MeleeVS-v1.1.2 - "Online MeleeVS"

MeleeVS-v1.1.2 - "Online MeleeVS"

What it can do: MeleeVS finally has online play. 2-player MeleeVS now works over LAN, Direct Connect and Matchmaking, all with rollback netcode, from the new MELEE VS menu (Main Menu → VS Mode → MELEE VS). Online is very early and can be buggy. Expect connection failures, desyncs and rough edges, and please tell us what you hit on the MeleeVS Discord or the issue tracker.

• Matchmaking finds you an opponent over the internet in its own MeleeVS-only pool (never a plain VS Unranked search). Pick your team first in TEAM SELECT. You see your opponent's ping and can Accept or Decline. Every game uses one fixed ruleset (Stock, 3 lives, items off, team attack off, 8-minute timer, pause disabled) on a random competitive-legal stage. After the set you get "You won!" / "You lost." and can rematch or search again. Two players on one couch can queue together as a duo.
• Direct Connect connects you to a friend by their connect code. Only the 8 characters after the # matter, so a changed or mistyped name still connects, and two players who dial each other meet in one match. Your recent opponents are listed under your own code, and there are Copy / Paste buttons for codes.
• Strict NAT help. A new pairing server speeds up matching, and the game detects routers that give each destination its own port (a "strict" NAT). It now asks your router to forward its port automatically (UPnP), and if that fails the lobby tells you what to do: Strict NAT: enable router UPnP or forward UDP <port>. There is no relay, so two players who are both strict still can't connect directly.
• Everything is unlocked online. Every online match unlocks all characters and stages for both players, and TEAM SELECT now shows the full roster whatever your own unlock setting is.
• Not compatible with 1.0.x or earlier builds. Both players need this exact release and the same disc image. Connect codes are longer now (8 characters after the #), so everyone's code has changed.

What changed to get here:

Online

• Rollback netplay for MeleeVS between two machines, with one or two players on each (couch duo).
• Matchmaking: its own pool, TEAM SELECT, Accept or Decline with the opponent's ping, a fixed ruleset, a "You won!" / "You lost." screen, and rematch or search again. Pausing is off online; hold L+R+A+START to leave.
• Direct Connect: connect by the 8-character code, mutual dialing, recent opponents, Copy / Paste.
• Pairing server for fast matching, with the DHT search as a fallback.
• Strict NAT detection, automatic UPnP port forwarding, and the lobby hint when it fails.

Gameplay

• No calling an assist while grabbed or in hitstun (air dodge still allows a call).
• Grab fixes: tagging in or benching while someone is held no longer strands the victim.
• Camera fix after the assist is promoted to point.
• Nametags with team colors, an "Assist Ready" badge, and "Share Stock?" for a lone point.
• Everything is unlocked in online matches, and TEAM SELECT shows every character.

Also

• Updates now work: the updater couldn't read MeleeVS version tags before.
• MeleeVS branding and the MeleeVS Discord links.

Known issues: online is very early (see above); two strict-NAT players can't connect; a router behind another NAT (carrier-grade NAT, a second router) needs the outer router to forward the port; Zelda and Sheik teams have a reported crash when Zelda is both point and assist and transforms at match start; and you can sometimes still call your assist when they are out of stocks.

Getting started

You do not need to build melee.exe yourself. Grab the Windows zip asset below (Melee-Windows-x86_64-MeleeVS-v1.1.2.zip). Linux (AppImage and tarball) and macOS zips are attached to this release too; iOS and Android are not published.

1. Download and unzip it anywhere. melee.exe is directly inside the extracted folder, alongside resources/ and its DLLs. Don't move it out on its own, since it needs resources/ next to it.
2. Get your own legally-obtained Melee USA revision 2 (NTSC-U 1.02, GALE01) disc image. No game data ships in the release, and the game won't run without one.
3. Run melee.exe with no arguments to open the built-in launcher, which lets you pick your disc image from there. If you'd rather skip the launcher, you can instead pass the disc path directly:

   melee.exe <disc.iso|.gcm|.ciso|.rvz>

   Only NTSC-U 1.02 is supported; an invalid or missing disc path falls back to the launcher.
4. Play MeleeVS: Main Menu → VS Mode → MELEE VS. It opens a menu with LOCAL, LAN PLAY, DIRECT CONNECT, TEAM SELECT and MATCHMAKING. On Windows, click Allow access if a firewall prompt appears when you open it.

See the README for the full controls, team/point-selection steps, the online notes and the per-character assist-move chart.

Building from source instead

Only needed if you're contributing, want an arch/platform CI doesn't publish, or want to build a non-tagged commit. Needs GCC (required, the game code relies on scalar_storage_order("big-endian"), which only GCC implements), CMake 3.25+, Ninja, and a Vulkan driver; Aurora fetches its own Dawn/SDL3/nod prebuilts.

cmake -B build -G Ninja
ninja -C build

No disc data is needed to build - the two HSD font atlases are read from your disc at boot instead of being committed.

MeleeVS-v1.1.1 - "Online MeleeVS"

MeleeVS-v1.1.1 - "Online MeleeVS"

What it can do: MeleeVS finally has online play. 2-player MeleeVS now works over LAN, Direct Connect and Matchmaking, all with rollback netcode, from the new MELEE VS menu (Main Menu → VS Mode → MELEE VS). Online is very early and can be buggy. Expect connection failures, desyncs and rough edges, and please tell us what you hit on the MeleeVS Discord or the issue tracker.

• Matchmaking finds you an opponent over the internet in its own MeleeVS-only pool (never a plain VS Unranked search). Pick your team first in TEAM SELECT. You see your opponent's ping and can Accept or Decline. Every game uses one fixed ruleset (Stock, 3 lives, items off, team attack off, 8-minute timer, pause disabled) on a random competitive-legal stage. After the set you get "You won!" / "You lost." and can rematch or search again. Two players on one couch can queue together as a duo.
• Direct Connect connects you to a friend by their connect code. Only the 8 characters after the # matter, so a changed or mistyped name still connects, and two players who dial each other meet in one match. Your recent opponents are listed under your own code, and there are Copy / Paste buttons for codes.
• Strict NAT help. A new pairing server speeds up matching, and the game detects routers that give each destination its own port (a "strict" NAT). It now asks your router to forward its port automatically (UPnP), and if that fails the lobby tells you what to do: Strict NAT: enable router UPnP or forward UDP <port>. There is no relay, so two players who are both strict still can't connect directly.
• Everything is unlocked online. Every online match unlocks all characters and stages for both players, and TEAM SELECT now shows the full roster whatever your own unlock setting is.
• Not compatible with 1.0.x or earlier builds. Both players need this exact release and the same disc image. Connect codes are longer now (8 characters after the #), so everyone's code has changed.

What changed to get here:

Online

• Rollback netplay for MeleeVS between two machines, with one or two players on each (couch duo).
• Matchmaking: its own pool, TEAM SELECT, Accept or Decline with the opponent's ping, a fixed ruleset, a "You won!" / "You lost." screen, and rematch or search again. Pausing is off online; hold L+R+A+START to leave.
• Direct Connect: connect by the 8-character code, mutual dialing, recent opponents, Copy / Paste.
• Pairing server for fast matching, with the DHT search as a fallback.
• Strict NAT detection, automatic UPnP port forwarding, and the lobby hint when it fails.

Gameplay

• No calling an assist while grabbed or in hitstun (air dodge still allows a call).
• Grab fixes: tagging in or benching while someone is held no longer strands the victim.
• Camera fix after the assist is promoted to point.
• Nametags with team colors, an "Assist Ready" badge, and "Share Stock?" for a lone point.
• Everything is unlocked in online matches, and TEAM SELECT shows every character.

Also

• Updates now work: the updater couldn't read MeleeVS version tags before.
• MeleeVS branding and the MeleeVS Discord links.

Known issues: online is very early (see above); two strict-NAT players can't connect; a router behind another NAT (carrier-grade NAT, a second router) needs the outer router to forward the port; Zelda and Sheik teams have a reported crash when Zelda is both point and assist and transforms at match start; and you can sometimes still call your assist when they are out of stocks.

Getting started

You do not need to build melee.exe yourself. Grab the Windows zip asset below (Melee-Windows-x86_64-MeleeVS-v1.1.1.zip). Linux (AppImage and tarball) and macOS zips are attached to this release too; iOS and Android are not published.

1. Download and unzip it anywhere. melee.exe is directly inside the extracted folder, alongside resources/ and its DLLs. Don't move it out on its own, since it needs resources/ next to it.
2. Get your own legally-obtained Melee USA revision 2 (NTSC-U 1.02, GALE01) disc image. No game data ships in the release, and the game won't run without one.
3. Run melee.exe with no arguments to open the built-in launcher, which lets you pick your disc image from there. If you'd rather skip the launcher, you can instead pass the disc path directly:

   melee.exe <disc.iso|.gcm|.ciso|.rvz>

   Only NTSC-U 1.02 is supported; an invalid or missing disc path falls back to the launcher.
4. Play MeleeVS: Main Menu → VS Mode → MELEE VS. It opens a menu with LOCAL, LAN PLAY, DIRECT CONNECT, TEAM SELECT and MATCHMAKING. On Windows, click Allow access if a firewall prompt appears when you open it.

See the README for the full controls, team/point-selection steps, the online notes and the per-character assist-move chart.

Building from source instead

Only needed if you're contributing, want an arch/platform CI doesn't publish, or want to build a non-tagged commit. Needs GCC (required, the game code relies on scalar_storage_order("big-endian"), which only GCC implements), CMake 3.25+, Ninja, and a Vulkan driver; Aurora fetches its own Dawn/SDL3/nod prebuilts.

cmake -B build -G Ninja
ninja -C build

No disc data is needed to build - the two HSD font atlases are read from your disc at boot instead of being committed.

MeleeVS-v1.1.0 - "Online MeleeVS"

MeleeVS-v1.1.0 - "Online MeleeVS"

What it can do: MeleeVS finally has online play. 2-player MeleeVS now works over LAN, Direct Connect and Matchmaking, all with rollback netcode, from the new MELEE VS menu (Main Menu → VS Mode → MELEE VS). Online is very early and can be buggy. Expect connection failures, desyncs and rough edges, and please tell us what you hit on the MeleeVS Discord or the issue tracker.

• Matchmaking finds you an opponent over the internet in its own MeleeVS-only pool (never a plain VS Unranked search). Pick your team first in TEAM SELECT. You see your opponent's ping and can Accept or Decline. Every game uses one fixed ruleset (Stock, 3 lives, items off, team attack off, 8-minute timer, pause disabled) on a random competitive-legal stage. After the set you get "You won!" / "You lost." and can rematch or search again. Two players on one couch can queue together as a duo.
• Direct Connect connects you to a friend by their connect code. Only the 8 characters after the # matter, so a changed or mistyped name still connects, and two players who dial each other meet in one match. Your recent opponents are listed under your own code, and there are Copy / Paste buttons for codes.
• Strict NAT help. A new pairing server speeds up matching, and the game detects routers that give each destination its own port (a "strict" NAT). It now asks your router to forward its port automatically (UPnP), and if that fails the lobby tells you what to do: Strict NAT: enable router UPnP or forward UDP <port>. There is no relay, so two players who are both strict still can't connect directly.
• Everything is unlocked online. Every online match unlocks all characters and stages for both players, and TEAM SELECT now shows the full roster whatever your own unlock setting is.
• Not compatible with 1.0.x or earlier builds. Both players need this exact release and the same disc image. Connect codes are longer now (8 characters after the #), so everyone's code has changed.

What changed to get here:

Online

• Rollback netplay for MeleeVS between two machines, with one or two players on each (couch duo).
• Matchmaking: its own pool, TEAM SELECT, Accept or Decline with the opponent's ping, a fixed ruleset, a "You won!" / "You lost." screen, and rematch or search again. Pausing is off online; hold L+R+A+START to leave.
• Direct Connect: connect by the 8-character code, mutual dialing, recent opponents, Copy / Paste.
• Pairing server for fast matching, with the DHT search as a fallback.
• Strict NAT detection, automatic UPnP port forwarding, and the lobby hint when it fails.

Gameplay

• No calling an assist while grabbed or in hitstun (air dodge still allows a call).
• Grab fixes: tagging in or benching while someone is held no longer strands the victim.
• Camera fix after the assist is promoted to point.
• Nametags with team colors, an "Assist Ready" badge, and "Share Stock?" for a lone point.
• Everything is unlocked in online matches, and TEAM SELECT shows every character.

Also

• Updates now work: the updater couldn't read MeleeVS version tags before.
• MeleeVS branding and the MeleeVS Discord links.

Known issues: online is very early (see above); two strict-NAT players can't connect; a router behind another NAT (carrier-grade NAT, a second router) needs the outer router to forward the port; Zelda and Sheik teams have a reported crash when Zelda is both point and assist and transforms at match start; and you can sometimes still call your assist when they are out of stocks.

Getting started

You do not need to build melee.exe yourself. Grab the Windows zip asset below (Melee-Windows-x86_64-MeleeVS-v1.1.0.zip). Linux (AppImage and tarball) and macOS zips are attached to this release too; iOS and Android are not published.

1. Download and unzip it anywhere. melee.exe is directly inside the extracted folder, alongside resources/ and its DLLs. Don't move it out on its own, since it needs resources/ next to it.
2. Get your own legally-obtained Melee USA revision 2 (NTSC-U 1.02, GALE01) disc image. No game data ships in the release, and the game won't run without one.
3. Run melee.exe with no arguments to open the built-in launcher, which lets you pick your disc image from there. If you'd rather skip the launcher, you can instead pass the disc path directly:

   melee.exe <disc.iso|.gcm|.ciso|.rvz>

   Only NTSC-U 1.02 is supported; an invalid or missing disc path falls back to the launcher.
4. Play MeleeVS: Main Menu → VS Mode → MELEE VS. It opens a menu with LOCAL, LAN PLAY, DIRECT CONNECT, TEAM SELECT and MATCHMAKING. On Windows, click Allow access if a firewall prompt appears when you open it.

See the README for the full controls, team/point-selection steps, the online notes and the per-character assist-move chart.

Building from source instead

Only needed if you're contributing, want an arch/platform CI doesn't publish, or want to build a non-tagged commit. Needs GCC (required, the game code relies on scalar_storage_order("big-endian"), which only GCC implements), CMake 3.25+, Ninja, and a Vulkan driver; Aurora fetches its own Dawn/SDL3/nod prebuilts.

cmake -B build -G Ninja
ninja -C build

No disc data is needed to build - the two HSD font atlases are read from your disc at boot instead of being committed.

v1.0.4 - "Tag Bind, done right"

v1.0.4 - "Tag Bind, done right"

What it can do: The F1 menu's MeleeVS: Tag Bind setting (added in
v1.0.3 as a Y-only toggle) now cycles through Off/A/B/X/Y/Z/L/R/Start/
D-Pad Up/Left/Right - any single GCC button can also call in and tag your
partner, alongside D-Pad Down. Left-click cycles forward, right-click
cycles back, so you're never more than a few clicks from any option either
direction. Whichever button you land on gives up its original job
entirely instead of double-booking with it: X/Y stop jumping, L/R stop
shielding. Two long-standing tag-swap bugs are also fixed: tagging out no
longer erases an air dodge's own vulnerability window, and tagging in
while airborne now falls naturally instead of snapping down to the
ground. This is experimental so beware any weirdness that happens
and use at your own risk and this will change it game wide so every
player will face these changes

What changed to get here:

• Reworked the fixed "tag on Y" toggle from v1.0.3 into a full "MeleeVS:
  Tag Bind" cycle covering every GCC button, with right-click added
  afterward to cycle backward too (RmlUi's own Click event only fires for
  the left mouse button, so this reads the lower-level Mouseup event and
  filters to the right button specifically).
• L and R needed their own fix beyond just adding entries for them: a
  normal shield press (even a hard one) only reliably sets the game's
  combined "either shoulder" flag, not the individual per-side bit that
  only asserts on a genuine full mechanical click most controllers rarely
  produce. Binding tag to R now reads R's own raw analog trigger value
  directly, with its own frame-to-frame edge tracking, instead of relying
  on that unreliable digital bit.
• Suppressing a bound button's original job (X/Y no longer jumping, L/R no
  longer shielding) turned out to need patching at the single point where
  the game reads a fighter's own input each frame, not the handful of
  individual jump/shield checks scattered through the roster's code -
  jump alone has several independent call sites, and shield is checked in
  dozens of places across nearly every character.
• That same upstream fix briefly broke the tag input itself whenever it
  was bound to X or Y, since tag detection was reading from the exact
  input field the fix had started stripping the bound button out of.
  Tag detection now reads controller state directly instead, upstream of
  where that stripping happens, so the two no longer compete over the
  same bit.
• Tagging out used to leave an air-dodging fighter's own cameo timer
  running with no exemption for the dodge or its landing lag, so a timer
  running out mid-dodge would force-reset and bench the fighter early,
  erasing the vulnerability window an opponent should have gotten.
• Tagging in used to always drop the incoming fighter into a grounded
  idle state regardless of whether it was actually airborne (from an
  aerial assist move, or just having been launched while out) - since
  that state has no falling physics of its own, it would instantly glue
  the fighter down to whatever floor was beneath them. It now falls
  naturally instead when that's the case.

Getting started

You do not need to build melee.exe yourself. Grab the
Melee-Windows-x86_64-v1.0.4.zip asset below.

1. Download Melee-Windows-x86_64-v1.0.4.zip from this release's Assets and
   unzip it anywhere. melee.exe is directly inside the extracted
   melee-windows-x86_64 folder, alongside resources/ and its DLLs -
   don't move it out on its own, since it needs resources/ next to it.
2. Get your own legally-obtained Melee USA revision 2 (NTSC-U 1.02,
   GALE01) disc image - no game data ships in the release, and the game
   won't run without one.
3. Run melee.exe with no arguments to open the built-in launcher -
   easiest option, since it lets you pick your disc image from there. If
   you'd rather skip the launcher, you can instead pass the disc path
   directly:

   melee.exe <disc.iso|.gcm|.ciso|.rvz>

   Only NTSC-U 1.02 is supported; an invalid or missing disc path falls
   back to the launcher. Settings and the last-used disc path are saved to
   launcher.cfg under SDL's melee-pc_TagFighter preference directory,
   kept separate from a vanilla melee-pc install so the two don't collide.
4. Play MeleeVS: Main Menu → VS Mode → MELEE VS. It's a separate
   entry from Melee/Team Battle, so a normal match is completely
   unaffected unless you pick it.

See the README for the full controls, team/point-selection
steps, and the per-character assist-move chart.

Building from source instead

Only needed if you're contributing, want an arch/platform CI doesn't
publish, or want to build a non-tagged commit. Needs GCC (required — the
game code relies on scalar_storage_order("big-endian"), which only GCC
implements), CMake 3.25+, Ninja, and a Vulkan driver; Aurora fetches its
own Dawn/SDL3/nod prebuilts.

cmake -B build -G Ninja
ninja -C build

No disc data is needed to build - the two HSD font atlases are read from
your disc at boot instead of being committed.

v1.0.3 — "Tag on Y"

v1.0.3 — "Tag on Y"

What it can do: The F1 menu's Cheats tab has a new MeleeVS: Tag on Y
setting. Turn it on and Y also calls in and tags your partner, alongside
D-Pad Down — no more stretching for the D-Pad mid-combo if you'd rather use a
face button. Turning it on frees Y from jump duty (X alone still jumps), so
the two inputs never fight over the same press.

What changed to get here:

• Added the setting: the tag-in/call-in checks in tag_assist.c now also
  accept Y when it's enabled, and ftCo_Jump_GetInput stops treating Y as a
  jump button in that case so a Y press can't trigger both a jump and a tag
  at once.
• Labeled it "MeleeVS: Tag on Y" in the F1 menu in F1 -> Cheats

Getting started

You do not need to build melee.exe yourself. Grab the
Melee-Windows-x86_64-v1.0.3.zip asset below.

1. Download Melee-Windows-x86_64-v1.0.3.zip from this release's Assets and
   unzip it anywhere. melee.exe is directly inside the extracted
   melee-windows-x86_64 folder, alongside resources/ and its DLLs —
   don't move it out on its own, since it needs resources/ next to it.
2. Get your own legally-obtained Melee USA revision 2 (NTSC-U 1.02,
   GALE01) disc image — no game data ships in the release, and the game
   won't run without one.
3. Run melee.exe with no arguments to open the built-in launcher —
   easiest option, since it lets you pick your disc image from there. If
   you'd rather skip the launcher, you can instead pass the disc path
   directly:

   melee.exe <disc.iso|.gcm|.ciso|.rvz>

   Only NTSC-U 1.02 is supported; an invalid or missing disc path falls
   back to the launcher. Settings and the last-used disc path are saved to
   launcher.cfg under SDL's melee-pc_TagFighter preference directory,
   kept separate from a vanilla melee-pc install so the two don't collide.
4. Play MeleeVS: Main Menu → VS Mode → MELEE VS. It's a separate
   entry from Melee/Team Battle, so a normal match is completely
   unaffected unless you pick it.

See the README for the full controls, team/point-selection
steps, and the per-character assist-move chart.

Building from source instead

Only needed if you're contributing, want an arch/platform CI doesn't
publish, or want to build a non-tagged commit. Needs GCC (required — the
game code relies on scalar_storage_order("big-endian"), which only GCC
implements), CMake 3.25+, Ninja, and a Vulkan driver; Aurora fetches its
own Dawn/SDL3/nod prebuilts.

cmake -B build -G Ninja
ninja -C build

No disc data is needed to build — the two HSD font atlases are read from
your disc at boot instead of being committed.

v1.0 — Tag Fighter leaves beta

v1.0 — "Tag Fighter leaves beta"

What it can do: This is Tag Fighter's first stable release. Every item on
the mod's launch roadmap is done: grounded and air assist calls for the whole
roster, tagging mid-match with full instant control, point-elimination
promotion (with a stock-share revival to bring a permanently-eliminated
teammate back), Solo Play and Duo Play, a dedicated MELEE VS menu entry
with its own CSS art and POINT tags, and nametags that show the call's tag
count and the assist's countdown at a glance. The only thing still ahead is
online play, tracked separately on the roadmap.
This release also fixes a camera bug: the frame would tighten up right after
a teammate ran out of stocks, instead of holding steady.

What changed to get here:

• TagAssist_PromoteAssistToPoint activated the newly-promoted point's
  camera tracking box, but never deactivated the eliminated fighter's own
  box. That fighter stays alive on purpose (revivable with a stock-share
  donation) parked at the spawn platform for the rest of the match, so its
  camera box kept counting as an extra tracked subject indefinitely. The
  camera's own tracking-margin table gives every subject a smaller
  personal-space margin the more subjects are active, so each leftover
  stale subject was silently shrinking the frame for everyone else — most
  noticeable right after an elimination, since the real fighters are
  usually close together right then and that margin term dominates the
  framing math. Fixed by deactivating the eliminated fighter's camera box
  in the same place its promotion already happens, mirroring the pattern
  already used when benching an assist.

Getting started

You do not need to build melee.exe yourself. Grab the
Melee-Windows-x86_64-v1.0.zip asset below.

1. Download Melee-Windows-x86_64-v1.0.zip from this release's Assets and
   unzip it anywhere. melee.exe is directly inside the extracted
   melee-windows-x86_64 folder, alongside resources/ and its DLLs —
   don't move it out on its own, since it needs resources/ next to it.
2. Get your own legally-obtained Melee USA revision 2 (NTSC-U 1.02,
   GALE01) disc image — no game data ships in the release, and the game
   won't run without one.
3. Run melee.exe with no arguments to open the built-in launcher —
   easiest option, since it lets you pick your disc image from there. If
   you'd rather skip the launcher, you can instead pass the disc path
   directly:

   melee.exe <disc.iso|.gcm|.ciso|.rvz>

   Only NTSC-U 1.02 is supported; an invalid or missing disc path falls
   back to the launcher. Settings and the last-used disc path are saved to
   launcher.cfg under SDL's melee-pc_TagFighter preference directory,
   kept separate from a vanilla melee-pc install so the two don't collide.
4. Play MeleeVS: Main Menu → VS Mode → MELEE VS. It's a separate
   entry from Melee/Team Battle, so a normal match is completely
   unaffected unless you pick it.

See the README for the full controls, team/point-selection
steps, and the per-character assist-move chart.

Building from source instead

Only needed if you're contributing, want an arch/platform CI doesn't
publish, or want to build a non-tagged commit. Needs GCC (required — the
game code relies on scalar_storage_order("big-endian"), which only GCC
implements), CMake 3.25+, Ninja, and a Vulkan driver; Aurora fetches its
own Dawn/SDL3/nod prebuilts.

cmake -B build -G Ninja
ninja -C build

No disc data is needed to build — the two HSD font atlases are read from
your disc at boot instead of being committed.

MeleeVS-v1.0.5-beta - "Online, but not for MeleeVS yet"

MeleeVS-v1.0.5-beta - "Online, but not for MeleeVS yet"

What it can do: This release merges in melee-pc's internet play update
(rollback snapshots on every platform, plus internet Direct Connect,
Unranked and Ranked matchmaking over the public BitTorrent DHT) - but there's
a real asterisk on it. That online mode is for vanilla VS Mode only.
MeleeVS (Tag Battle) does not have online play yet - going online still
takes you through the same vanilla VS Mode/results flow as upstream
melee-pc, not a tag match. And even for vanilla VS Mode, you can only
matchmake with other people on the same MeleeVS build as you - LAN,
Direct Connect and Unranked/Ranked all refuse to pair with anyone whose
build revision doesn't match yours exactly, which as of this release means
a fellow MeleeVS player, never someone on base 999sian/melee-pc. Version
tags now carry a MeleeVS-v prefix specifically so that check can never
accidentally succeed against a vanilla melee-pc build, or against a future
MeleeVS release that happens to reuse the same bare version number.

Besides that: the F1 menu's MeleeVS: Tag Bind setting is now also in
the pre-game launcher's Cheats tab, not just the in-game overlay.

What changed to get here:

• Merged melee-pc's internet matchmaking and ranked netplay (rollback
  snapshots on Windows/macOS/iOS/Android, signed Ed25519 player identities,
  Direct/Unranked/Ranked over the public DHT). As above, this lands in
  vanilla VS Mode; MeleeVS's own tag mechanics aren't wired into netplay
  yet.
• Version tags and the in-app version string now use a MeleeVS-v prefix
  instead of bare vX.Y.Z-beta. Upstream melee-pc's own tags become
  reachable ancestors of this branch after every merge, so an unscoped
  version match could in principle resolve to one of theirs, and two
  genuinely different, mutually-desyncing builds that happened to land on
  the same bare version number would report identical build revisions and
  pass the netplay compatibility check that's supposed to keep them apart.
  The launcher and F1 menu also dropped the separate "TagFighter" label
  next to the version number, since the version string itself now says
  MeleeVS.
• Fixed a .gitattributes bug that silently defeated its own "enforce LF
  line endings" rule (a stray line was missing its * glob, so it only
  matched a literal file named text, matching nothing real). On GitHub's
  Windows CI runners this let files like CMakeLists.txt and *.cmake
  check out with CRLF instead of the LF they're committed as, which git
  then saw as a local modification - so every CI-built Windows release
  shipped with -dirty baked into its version string, even from a
  completely clean checkout.
• The online identity key and ranked rating history moved out of the
  vanilla melee-pc preference directory and into MeleeVS's own, matching
  where every other MeleeVS setting already lives. A machine with both a
  vanilla melee-pc and a MeleeVS install no longer shares a connect code or
  rank history between the two. Anyone who already went online on a
  MeleeVS build gets a fresh identity and empty ranked history on first
  launch of this version, since the old key lived under the old directory.
• Added the missing MeleeVS: Tag Bind control to the pre-game
  launcher's Cheats tab. It previously only existed in the F1 in-game
  overlay, even though both menus share the same layout. The launcher
  doesn't have right-click reverse-cycling like the F1 menu does, so its
  tooltip doesn't claim that; left-click still cycles forward through
  every option.

Getting started

You do not need to build melee.exe yourself. Grab the
Melee-Windows-x86_64-MeleeVS-v1.0.5-beta.zip asset below.

1. Download Melee-Windows-x86_64-MeleeVS-v1.0.5-beta.zip from this
   release's Assets and unzip it anywhere. melee.exe is directly inside
   the extracted melee-windows-x86_64 folder, alongside resources/ and
   its DLLs - don't move it out on its own, since it needs resources/
   next to it.
2. Get your own legally-obtained Melee USA revision 2 (NTSC-U 1.02,
   GALE01) disc image - no game data ships in the release, and the game
   won't run without one.
3. Run melee.exe with no arguments to open the built-in launcher -
   easiest option, since it lets you pick your disc image from there. If
   you'd rather skip the launcher, you can instead pass the disc path
   directly:

   melee.exe <disc.iso|.gcm|.ciso|.rvz>

   Only NTSC-U 1.02 is supported; an invalid or missing disc path falls
   back to the launcher. Settings and the last-used disc path are saved to
   launcher.cfg under SDL's melee-pc_TagFighter preference directory,
   kept separate from a vanilla melee-pc install so the two don't collide.
4. Play MeleeVS: Main Menu → VS Mode → MELEE VS. It's a separate
   entry from Melee/Team Battle, so a normal match (including going online)
   is completely unaffected unless you pick it.

See the README for the full controls, team/point-selection
steps, and the per-character assist-move chart.

Building from source instead

Only needed if you're contributing, want an arch/platform CI doesn't
publish, or want to build a non-tagged commit. Needs GCC (required, the
game code relies on scalar_storage_order("big-endian"), which only GCC
implements), CMake 3.25+, Ninja, and a Vulkan driver; Aurora fetches its
own Dawn/SDL3/nod prebuilts.

cmake -B build -G Ninja
ninja -C build

No disc data is needed to build - the two HSD font atlases are read from
your disc at boot instead of being committed.

v0.6.1-beta — "Tags remaining, real Fan-slap tag SFX, longer assist window"

v0.6.1-beta — "Tags remaining, real Fan-slap tag SFX, longer assist window"

What it can do: Point's nametag now reads Point: N, where N is
how many more tags this call still allows — so between the point label,
the tag count, and the assist's own countdown, you can see everything
about the current call at a glance. The assist's cameo window is also a
second longer (5s, up from 4), tagging/calling now plays the actual Fan
(Harisen) item's hit "slap" sound instead of a generic thwack, and Mr.
Game & Watch's assist call switches from Neutral Special (Chef) to Side
Special (Judge).

What changed to get here:

• Point's nametag text is built as "Point: " + tagsRemaining instead of
  the static literal "Point", reading from a new TagAssist_GetTagsRemaining
  accessor (TAG_MAX_TAGS_PER_CALL - team->tags_this_call).
• Found and fixed a real bug in the engine's own ASCII→SIS-glyph encoder
  (HSD_SisLib_803A67EC) while building the above: it only whitelists a
  small set of punctuation (space, ' " , - . :) — anything else,
  including (/), gets silently swallowed along with the following
  byte. An earlier "Point(N)" attempt showed neither the parens nor the
  digit for exactly this reason; switched the separator to :, which is
  one of the safe characters.
• The shared nametag plate mesh is now explicitly hidden for Tag Battle's
  own Point/countdown text (drawn through a separate SIS text overlay that
  never reads that mesh's transform or hidden flag), and the text no
  longer auto-scales by length — an earlier attempt at that made "Point(N)"
  harder to read, not easier.
• ASSIST_DURATION_FRAMES raised from 240 to 300 (5 seconds at 60fps).
• TagAssist_GetAssistMoveEnter now maps Mr. Game & Watch to
  ftGw_SpecialS_Enter (Side Special, Judge) instead of ftGw_SpecialN_Enter
  (Neutral Special, Chef).
• The tag-effect sound is now the real Fan (Harisen) item's slap, found by
  logging HitCapsule::sfx_kind/sfx_severity at every hit-connect site in
  ftcoll.c and swinging a Harisen in a real match: sfx_kind 6 resolves
  to raw AX id 225 regardless of severity, played directly via
  lbAudioAx_80024184 (the same low-level call the game's own item-hit
  resolution uses) rather than ft_PlaySFX. Played twice at a slight pan
  offset rather than once, since the volume argument was already at
  VOL_MAX and layering two voices is the only way left to make it read
  louder.

Getting started

You do not need to build melee.exe yourself. Grab the
Melee-Windows-x86_64-v0.6.1-beta.zip asset below.

1. Download Melee-Windows-x86_64-v0.6.1-beta.zip from this release's
   Assets and unzip it anywhere. melee.exe is directly inside the
   extracted melee-windows-x86_64 folder, alongside resources/ and its
   DLLs — don't move it out on its own, since it needs resources/ next
   to it.
2. Get your own legally-obtained Melee USA revision 2 (NTSC-U 1.02,
   GALE01) disc image — no game data ships in the release, and the game
   won't run without one.
3. Run melee.exe with no arguments to open the built-in launcher —
   easiest option, since it lets you pick your disc image from there. If
   you'd rather skip the launcher, you can instead pass the disc path
   directly:

   melee.exe <disc.iso|.gcm|.ciso|.rvz>

   Only NTSC-U 1.02 is supported; an invalid or missing disc path falls
   back to the launcher. Settings and the last-used disc path are saved to
   launcher.cfg under SDL's melee-pc_TagFighter preference directory,
   kept separate from a vanilla melee-pc install so the two don't collide.
4. Play MeleeVS: Main Menu → VS Mode → MELEE VS. It's a separate
   entry from Melee/Team Battle, so a normal match is completely
   unaffected unless you pick it.

See the README for the full controls, team/point-selection
steps, and the per-character assist-move chart.

Building from source instead

Only needed if you're contributing, want an arch/platform CI doesn't
publish, or want to build a non-tagged commit. Needs GCC (required — the
game code relies on scalar_storage_order("big-endian"), which only GCC
implements), CMake 3.25+, Ninja, and a Vulkan driver; Aurora fetches its
own Dawn/SDL3/nod prebuilts.

cmake -B build -G Ninja
ninja -C build

No disc data is needed to build — the two HSD font atlases are read from
your disc at boot instead of being committed.

v0.5.2-beta — "CI now builds and publishes releases; Roy’s assist call fixed"

v0.5.2-beta — "CI now builds and publishes releases; Roy's assist call fixed"

What it can do: Nothing new in-match to play with in this one — it's a
CI/infra release, plus one gameplay fix: Roy's assist call now uses
Neutral Special (Shield Breaker), matching Marth, instead of Up Special
(Blazer). From here on, every tagged release (v*) is built and published
by GitHub Actions itself: pushing a tag cross-compiles Windows, Linux,
macOS, and iOS, attaches the versioned assets, and creates the GitHub
release automatically — no more hand-staging build-pc's output or
manually uploading a zip.

What changed to get here:

• TagAssist_GetAssistMoveEnter now maps Roy to ftMs_SpecialN_Enter
  (Shield Breaker) instead of ftMs_SpecialHi_Enter (Blazer) — there's no
  fp->kind branch anywhere in Marth/Roy's Neutral Special script, so it's
  identical for both, the same pattern already used for every other
  shared, unbranched Enter function on a clone pair. docs/tag_assist_roster.csv
  and the README's assist-move chart updated to match.
• Every packaging script (Windows/Linux/macOS/iOS) now names its output
  with the MELEE_VERSION it's given instead of a bare, unversioned name,
  matching the vX.Y.Z-beta asset naming every manually-published release
  had already been using. The CI workflow passes MELEE_VERSION for the
  tag on tag builds.
• The release job now publishes with --generate-notes instead of
  --notes-file .github/RELEASE_NOTES.md — that file is upstream
  melee-pc's own changelog, never fork-specific, so a CI-published release
  used to describe someone else's history. Beta tags also stopped being
  marked GitHub prereleases, matching how every release here has actually
  been published (draft: false, prerelease: false).
• Dropped the Android build job from CI — it always failed on this fork
  (no keystore secret configured here) and isn't something that ships, so
  there's no reason for a real release to wait on or depend on it.
• Fixed a clang-format violation in src/pc/main.c that was failing the
  Lint & Style job.

Getting started

You do not need to build melee.exe yourself. Grab the
Melee-Windows-x86_64-v0.5.2-beta.zip asset below.

1. Download Melee-Windows-x86_64-v0.5.2-beta.zip from this release's
   Assets and unzip it anywhere. melee.exe is directly inside the
   extracted melee-windows-x86_64 folder, alongside resources/ and its
   DLLs — don't move it out on its own, since it needs resources/ next
   to it.
2. Get your own legally-obtained Melee USA revision 2 (NTSC-U 1.02,
   GALE01) disc image — no game data ships in the release, and the game
   won't run without one.
3. Run melee.exe with no arguments to open the built-in launcher —
   easiest option, since it lets you pick your disc image from there. If
   you'd rather skip the launcher, you can instead pass the disc path
   directly:

   melee.exe <disc.iso|.gcm|.ciso|.rvz>

   Only NTSC-U 1.02 is supported; an invalid or missing disc path falls
   back to the launcher. Settings and the last-used disc path are saved to
   launcher.cfg under SDL's melee-pc_TagFighter preference directory,
   kept separate from a vanilla melee-pc install so the two don't collide.
4. Play Tag Battle: Main Menu → VS Mode → MELEE VS. It's a separate
   entry from Melee/Team Battle, so a normal match is completely
   unaffected unless you pick it.

See the README for the full controls, team/point-selection
steps, and the per-character assist-move chart.

Building from source instead

Only needed if you're contributing, want an arch/platform CI doesn't
publish, or want to build a non-tagged commit. Needs GCC (required — the
game code relies on scalar_storage_order("big-endian"), which only GCC
implements), CMake 3.25+, Ninja, and a Vulkan driver; Aurora fetches its
own Dawn/SDL3/nod prebuilts.

cmake -B build -G Ninja
ninja -C build

No disc data is needed to build — the two HSD font atlases are read from
your disc at boot instead of being committed.

v0.5.1-beta — Launcher tracks TagFighter releases, MeleeVS branding

v0.5.1-beta — "Launcher tracks TagFighter releases, MeleeVS branding"

What it can do: The built-in updater now checks this fork's own
releases instead of upstream melee-pc's, so "Update available" only fires
for a new Tag Fighter build — pulling in upstream melee-pc work is still
entirely a manual, developer-driven merge. The launcher's version line now
shows three separate numbers instead of one blended string: the Tag Fighter
version, the upstream melee-pc version it was last merged from, and the
supported disc revision. The home screen also now identifies the mod by
name: MELEE with MeleeVS mod, with a MeleeVS, a 2v2 Assist Tag
Fighter subtitle underneath.

What changed to get here:

• pc::updater::check_for_updates_async and open_release_in_browser
  (src/pc/updater.cpp) now hit Joyastick/melee-pc-TagFighter/releases
  instead of 999sian/melee-pc/releases.
• src/pc/version.cpp gained get_upstream_pc_version() alongside the
  existing get_app_version(), and both are now shown side by side in
  resources/launcher.rml and resources/port-menu.rml next to the
  NTSC-U 1.02 disc label.
• MELEE_APP_VERSION is no longer a hand-bumped #define: a new
  cmake/GenerateVersion.cmake, run as an ALL custom target before every
  build, derives it from git describe --tags --match "v[0-9]*" --dirty
  into a generated header, so the launcher's own version number can't drift
  from what's actually tagged. MELEE_UPSTREAM_PC_VERSION (the melee-pc
  base version) is intentionally still a manual #define — bump it by hand
  after merging melee-pc/master (documented in the repo's own build
  notes).
• resources/launcher.rml/.rcss: the big "MELEE" title gets an inline
  "with MeleeVS mod" tag and a subtitle line underneath.
• README.md: title corrected from "MeleeXKO" to "MeleeVS" to match the
  in-game and launcher branding.

Getting started

You do not need to build melee.exe yourself. Grab the
Melee-Windows-x86_64-v0.5.1-beta.zip asset below.

1. Download Melee-Windows-x86_64-v0.5.1-beta.zip from this release's
   Assets and unzip it anywhere. melee.exe is directly inside the
   extracted melee-windows-x86_64 folder, alongside resources/ and its
   DLLs — don't move it out on its own, since it needs resources/ next
   to it.
2. Get your own legally-obtained Melee USA revision 2 (NTSC-U 1.02,
   GALE01) disc image — no game data ships in the release, and the game
   won't run without one.
3. Run melee.exe with no arguments to open the built-in launcher —
   easiest option, since it lets you pick your disc image from there. If
   you'd rather skip the launcher, you can instead pass the disc path
   directly:

   melee.exe <disc.iso|.gcm|.ciso|.rvz>

   Only NTSC-U 1.02 is supported; an invalid or missing disc path falls
   back to the launcher. Settings and the last-used disc path are saved to
   launcher.cfg under SDL's melee-pc_TagFighter preference directory,
   kept separate from a vanilla melee-pc install so the two don't collide.
4. Play Tag Battle: Main Menu → VS Mode → MELEE VS. It's a separate
   entry from Melee/Team Battle, so a normal match is completely
   unaffected unless you pick it.

See the README for the full controls, team/point-selection
steps, and the per-character assist-move chart.

Building from source instead

Only needed if you're contributing, want an arch/platform CI doesn't
publish, or want to build a non-tagged commit. Needs GCC (required — the
game code relies on scalar_storage_order("big-endian"), which only GCC
implements), CMake 3.25+, Ninja, and a Vulkan driver; Aurora fetches its
own Dawn/SDL3/nod prebuilts.

cmake -B build -G Ninja
ninja -C build

No disc data is needed to build — the two HSD font atlases are read from
your disc at boot instead of being committed.