Board 8 > Monthly Multiplayer Asynchronous Randomizers

(+) Yeah! (+)

I let the topic purge yet again, whoops. That's the trouble with something that only happens once a month!

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 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 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
Adventure
Blasphemous
Castlevania 64
Celeste 64
Dark Souls III
DLC Quest
Donkey Kong Country 3
Doom 1993
Doom II
Factorio
Final Fantasy
Final Fantasy Mystic Quest
Heretic
Hollow Knight
Hylics 2
Kingdom Hearts 2
Kirby's Dream Land 3
Landstalker
The Legend of Zelda
Lingo
A Link to the Past
Link's Awakening DX
Lufia II Ancient Cave
Mega Man Battle Network 3
Meritous
The Messenger
Minecraft
Muse Dash
Noita
Ocarina of Time
Overcooked 2
Pokemon Emerald
Pokemon Red and Blue
Raft
Risk of Rain 2
Rogue Legacy
Secret of Evermore
Shivers
A Short Hike
Slay the Spire
SMZ3 (LTTP and Super Metroid combined into one game)
Sonic Adventure 2 Battle
Starcraft 2
Stardew Valley
Subnautica
Super Mario 64
Super Mario World
Super Metroid
Terraria
Timespinner
Tunic
Undertale
VVVVVV
Wargroove
The Witness
Yoshi's Island
Zillion
Zork Grand Inquisitor

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 need 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! All that we ask is that you communicate any major delays.

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

Sorry again for letting the topic purge. I'm sure it's annoying for people who don't participate to have to put another topic on ignore to keep the board clear.

Anyway, next async is this Saturday, May 18th! Start sending yamls or otherwise let me know if you're interested.

List for the May 18th async so far

1- Robazoid (Hollow Knight)
2- Reg (A Link to the Past)
3- Yuzu (Final Fantasy)

Current list. Cutoff is roughly 11 hours from now

1- Robazoid (Hollow Knight)
2- Reg (A Link to the Past)
3- Reg (Super Mario 64)
4- Yuzu (Final Fantasy)
5- HBJDubs (Super Metroid)
6- JeffRaze (A Link to the Past)

you know what, im in

Here's the room link, have fun everyone!

https://archipelago.gg/room/5b5CotYIQkSIeJ8JmXMffw

It looks like Archipelago is having server issues this weekend, and our room was one of the unlucky ones that disappeared. I apologize, everyone! There was no way of knowing that this would be a bad weekend for an async.

I was lucky enough to finish my game, but I hope everyone got to play theirs at least enough to have some fun. Hopefully we have better luck next time.

I guess I can post the spoiler log so everyone can see where their stuff would've been!

https://archipelago.gg/dl_spoiler/8VSSDWVQR1yh-oaU8urqaA

Mobilezoid posted...

That's the trouble with something that only happens once a month!

Solution: Have them twice a month?

aw dang D: well I got to experiment at least

I also forgot to mention before, the next async will likely be June 15th.

I'll probably have to skip that'un, have fun!

Post to keep topic alive

The next async is this Sunday, June 15th! Start sending yamls or letting me know if you want to participate.

Bumping the topic for June 15th async. We've had people join but I can't easily see what games are in the yaml while on mobile so I'll post a list later.

Here's the current list for tomorrow's async, there's still time to join!

1- Robazoid (Hollow Knight)
2- MrSmartGuy (Pokemon Emerald)
3- MrSmartGuy (Super Mario 64)
4- Reg (The Legend of Zelda)
5- KommunistKoala (Super Mario 64)
6- Thomasm4 (Muse Dash)
7- Thomasm4 (Slay the Spire)
8- Thomasm4 (Super Mario 64)

Here's the room link, have fun everyone!

https://archipelago.gg/room/jxOf0fZETCaPsmeXmSP_3g

Our room went inactive for a bit and the room number changed. I know how to fix that with HK, hopefully everyone else can figure it out too!

I shoulda thrown in a checksfinder or something just to keep my streak goin, oh well

Here's the spoiler log! Thanks again for participating, everyone. The next async will likely be July 20th, but as always we can go a week up or down depending on what works for most people.

https://archipelago.gg/dl_spoiler/En2HCsDGQei6KCWpHdXW6A

They added some new games

A Hat in Time
Aquaria
Bomb Rush Cyberfunk
Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga
Yu-Gi-Oh! Ultimate Masters WCT 2006

strong list of new games there I'll be happy to run a few of them in july

super in for hat

Luckily I saw this before the summer sale ended!

Bump to keep topic alive, still aiming for July 20th

So... it's a week off, and I have a question. So there are apparently some games that are basically done but not official official yet.

https://multiworld.news/apworlds.html is a specific list for that...

Would anyone have a problem with me running Astalon: Tears of the earth off the expanded unofficial list? Really having a hankering to play that some more.

I wouldn't mind as long as no one else does. I generate the multiworlds on the Archipelago website, though, and I really don't know how to do anything more than that. If adding these games requires more than just throwing a yaml into a zip folder and uploading it, then someone else (hopefully you) would need to be willing to figure that out and host instead.

If we do figure it out, I 100% wanna do a Paper Mario N64 game. I've run it randomized solo probably a good 20 times over the past few months. It's become my favorite randomized game of all-time.

Robazoid posted...

I generate the multiworlds on the Archipelago website, though, and I really don't know how to do anything more than that. If adding these games requires more than just throwing a yaml into a zip folder and uploading it, then someone else (hopefully you) would need to be willing to figure that out and host instead.

It's the same process that we did when I wanted to play SM64 Move Rando some months back before it was official. I'm still set up to do generation myself if you want to do that. I can also try to walk you through it yourself, if that's of interest to you.

Vouching for the quality/bug-free-ness of unsupported games is tricky (And I'd recommend playing a solo game of it first, even if only just as a setup test/partial play to confirm you know what you're doing), but searching around the AP discord it looks like Paper Mario is somewhat frequently played and Astalon seems to be pretty stable, so both should be fine.

This is a step-by-step that somebody in the AP discord wrote for using unsupported games. If you already know what all of these things mean, you're actually probably good to go. If you don't but want to learn, I can help walk you through it, as I said. Otherwise, again, I'm more than happy to handle generations. We had one kink with it last time that's been fixed on my end, so it will be all good.

How to use an .apworld:

• Place the .apworld in your Archipelago/custom_worlds folder, or double-click the .apworld to do so automatically.
• Use ArchipelagoLauncher.exe to open the Launcher, and click on Generate Template Options to create a template yaml for your custom .apworlds. (You can skip this step if other players are providing the yamls for the unsupported games)
• Place the desired player yamls in the Players folder, and customize them as you see fit.
• Use ArchipelagoGenerate.exe to generate the game.
• Upload the generated game (in the output folder) on the website at https://archipelago.gg/uploads and create a new room.
• Refer to the individual game's setup guide for further instruction (usually in the pins for the game's future-game-design post or its github).

Posted in the Discord, but I'll also share in here that I have tested Paper Mario, and while there's a lot more steps to get it up and working, it IS up and working.

Reg posted...

It's the same process that we did when I wanted to play SM64 Move Rando some months back before it was official. I'm still set up to do generation myself if you want to do that.

That would be really helpful if you could! The reason I don't generate on my computer is that some games require having roms and I don't have a lot of them, plus I'd always worry if I had the correct rom for each specific game and whatnot. If you don't mind hosting this month so people can do these apworld games, I would appreciate it.

Robazoid posted...

Bump to keep topic alive, still aiming for July 20th

Oh next one is planned. I may have interest in joining one. I'll figure out game.

The next async is this Saturday, July 20th. Since Reg will (hopefully) handle generating the multiworld, that means we can have apworld games too. Please get a yaml in sometime this week if you're interested.

I'm in for my usual Hollow Knight, will post a yaml in the discord server channel soon.

A few more days remaining to join July 20th async, just bumping for visibility

I'm not going to do the full list of names and games anymore, it was useful when I handled all the yamls but now everyone just uses the discord yaml channel. We have 13 games so far though!

Reg is ultimately in charge of the cutoff for tomorrow's async, but he has said the cutoff to join will be roughly the same time it always is, early Saturday morning.

Whoops I forgot to post the room link here too. Everyone has started except MZero though so I guess it didn't matter much.

https://archipelago.gg/room/Mnbw7L2UQIqilnKp99WY0Q

Bumping the topic. A few people are done but the async continues! We had more games than normal and a lot of experimental ones, so it taking longer isn't unusual.

Since Roba's unavailable (Meaning that I'll be generating/hosting again), I'm thinking probably start on the 24th for this month. I can do pretty much any weekend myself though, to suit people's availability.

Bumping to keep topic alive. As Reg said, I'm unavailable this month so he will be hosting again. Check back for the likely August 24th start date!

Bump

24th start date it is.

Feel free to send yamls whenever. Here, DM me, or via discord

current slate of yamls as per discord - get yours in (24th start date)
1) Koala: Hollow Knight
2) Mewtwo: Fire Emblem Sacred Stones
3) Mewtwo: Pokemon Crystal
4) MSG: Paper Mario
5) FD: Stardew Valley
6) LoloGuru: Metroid Zero Mission
7) LoloGuru: Astalon - Tears of the Earth

I made myself a google sheet to use as a checklist while playing that I can easily pull up on my phone:

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/5/57f132a4.png

could throw together something similar for other games if that would help anyone.

The one time I did Stardew, I put together a bunch of info sheets to help me organize everything. Then I got greenhouse in the first ten minutes so a lot of my crop ones were unnecessary lol

Got about a day or so to join if you want to play.

1) Koala: Hollow Knight
2) Mewtwo: Fire Emblem Sacred Stones
3) Mewtwo: Pokemon Crystal
4) MSG: Paper Mario
5) FD: Stardew Valley
6) LoloGuru: Metroid Zero Mission
7) LoloGuru: Astalon - Tears of the Earth
8) Reg: Ocarina of Time
9) Wicklebee: Ocarina of Time
10) Wicklebee: A Short Hike
11) JeffRaze: Hades
12) JeffRaze: An Untitled Story

https://archipelago.gg/room/YQojXlijSyqbt4xibaztCQ

This is the room for this month's game

up

Bump, likely date for September async is looking like the 21st but Reg will be handling it so it's up to him.

Yup. I'm open to moving it, but people have already roundabout expressed an interest in the 21st (By saying that the 14th and/or 28th didn't work for them), so that's gonna be pretty likely it.

I keep forgetting about this topic since it gets purged :(.

I'll do everything in my power to keep this particular topic around! Keep checking back

Chrono007 posted...

I keep forgetting about this topic since it gets purged :(.

You want me to @ you in like a week or so when I'm starting to look for yamls from people?

Next game's gonna be in two weeks, and we usually have about a week or so for people to provide their yamls.