We'd always hoped to allow online play in Crawl. I spent a good chunk of time working on it, but eventually had to admit it wasn't going to be possible while maintaining what narrow grasp on sanity we still held.
But recently we noticed some people in the community playing online using something called Parsec. We've played a bunch with it ourselves now and had a great time, so we're happy to be able to give it the Official Powerhoof™ Severed Thumbs Up of Approval®!
Parsec basically lets you stream a game, and have friends watch and play along with their own controllers. Latency was my biggest worry, but it wasn't a problem when we played, certainly no worse than our dodgy indie implementation of online multiplayer would have been ;)
It's really quick and easy to get it set up, and it's also free if you host games on your own computer. Check out our friends at Stumpt playing Crawl online with it!
How to play:
- Download the client from http://parsecgaming.com
- Run it and create an account. Get your friends to do the same.
- If you want to host, click "Add A Computer". In settings you can set what apps your friends can see/control too.
- To join a friend who's hosting, add them using their Parsec username, and request to Co-Play.
- Run the game, and friends can play just like they're sitting next to you!
If you have any issues with Parsec, chat to them on their discord here.
And some more news while we have your attention...
Powerhoof Official Discord
We've just set up a discord channel, so come say hi, maybe find some people to play Crawl with! https://discord.gg/n7t76sZ
Regular Human Basketball
Our next game now has a steam store page and is coming very soon! So check it out and get wishlisting!
https://store.steampowered.com/app/661940/Regular_Human_Basketball/