v1.5 — lobby seats for players 5-8, and a head-on jumbotron view in Chisel Gauntlet for everyone

Mod release v1.5, for game v2.1.2. In game it identifies as v2.1.2-8P-v1.5.

Everyone in a 5-8 player lobby must be on this same release — v1.4 and v1.5 refuse each other cleanly. Update together.

Changed since v1.4

• #14 — Steam lobby with 5-8 players: seats 2-4 piled onto seat 1's chair. Once a fifth player joined, the lobby's character previews for players 2-4 slid onto the first chair and player 5 sat alone (first real 5-player Steam lobby, reported with a screenshot). The room has exactly four chairs, so players 5-8 now sit on the laps of players 1-4 — placed by hand in the running game. Lobbies of 1-4 are untouched.
• Chisel Gauntlet: a head-on view of the jumbotron for everyone in a 5-8 lobby. Playtesters found the minigame harder from the four added seats: they face a corner of the jumbotron and read its four screens at an angle (53° instead of head-on). During the memorise phase every player in a 5-8 lobby now sees a full-screen head-on view of the monitor — the same picture seat 1 gets, rendered by the game's own couch-mode camera — which fades in when the camera looks up at the jumbotron and out when it drops back to the desk. Nothing was added to the level and 1-4 player games are unchanged.

Install

Unzip and run WindowsInstall.bat (Windows) / install.sh (Linux, macOS), or python3 install.py on any platform. See README.txt in the zip. Verify with the main-menu version string (v2.1.2-8P-v1.5); uninstall with Steam's "Verify integrity of game files". The installer keeps no backup and refuses to patch a non-pristine pck — if a game update has reverted the mod, just run it again.

Installer updated 2026-08-18. The mod itself is unchanged — the patched game is byte-identical, so there is nothing to redo if you already installed v1.5. Only the installer changed:

• Windows no longer needs Python installed — the zip bundles its own runtime (~31 MB instead of ~21 MB).
• Steam is found when it isn't in Program Files. A client installed on another drive or in a custom folder used to give "could not find Machine Party automatically" even with the game installed.
• Double-clicking install.sh works on Linux — it opens a terminal itself instead of failing silently when the file manager gives it none.

v1.4 — a player quitting during a minigame load no longer breaks the session (all fifteen minigames)

Mod release v1.4, for game v2.1.2. In game it identifies as v2.1.2-8P-v1.4.

Everyone in a 5-8 player lobby must be on this same release — v1.3 and v1.4 refuse each other cleanly. Update together.

Fixed since v1.3

• #13 — a player quitting (Alt-F4, pause-menu leave) while a minigame is loading. v1.3 fixed the case where a player's game crashes during a load, which the host only notices ~15 s later, after everyone else has loaded. A quit is different: the host sees it immediately, while slower players are still loading, and every minigame's disconnect handling then ran before the game had actually started. In eleven minigames vanilla saw "zero players left" and finished the round before it began (black screen, no scores); in six of them the round then started but could never end. Vanilla behaviour at any player count. Every minigame's handler now waits until the game has started — the same guard Duck Hunt received in v1.3. Reproduced before the fix and verified after it on every affected minigame at 4 players, plus 4- and 8-player controls.
• The original crash report (#11) stays open — logs from anyone whose game crashes at a minigame's loading moment are still wanted.

Install

Unzip and run install.sh (Linux) / install.bat (Windows), or python3 install.py. See README.txt in the zip. Verify with the main-menu version string (v2.1.2-8P-v1.4); uninstall with Steam's "Verify integrity of game files". The installer keeps no backup and refuses to patch a non-pristine pck — if a game update has reverted the mod, just run it again.

v1.3 — fixes the black screen / silent Duck Hunt after a crash during loading

Mod release v1.3, for game v2.1.2. In game it identifies as v2.1.2-8P-v1.3.

Everyone in a 5-8 player lobby must be on this same release — v1.2 and v1.3 refuse each other cleanly. Update together.

Fixed since v1.2

• #10 — every screen goes black at the end of a minigame and #12 — Duck Hunt's rifle (and duck sounds) silent for everyone. Both had the same cause: if one player's game crashed while a minigame was loading, the game's own "everyone has loaded" check never fired again after that player was removed, so the minigame started through a side door without its formal start — which is what restores the sound bus and what makes the session listen for "this minigame is finished". This is vanilla behaviour at any player count; a bigger lobby just makes a drop-during-load likelier. The mod now re-runs the load check when a peer drops, and Duck Hunt no longer starts a round on its own before the game has begun. Reproduced and verified locally at 4 and 8 players by killing a client at the loading moment.
• The crash itself (#11) is not explained by this and stays open — logs from anyone who hits a crash at a minigame's loading moment are still wanted.

Install

Unzip and run install.sh (Linux) / install.bat (Windows), or python3 install.py. See README.txt in the zip. Verify with the main-menu version string (v2.1.2-8P-v1.3); uninstall with Steam's "Verify integrity of game files". The installer keeps no backup and refuses to patch a non-pristine pck — if a game update has reverted the mod, just run it again.

v1.2 — bug fixes; mixed lobbies no longer experimental

Mod release v1.2. In game it identifies as v2.1.2-8P-v1.2.

Rebuilt 2026-08-14 for game v2.1.2 (the current Steam version). The zip attached here is the v2.1.2 build; the original v1.5.0-targeted build this release first shipped with has been replaced, since Steam no longer serves that game version. Source for the rebuild: commit 3937a59 on main. If you installed the mod before the game updated: the game update reverted the mod — delete Machine Party.pck.vanilla from the game folder first (see #9), then install this zip.

Everyone in a 5-8 player lobby must be on this same release — v1.1 and v1.2 refuse each other cleanly. Update together.

No longer experimental

Vanilla-compat mixed lobbies (play with unmodded friends, capped at 4, vanilla rotation) shipped in v1.1 flagged Experimental pending a real Steam test. That test has now happened: both join directions — modded host with a vanilla joiner, and vanilla host with a modded joiner — worked in a real Steam session. The over-cap refusal and the cutscene-in-rotation have so far been exercised only in local testing.

Fixed since v1.1

• #6 — session never starts with 9 connections: the playlist filter counted spectators as players, dead-ending the session before the first minigame.
• #7 — Chisel Gauntlet spectate camera (players 5-8): eliminated players 5-8 spectated from a wrong, floor-level spot.
• #8 — Chisel Gauntlet barrel clipping: the player at one added station stood inside the corner barrel props; those two barrels are now hidden in 5-8 player lobbies (1-4 keeps the vanilla set dressing).
• Internal: the station-building code no longer duplicates the room's collision geometry rotated 45°, and the marker-expansion tool's parser bug behind #7 is fixed.

Install

Unzip and run install.sh (Linux) / install.bat (Windows), or python3 install.py. See README.txt in the zip. Verify with the main-menu version string; uninstall with install.py --uninstall or Steam's "Verify integrity of game files".

v1.1 — play with unmodded friends

This release has now been play tested in a real lobby and it doesn't seem to break anything, if any issues arise, please let me know.

New: compatibility with vanilla (unmodded) clients

You can now keep the mod installed and still play ordinary sessions with friends who don't have it:

• Join or host lobbies containing unmodded v1.5.0 players. The mod detects them automatically — no settings, no toggles.
• Mixed lobbies cap at 4 players (a vanilla game client can't handle more). A 5th player trying to join a mixed lobby is refused with a version message. Lobbies where everyone runs the mod still seat 8, exactly as before.
• Mixed lobbies play the exact vanilla rotation — including the wheat-field cutscene, which the mod normally removes. Unmodded players get precisely the game they know.
• Two different mod versions still refuse each other cleanly, and v1.1 will not connect to v1.0 (they are network-incompatible — everyone with the mod should update together).

Notes

• Harmless log spam: unmodded players' game logs may show rpc node checksum failed lines in mixed sessions. This is engine noise, verified to have no effect on gameplay.
• Install/uninstall is unchanged — see README.txt in the zip. Uninstalling restores the byte-identical original game.
• Zip md5: fdd679cedce61306a2ac209ee98d927b

v1.0 — for Machine Party v1.5.0

First release. Raises the online player cap from 4 to 8; all fifteen rotation minigames seat eight players. Built for game version v1.5.0 — in-game the modded version reads v1.5.0-8P-v1.0.

Everyone in the lobby must install the mod — a mixed lobby refuses to join with a version-mismatch message rather than desyncing.

Download machine-party-8p-mod.zip, extract it, and double-click install.bat (Windows) or install.sh (macOS/Linux), or run python3 install.py. Requires Python 3. See the bundled README.txt for what changed, known rough edges, and uninstall instructions.

A Steam game update silently reverts the mod — just re-run the installer afterwards.