Board 8 > Monthly Multiplayer Asynchronous Randomizers

(+) Yeah! (+)

I let the topic purge 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
Dark Souls III
DLC Quest
Donkey Kong Country 3
Factorio
Final Fantasy
Hollow Knight
Hylics 2
Kingdom Hearts 2
The Legend of Zelda
Link's Awakening DX
A Link to the Past
Lufia II Ancient Cave
Meritous
The Messenger
Minecraft
Noita
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
Stardew Valley
Subnautica
Super Mario 64
Super Mario World
Super Metroid
Timespinner
VVVVVV
Wargroove
The Witness
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 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

I'm busy this month, so Reg is handling the August async. He mentioned shooting for the 19th, but the official word will come from him!

I'm definitely targeting the 19th right now. Haven't heard from anybody saying they'd prefer the 26th.

Anybody interested can send yamls to me here, by discord (We've got a #yaml channel in the linked one), or however you want.

I'll get a pokemon one in, I think, but I'm not gonna be on much the first couple days

Accessibility: Minimal would probably help me clear faster, and low Progression Balancing would probably take some pressure off. .....right? Both of those feel counterintuitive but I think I understand the logic.

I might try dexsanity and trainersanity >_>

Honestly, for Pokemon, Minimal Accessibility probably isn't that bad. For some games, it can leave you without critical stuff that's nice to have but isn't strictly necessary. But for Pokemon, I think the worst you'd miss out on is... Fly, probably? Maybe Cut? And if you're the only one using it you're more likely to just not notice it at all.

Low Prog Balancing would likely alleviate some of the pressure of starting late though, yeah. Especially if you play settings with a small sphere 1 (Vanilla Old Man would do this, though I can't say I recommend this even in your situation since it could have you stuck for an *incredibly* long time)

Bump for visibility and still looking for yamls from any interested players.

I'll probably roll the world somewhere shortly after 2pm EDT on Saturday. Anything that's submitted before that 2pm mark will be included.

Currently have:
Reg - Link to the Past
Koala - Super Mario 64
MSG - Sonic Adventure 2
Aria - Pokemon

One more bump for visibility

Got about 18-19 hours before the cutoff and I start rolling.

Bumping to make sure topic doesn't purge

Good job on finishing the async, everyone, and thank you again to Reg for taking over while I was busy. For next month, I'm thinking September 23rd to give Archipelago as much time as possible to update with new games, but we can go to the 16th too if that works for more people

either works for me

I'd got with the 23rd for that reason, unless the update comes out before then.

The 23rd is good with me.

Moving up to the 16th if (And only if) the update is out sooner is also good with me, since I would mostly like to play Terraria next month if at all possible.

The update finally dropped, so it looks like we can move to the 16th as long as no one objects. Here are the new games:

Bumper Stickers
Doom 1993
Mega Man Battle Network 3: Blue Version
Muse Dash
Terraria
Undertale

(Bumper Stickers is a custom-made-for-AP match 3 type of game. Keep that in mind when looking into it/deciding whether or not you want to play it)

Just bumping to keep the topic alive

I've tried rando Terraria and Muse Dash, both were fun

The next async is this Saturday on September 16th, so start getting yamls in or letting me know your settings if you're interested!

1- Robazoid (Hollow Knight)
2- Robazoid (Muse Dash)

I'll try Bumper Stickers I think

I don't know anything about Bumper Stickers, but I guess we'll see how it works in async. I won't add you to the list until you let me know anout the yaml though

Sept 16 async so far:

1- Robazoid (Hollow Knight)
2- Robazoid (Muse Dash)
3- Reg (Terraria)

Sept 16 async so far:

1- Robazoid (Hollow Knight)
2- Robazoid (Muse Dash)
3- Reg (Terraria)
4- Koala (Rogue Legacy)
5- MrSmartGuy (Pokemon Red/Blue)
6- MrSmartGuy (Sonic Adventure 2 Battle)

Daytime bumpo

The cutoff is about 22 hours from now. Pinging @AriaOfBolo because you still need to let me know about your yaml!

it's on my todo list for tonight but I'm pretty sure I'm just doing default Bumper Stickers

Is it super short? I could throw in checksfinder too maybe.

The cutoff is roughly eleven and a half hours from now

Sept 16 async so far:

1- Robazoid (Hollow Knight)
2- Robazoid (Muse Dash)
3- Reg (Terraria)
4- Koala (Rogue Legacy)
5- MrSmartGuy (Pokemon Red/Blue)
6- MrSmartGuy (Sonic Adventure 2 Battle)
7- AriaOfBolo (Bumper Stickers)
8- AriaOfBolo (Checksfinder)
9- HBJDubs (Timespinner)
10- Mewtwo (Pokemon Red/Blue)
11- NFUN (Mega Man Battle Network 3)

https://archipelago.gg/room/iVowC00XQVqyL1240u9zHQ

There's the room link, have fun everyone!

We've had some good progress so far! I'm still waiting on my last dreamer mask in HK before I can beat the game

Up.

Whoops, I forgot to post the spoiler log here. For the next async, it'll most likely be October 21st

https://archipelago.gg/dl_spoiler/UZiyRyhMTduDgG0YaPYdQw

Safety bump

The next async will begin this Saturday October 21st, so get your yamls in this week if you're interested! I'm going to do my usual HK, but I might also try a Stardew Valley as long as people are willing to be patient with me figuring it out.

1- Robazoid (Hollow Knight)
2- Robazoid (Stardew Valley)

My brother (Razenclaf) will most likely be joining with a Stardew Valley too. Still a few days for other people to join before October 21st!

1- Robazoid (Hollow Knight)
2- Robazoid (Stardew Valley)
3- Razenclaf (Stardew Valley)
4- Reg (Sonic Adventure 2 Battle)

Roughly two more days to join the October 21st async

1- Robazoid (Hollow Knight)
2- Robazoid (Stardew Valley)
3- Razenclaf (Stardew Valley)
4- Reg (Sonic Adventure 2 Battle)
5- Alchav (Stardew Valley)
6- Koala (Super Mario World)
7- JeffreyRaze (Mega Man Battle Network 3)

in for something, probably

The cutoff to join the async is a little over twelve hours. I decided to drop my Hollow Knight because I think the Stardew Valley will keep me busy enough.

1- Robazoid (Stardew Valley)
2- Razenclaf (Stardew Valley)
3- Reg (Sonic Adventure 2 Battle)
4- Alchav (Stardew Valley)
5- Koala (Super Mario World)
6- JeffreyRaze (Mega Man Battle Network 3)
7- MrSmartGuy (A Link to the Past)
8- AriaOfBolo (Slay the Spire)
9- Mewtwo (Ocarina of Time)

https://archipelago.gg/room/hHf9VT4sTMmUxaZF5zXixg

There's the room link, have fun everyone. I need to go and take care of something first, but I'll start playing in the next hour or so and do as much in my Stardew as I can!

I forgot, or I'd have done it. Probably for the best.

I think the async is going well so far. I enjoyed doing Stardew Valley, but it was a ton of work. I don't think I'll do it again any time soon. I've gone through all four seasons and done all the checks I realistically can other than grinding my last few skill levels. What's holding me back from finishing is that I still only have a Training Rod and I need to capture a few fish that stubbornly aren't turning up at my traveling merchant.

We're all finished, so here's the spoiler log. Thanks again for participating, everyone! The next one will likely be November 18th, but as always I can move it a week up or down depending on what works for most people.

https://archipelago.gg/dl_spoiler/GUV8mLPqRDCn_WYzB_UiWA

Bump to keep topic alive

Up

Since no one mentioned a problem with the date, the next async is next Saturday, November 18th! I figure it's probably better to do it the week before US Thanksgiving because people might still be busy with family the weekend after (I dunno, I'm Canadian).

Anyway, start sending or letting me know about yamls.

1- Robazoid (Hollow Knight)

Bump

November 18th async list so far

1- Robazoid (Hollow Knight)
2- Reg (The Legend of Zelda)
3- Mewtwo (Ocarina of Time)
4- Neo (Super Metroid)
5- MZero (Hollow Knight)
6- MZero (Sonic Adventure 2 Battle)

aw heck I'll get on mine

Another bump, a little more than one day left!

The cutoff to join is a little over 24 hours from now

1- Robazoid (Hollow Knight)
2- Reg (The Legend of Zelda)
3- Mewtwo (Ocarina of Time)
4- Neo (Super Metroid)
5- MZero (Hollow Knight)
6- MZero (Sonic Adventure 2 Battle)
7- Elina (Timespinner)
8- JeffRaze (Link to the Past)
9- AriaOfBolo (Pokemon Red/Blue)
10- MrSmartGuy (Pokemon Red/Blue)

Got my games in!

That brings us to twelve slots. The cutoff is a little less than nine hours from now if there's anyone else!

https://archipelago.gg/room/5g4KFB_lRN20E7ESbugrbA

There's the room link, have fun everyone!

We're all more or less done now, so here's the link to the spoiler log. Thanks again for participating, everyone! I'm glad we finished before US Thanksgiving. Next month's async will most likely be December 16th. The 9th seems too early and the 23rd is too close to Christmas.

https://archipelago.gg/dl_spoiler/VkqWdGQvQNeePKYfiAxJhA

Bump to keep topic alive