, and Area B has Item C to unlock Area D, and so on. In a randomizer, these items are shuffled, so you might find Item C in the first area and can progress to Area D right away. How they work obviously varies from game to game, but most randomizers offer a unique progression path every time you play. Often this turns them into a kind of puzzle to complete. Randomizers use careful logic to ensure you can always beat the game, but it won't always be easy!

How can a randomizer be multiplayer?: With Archipelago, instead of a game's items being shuffled within itself, those items are shuffled between several different games. A Link to the Past player can find and send a Super Metroid player's super missiles, and then the Super Metroid player can find the LTTP player's hookshot, and so on. This turns the randomizer experience into one big puzzle split between ten or twenty or more games, and everyone needs to cooperate to complete it. This can be done with everyone playing at the same time, but Archipelago also allows for asynchronous play (or async), meaning your progress is saved and can be resumed later. Any items you send, other players receive when they start playing, and any items they send you will come when you resume.

LIST OF GAMES
A Link to the Past
ChecksFinder (a small Minesweeper-type game)
Dark Souls III
Donkey Kong Country 3
Factorio
Final Fantasy
Hollow Knight
Hylics 2
Lufia II Ancient Cave
Meritous
Minecraft
Ocarina of Time
Overcooked 2
Pokemon Red and Blue
Raft
Risk of Rain 2
Rogue Legacy
Secret of Evermore
Slay the Spire
SMZ3 (LTTP and Super Metroid combined into one game)
Sonic Adventure 2 Battle
Starcraft 2: Wings of Liberty
Subnautica
Super Mario 64
Super Mario World
Super Metroid
The Witness
Timespinner
VVVVVV
Zillion

How to Participate: If you're interested, that's great! Here's a quick breakdown of the steps you need to take, but feel free to ask any questions.

1: Choose your game from the list above. Remember, whatever you choose will be randomized, so you won't be playing it the usual way. Minecraft, for example, locks various crafting recipes behind checks for you to find or other players to send you. You won't even be able to craft a stone pickaxe until you get Progressive Tools. In Starcraft II, you can't build marines until the unit is sent, etc. With that said, no one should be wary of joining. Archipelago allows forfeits if you're having trouble or not having any fun, so feel free to try it out!

2: Make sure you can get your game to work. https://archipelago.gg/tutorial/ has setup guides for the various games, and most of them require the Archipelago client too. I've played a few games and others here have played many others, so hopefully we can help if you're having trouble. If you run into big technical issues, though, you might need to go to the Archipelago discord server and ask there. There are lots of knowledgeable people there who will be happy to help with any questions!

3: Decide on your game's settings and either let me know or send me a yaml file. A yaml is the name for the file that contains your game's settings. Each game on Archipelago allows various setting changes (found here: https://archipelago.gg/games under the settings link by each game). You can either export the settings on the website and send me the file (preferably through discord) or simply let me know of your changes and, as long as there aren't a whole bunch of them, I can happily create a yaml for you. If this is your first time participating, I'd recommend just going with defaults, but some games have some real quality-of-life stuff available so make sure to take a look!

4: Once I get all the yamls and generate the multiworld, the async begins! At that point all you need to do is join in and start playing. We're pretty laid-back here, so while each async will start on a Saturday where hopefully people can play, it's fine if you can't start right away or if you can't play all the time. Most asyncs we've done have taken between a few days to a week, so there's no rush. This is meant to be fun and low-stress for everyone!

Lastly, we have a discord server that we use during these. It's helpful to talk in real-time sometimes, and it makes uploading yaml files super easy. People read what's posted here too, though, so joining it isn't mandatory. The link is below and it should never expire, but if you try to join and can't just let me know and I'll generate a new one.

https://discord.gg/s5aZFEKTHz

The next async is February 18th! Either let me know your yaml settings or start sending them to me on the discord.

Bump

Slow going so far, but I'm guessing more people will join before the end!

1- Robazoid (Hollow Knight)
2- Reg (Sonic Adventure 2 Battle) yaml received

I keep forgetting to make a yaml but I'm in

if I don't get my act together I'll just reuse my previous pokemon one

February 18th is coming ever closer!

1- Robazoid (Hollow Knight)
2- Reg (Sonic Adventure 2 Battle) yaml received
3- KommunistKoala (Super Mario World) yaml received
4- Alchav (Ocarina of Time) yaml received
----
5- AriaOfBolo (Pokemon) awaiting new yaml or just using old one

The dice have determined I am doing Mario World this time. I think I remember some sort of common mistake with the yamls, but what was it? I can't get on Discord from here to check.

AriaOfBolo posted...

The dice have determined I am doing Mario World this time. I think I remember some sort of common mistake with the yamls, but what was it? I can't get on Discord from here to check.

If you're not randomizing levels, it's best to take the "swap Donut ghost house exits" option so you don't have to wait for cape to continue the game.

Lolo_Guru posted...

If you're not randomizing levels, it's best to take the "swap Donut ghost house exits" option so you don't have to wait for cape to continue the game.

Even if you do shuffle levels, this isn't a bad idea. Otherwise you just get stuck in the same spot on Carry in the vast majority of shuffles

That's what I thought, thanks!

1- Robazoid (Hollow Knight)
2- Reg (Sonic Adventure 2 Battle) yaml received
3- KommunistKoala (Super Mario World) yaml received
4- Alchav (Ocarina of Time) yaml received
5- JeffreyRaze (Link to the Past) yaml received
6- Mewtwo (Ocarina of Time) yaml received
7- Plasman (VVVVVV) yaml received
8- Plasman (Pokemon) yaml received
9- MrSmartGuy (Pokemon) yaml received
----
10- AriaOfBolo (Super Mario World) awaiting yaml

https://archipelago.gg/room/z51Uj41bRiCXYqB7PhC3hQ

There's the room link, have fun everyone! Hints cost 10% now, I figure that's a good amount. If we ever start really having trouble, I can always check the spoiler log. I hope no one runs into any problems but let me know if you do. Remember to update to the latest version of Archipelago

terraria and stardew and mmbn will be soon... so soon.........

I remember hearing that once upon a time

I keep forgetting to sign up, will try hard to remember next time!

We've had a tough async so far. Some people (like me) breezed through pretty easily, but other people have been struggling! That's the nature of randomization, I suppose. Still, it looks like we're nearing the end.

https://archipelago.gg/dl_spoiler/c4jKAvQ0Qx-E7M-GTb8i8g

Now that we're all done, there's the spoiler log. Thanks again for participating, everyone!

I'm going to be unavailable in March, but Reg has agreed to take over next month. The 18th is sounding like the likely start date, but keep an eye on the topic or in the discord for official announcements

Yup yup. Look for the usual call for yamls late next week

I don't think it's super likely that I'll work with the new games that will be in the upcoming release unless we get said release. I've seen discussion that there's a bug that breaks all the web trackers if you roll a game on latest source code (Which would be necessary to include said games, I think), and I think most of the upcoming ROM games (MMBN3, Z1, LADX) have their own clients which would be extra installs on the players' part that I don't really feel like trying to figure out and help troubleshoot.

If we do get a release in the next week or two though, you guys will be free to go nuts. If not, April should be pretty interesting.

Whoops, I was a bit busy yesterday. Doesn't look like there's a new AP release coming in time for this (Big sorry NFUN), but if you've got a yaml you want to play this month, post it in the #yaml channel of the discord, or just send it to me somehow else (A DM here is fine, or just a description of the settings you want even) if you don't/can't use discord.

I'll also @HBJDubs in particular since you previously mentioned forgetting to sign up

I haven't fully decided what I'm going to play myself this month, but I'll have that figured out by the end of this weekend for sure.

I won't be able to participate this month, but I can bump the topic!

I've got this so far:

1) Reg - SA2B
2) Koala - SMW

May just bump it back to the 25th if people are busy/can't get their yamls in, but I'm going to be out of town the weekend after that (The 31st-2nd) so I'd rather do the 18th if people are still up for it.

I'll probably throw in something small and quick but 25th would be nice

The feedback I got on discord when we wrapped up last month's a few weeks back was all the 18th, but totally get if schedules/plans change, and moving it's good with me.

I'm ok with either.

Still deciding what game I'm going to play

already entered my yamls into the mix, but I should also be fine with either

Unless I get yamls from Aria and/or HBJDubs by noon eastern tomorrow, I'm going to delay this to the 25th.

Nobody who's submitted a yaml so far has objected to the idea of doing that, Aria has said it works better, and it gives people who haven't submitted games but are interested more time to do so.

1) Reg - SA2B
2) Koala - SMW
3) Elina x3 - Pokemon, Rogue Legacy, SM64
4) JeffRaze - LttP

I keep forgetting to slap a yaml together and now I can't before the deadline, but you have my blessing to throw in a Checksfinder for me if that helps (I can't do that from where I am)

sent one for SM

AriaOfBolo posted...

I keep forgetting to slap a yaml together and now I can't before the deadline, but you have my blessing to throw in a Checksfinder for me if that helps (I can't do that from where I am)

@AriaOfBolo This includes even if we move back to the 25th?

If people still want to run the 18th I can gen one tomorrow including this, but I'm not sure I'm super inclined to so so even with games from you and HBJ.

25th I can probably run a real game!

AriaOfBolo posted...

25th I can probably run a real game!

Ok, consider this officially moved back to the 25th then, pretty much as I said I would yesterday.

25 works better for me too, I would have probably added something tonight, but I am still pretty busy tomorrow.

reason I wasn't super keen on yesterday was I was playing SMRPG randomizer for something else!

I've played it before and it goes like 3-4 hours, I wanted it to go 4-6 hours so I tweaked a couple settings

I had to do damn near every check in the game and it took me 10.5 hours ~_~ I skipped one optional boss and I think like two item spots. I also got a near softlock where Raspberry & Bundt had a party Mushroom attack and I couldn't stay active long enough to take out the candles, but I also couldn't die because it was an early boss and the Mushroom regen outpaced their damage. It was very silly and I suffered a lot and I liked it.

Archipelago 0.3.9 released an RC (Release Candidate, for beta testing) today

We're not using it this month. I don't want to mess with bug hunting and reporting.

New games for (Presumably) next month are Blasphemous, Kingdom Hearts 2, The Legend of Zelda (Z1), Link's Awakening DX, The Messenger, Stardew Valley and Wargroove

As for this month, we've got:
1) Reg - Sonic Adventure 2
2) Koala - Super Mario World
3) Elina x3 - Pokemon, Rogue Legacy, SM64
4) JeffRaze x2 - Link to the Past, Ocarina of Time
5) HBJDubs - Super Metroid
6) Plasman - Super Mario World
---
AriaOfBolo - TBD

poor NFUN

yeah. My understanding is that MMBN3 made a lot of progress on this development cycle and is almost there, but didn't quite get across the finish line yet.

That's a great list of games.

Bumping the thread because we've got a couple of days left before this month's game

1) Reg - Sonic Adventure 2
2) Koala - Super Mario World
3) Elina x3 - Pokemon, Rogue Legacy, SM64
4) JeffRaze x2 - Link to the Past, Ocarina of Time
5) HBJDubs - Super Metroid
6) Plasman - Super Mario World
7) Lolo x2 - Zillion, Hollow Knight
---
@AriaOfBolo - TBD (Gentle reminder)

oh shoot, sorry and thanks and done

AriaOfBolo posted...

oh shoot, sorry and thanks and done

All good, friend.

Probably going to roll this around 10am Saturday Morning US Eastern. Though I did just run a local test generation with the yamls we have and it completed successfully. I'm obviously not fully testing the random yaml, but reading briefly through it on top of one test generation seems fine. So on that front, we're all good.

https://archipelago.gg/room/k-rbLX4jRgK4cbz0WGAB9Q

Hints 10%, release on goal completion, all the usual stuff. Go nuts.

The Player1 slot is JeffRaze's OOT, I forgot to fix the name in his yaml before zipping it, whoops.

Bump. Forgot to play today but I'll play some before I sleep.

Looks like for next month we'll indeed have the next Archipelago version, I myself am probably gonna try out a few of the new games

The async is pretty much over, and I hope everyone had fun with it! Thanks again to Reg for taking over while I was away last month. I'm thinking April 22nd for the next one, but as always this can change if another week works better for people. Here's a full list of the newly added games:

Adventure
Blasphemous
Clique
Kingdom Hearts II
Stardew Valley
The Legend of Zelda (NES)
The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening DX
The Messenger
Wargroove

I'm not 100% sure what Clique is, but I think it's this year's April Fools goof game like Archipidle was last year. Still, I figured I'd list it.

Clique is 100% an april fools game and I would very much suggest not accepting yamls for it.

Reg posted...

yeah. My understanding is that MMBN3 made a lot of progress on this development cycle and is almost there, but didn't quite get across the finish line yet.

there was just too many other games released the admins had no time to check it lmao

up

22nd is a no go for me but I'm sure I'll survive missing one

The next async will be a little over a week from now on April 22nd. Start letting me know your games and/or sending yamls

1- Robazoid (Hollow Knight)

I was excited for Stardew Valley, but then, right before SV released on Archipelago, I wound up playing Sun Haven, a new farming sim game that's very similar to Stardew Valley. Maybe I'll be in the mood for that kind of game again in a month or two, but for now I'll stick with my usual HK

I did send in a Stardew Valley, and I enabled the setting that allows different SV worlds to send each other items in case anyone else thinks about playing that one (though I dunno how helpful it really is in an async, feels like a setting that gets more use in sync games)