submitted by Chillin Chum (https://twitch.tv/chillinchum/)
Archipelago Randomisers are a simple concept; as per a standard randomiser, all of your item rewards are shuffled into each others’ locations, the twist is that your items can also be randomized into other games.
For example: Mario collects a power star in Super Mario 64, but instead of a +1 to star count, the game instead might inform you by text that you sent the hookshot to someone playing Ocarina of Time.
That’s the short version. Continuing here; I will be going a bit more in depth talking about these randomisers after having half a year of experience playing them.
Archipelago is both a type of randomiser, and is also itself a software framework that is required in order to run it. While it is possible to create what we would call a Multi-world seed for a solo run, yourself playing a number of games linked together, the origins of archipelago lie in multiplayer multiworlds, as exemplified in Super Mario 64, Ocarina of Time, and A Link to the Past Multiworld randomisers, which archipelago borrows the idea from. (and even some of its code base, I heard.)
Archipelago can therefore be considered a multiplayer multigame multiworld randomiser, but that’s a mouthful, so, Archipelago, as though it were a bunch of interconnected islands, but, games.
The archipelago software uses python (and also lua to connect to some games.), to generate a multiworld for you after you’ve setup your randomizer settings for each game, then you can connect to servers dedicated to keeping track of who has sent what item to who, and gives you that information in a client.
Your game world > server > friend’s world
And vice versa.
Your world < server < friend’s world
A centralised server setup.
It’s also possible to self-host, whether because you are running everything from your own computer in a solo run anyway, or any other reasons.
Games don’t technically connect to each other, they each connect to the central server, and the server then handles all the details of keeping track of who has sent what items to who. Thus, each game need only be compatible with that software.
As such, hobbyists have so far worked on including over 300 games to have archipelago support.
78 are core verified, that means when downloading the archipelago core software, these games have most of the files needed to play them available out of the box, plus some other convenient perks, you will still need to follow tutorials on how to run them in archipelago, plus provide the game files yourself, of course.
The other 248 games (as of now, it grew while I was writing this!) are custom games, they vary in developmental state, from games nearly as feature rich and stable as the core games, to alphas in a very rudimentary and buggy state.
As they don’t come out of the box, you’ll need to just take a few easy extra steps to install them.
As though to show how robust the software is, it was able to generate a rando currently being played by the Archipelago community with 3000 worlds (that is, different instances of games, as there would of course be many copies of a particular game), and support it all online, in the past they’ve done smaller multiworld seeds and completed every game within, I look forward to congratulating them when they finish this one.
There is as yet no real limits you can go with this, only how much time you have.
To describe the particular details of how it can be to play one of these, it helps to understand the quirks of how each game has specifically been implemented with a randomiser into archipelago.
As randomiser developers create more randomisers for games specifically to work with archipelago, they seem to increasingly look to games that would not at first seem like a good game to randomise, but would work fine in a multi-game context. (though they still work to make sure solo seeds can function)
You can find a list including these games and others here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1iuzDTOAvdoNe8Ne8i461qGNucg5OuEoF-Ikqs8aUQZw
This spreadsheet is sorted by development state, and then name. They include links to the files and setup guides necessary to play them yourself.
I will list some examples:
Super Mario 64 (Core verified, tutorials on main site):
The speedrunner’s favorite gets its power stars randomised as items, with the additional options of entrance randomiser, cannon unlocks and bomb buddies instead sending other items, 1 up blocks can send items instead of a 1up, your moves can even be treated as items and locked away in someone else’s game, there is no A button challenge, but you can absolutely lock your long jump in someone else’s game so you can’t just LBJ to the end of the game if you have both keys. To implement mods, the community uses a fan pc port of sm64, though you still need to provide your own rom file.
Mindustry (Alpha):
A top down tower defense/real time strategy/logistics hybrid, similar to factorio, mindustry promises a randomiser based on collecting resources in order to buy items for yourself and other players as a replacement to its tech tree. Your buildings you would normally research with those resources are randomised into the multi-world, your friends could find you a powerful turret, or the next tier of drill so you can mine other resources. The game can be received for free via itch.io’s pay what you want feature, so the mod developer made their own client to make installing easy, very plug and play in spite of being an alpha.
Diddy Kong Racing (Alpha):
As a newer randomiser in alpha, this classic kart racer is not feature rich, and there are quirky behaviors that might seem like bugs but are actual features that need getting used to.
There is a growing list of options though, you can limit just how many of the game’s important balloons you’ll need to win your goal, and you can choose which final boss is your goal. It in practice randomises what order you do races in (for those who’ve played: door balloon requirements are randomised.), but I would say it still is fun finding other player’s items shuffled amongst your balloon race prizes, as opposed to doing a solo randomiser which wouldn’t do much, but then, this is archipelago, multiworld is what you came for after all, right? This one’s implementation uses the rom unmodified in bizhawk and a lua script to change numbers on the fly instead of using a patch file, which I find neat.
MS Paint (JS Paint, open source) (In-review to be core verified):
Yes, it is indeed (an open source copy of) the WIndows 95 classic program, turned into a game and randomiser in which your tools are shuffled away into your friends’ games, it’s up to you to use the limited tools you do have to draw a copy of the image provided (or your own custom image!), until your similarity percentage is high enough to unlock items for others or yourself, eventually goaling at a high enough percent.
Wordipelago (Alpha):
It’s wordle! But now your number of guesses are limited till they are found elsewhere, you’re also limited in what letters you can use at first, all you need to do to win is keep guessing, getting certain letters in the right place or positions having the right letter are checks that will award you items, you need to have 20 fully correct words to win your goal.
AP Meta-Bingo (Meta-Game):
Technically not a game interacted directly, it is instead, well, a digital bingo card, complete a check on it and it will be filled in, do so for a column, row, or diagonal, and you and your friends will receive a small jackpot of items for your efforts, completely black it out to goal. Why? For fun, of course.
Bomberman 64 (alpha):
Our boi the bomb boi has temporarily lost the ability to pick up or kick bombs, you’ll need help getting those abilities back, while looking for the gold cards, secret items, red bombs, and remote bomb powerups as checks. The game remains similar, currently beating altair is the only goal, though your path through levels is locked behind keys shuffled in the multiworld.
I think it is possible to write an article about how each game is implemented as a randomiser into archipelago, there’s enough details available. A podcast could be made talking about adventures in archipelago randomisers that week, and or talk specifically about another game that became available recently.
For now though I will leave it there, and hopefully come back to write another time in order to talk a bit more about the kind of experiences I’ve had playing archipelago.
Here’s the site if you are interested in getting started on trying this yourself: https://archipelago.gg/
