Alien vs Predator Multiplayer
In case you missed it, I uploaded a new version of BigPEmu the other day. It includes a script which adds multiplayer to Alien vs Predator, a game which was never meant to have any multiplayer component! That script serves as an example of the scriptable network interface, and hopefully provides a pretty decent outline in case anyone wants to give another game a similar treatment.
I haven't updated the emulator documentation with any of this new stuff, so I figured it might be useful to outline the steps to get an AvP MP game going here.
Make sure you're using the latest version of BigPEmu. (currently 1.091)
Make sure the host and all clients have the avp_mp script enabled under the Script Modules (under System) menu.
Set Network Device (under Network) to "Script", and feel free to set your name/color.
Make sure whoever's hosting has UDP port 44666 (by default) open. This may involve port forwarding in your router's settings.
Have everyone, clients and server, load the AvP ROM with a hash of 1BCB3230DB41AA47. The multiplayer script will only activate under this hash.
Everyone can start the game as normal as any of the 3 species, each client will be transported to whatever level the host is on.
That should do it. There's also a video here where I go into a fair bit of detail on how the new networking features work.
If anyone wants to get a big AvP game going, let me know. I'm sure it would be chaos, and possibly broken as hell, but it can theoretically support up to 32 players. Discord is the best place to meet up if you do want to get crazy there.
I noticed that I've lost a bunch of patrons on here this month. I'm not too sure why, and I don't imagine it's for a lack of effort on my part with all of the BigPEmu features I've been working to get done. Maybe people are saving for the holidays or something, who knows. But to those of you who are hanging around, thank you. Your support continues to be deeply appreciated.
Oh, and don't forget I'm doing a panel at PRGE! It's currently scheduled for the afternoon of October 15th, which is a Sunday. I'll try to announce it a bit more formally on Twitter (which no one should ever be referring to as X) as the PRGE event stuff comes online. I'm looking forward to seeing at least a few of you there, and meeting a bunch of amazing people in the emulation community for the first time. Here's hoping this crappy-ass body keeps kicking through the whole event, I'll be around Friday (maybe, depending on how late I get in) and Saturday too.
Comments (9)
Very impressive. It might make more sense to implement multiplayer BattleSphere by hacking the one-player variant of the network mode with the ai ships being controlled by the other humans.
Rich, did you post something that kind of described the technical aspect of how this is done? I haven't done any programming in decades, so it seems kind of mysterious to me.
I did review the script in the video linked above: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e5YpBfX9IX4 I didn't pour over the details too in-depth, but you can also take a look at the avp_mp.c script in BigPEmu to understand the workings. It's pretty well-commented despite being in a bit of a state. (mostly written while I was suffering from some non-COVID virus, and I haven't revised it, so my fever delirium can be seen in some of it) If you have any questions on any particulars, I'm happy to answer them!
Splitters, the lot of them! I'm upping my game to Devout just out of spite. And of course an incredible release yet again. I never imagined that something like that would even be possible. Be well, Rich.
I'm pretty sure the decrease of patrons is just random. You are actually doing more and more awesome stuff every time you post something!
Thank you for the encouragement :)
The last emulator release I see here in the July 6 post. Where do we get 1.091?
I went straight to public with that one. Which was perhaps a bit of a mistake in terms of trying to get more patrons, but I figured people have a better chance of finding other people to play with this way. https://richwhitehouse.com/jaguar/index.php?content=download
Thanks, Rich! I hope your amazing work on the AvP networking gets you some new Patreons!