A neat little mod has put a 2 player mode into Zelda: A Link to the Past and Super Metroid

A new mod that has recently been released for The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past has given the game an online cooperative multiplayer. Two players with some help from a SNES emulator and some nifty code are now able to co-ordinate their playthrough of the game and even share the inventory.

My new project: An emulator hack that turns 1-player games into cooperative 2-player games! https://t.co/cBU5shcm6Thttps://t.co/CESVllRP6w

— mcc (@mcclure111) July 27, 2017

This is all the work of Andi McClure, an indie game developer who’s leveraged her knowledge of randomised speedruns, which alter the location on in-game items, to create a version of A Link to the Past which has random item placements. Usually in randomised speed runs, players will use an IRC program such as Skype or Discord to communicate item locations. McClure has created a script which was written in Lua, enabling players’ games to synchronise, so that when one player picks up an item it’s added to the other player’s inventory. In short, McClure’s script creates a duplicate from when a player picks up an item in one game, that item then turns up in another player’s game. It’s pretty neat really.

McClure’s script has also been modified to work on Super Metroid. In Super Metroid, the script tracks all items, beams, expansions, and even boss progression. It’s still very much a work-in-progress, but will soon hopefully be in line with the LTTP mod. 

You can take a look at the work of Andi McClure on her emu-coop Github, and also follow her updates on her Twitter.