BigScreen

A shared, in-world screen for Big Walk. The host places a screen somewhere on the island, pastes a YouTube link, and everyone with the mod sees and hears the same video at the same moment. Sit around it, heckle, walk off and let the sound fade behind you.

Status: alpha, runs in-game. As of 2026-09-19 the mod compiles against Big Walk (Unity 6000.3.17f1, BepInEx 6.0.0-be.755), loads, hooks Mirror, and places a working screen that syncs and tears down correctly. Video playback is the remaining unverified step. All three risks in docs/ARCHITECTURE.md are now resolved or retired and annotated with what actually happened; docs/PLAYTEST.md tracks what is still unverified.

How it works, in one paragraph

Big Walk is a Unity (IL2CPP) game networked with Mirror. BigScreen is a BepInEx plugin. Every player who wants to watch installs it. The host owns a tiny piece of shared state (where the screen is, which video, playing or paused, and a timeline anchor); it is sent to modded guests over the game's own Mirror connection on a private message id. Each player resolves the YouTube link to a direct stream URL locally with yt-dlp and plays it with Unity's built-in VideoPlayer onto a quad in the world, with positional audio. Everyone keeps their playback locked to the host's timeline using Mirror's shared clock. Players without the mod are unaffected: they see nothing and receive nothing.

Requirements

• Big Walk on Steam (Windows, or Linux through Proton)
• BepInExPack IL2CPP (installed for you by a mod manager such as Gale or r2modman)
• yt-dlp.exe. BigScreen downloads it automatically the first time it is needed (from the official yt-dlp GitHub releases), or set YtDlp.Path in the config.

Install

With a mod manager (recommended): in Gale or r2modman, select Big Walk, create a profile, install BepInExPack_IL2CPP, then import the BigScreen zip (or install it from Thunderstore once it is published). Launch the game from the manager.

Manually: install BepInExPack IL2CPP into the game folder, launch the game once (the first launch takes a few minutes while it generates interop files), then drop BigScreen.dll into BepInEx\plugins\BigScreen\.

Everyone who wants to watch needs the mod. The host does not need to do anything special.

Use

1. Host or join a walk.
2. Press F8 to open the panel.
3. Place screen here puts a screen 4 m in front of you, facing you.
4. Paste a YouTube URL and press Load. Everyone with the mod resolves and starts the video in sync a few seconds later.
5. Play/pause and seek from the panel. Guests can only control playback if the host ticks "Let modded guests control playback".

Your own volume slider is local. The audio is positional: stand close to hear it, walk away and it fades (configurable range).

Configuration

BepInEx\config\dev.h223chen.bigscreen.cfg (created on first launch). Highlights:

Building from source

Prerequisites:

1. .NET SDK 10 or newer
2. A mod manager: Gale or r2modman
3. BepInExPack_IL2CPP installed via your chosen mod manager
4. Big Walk launched modded at least once so that BepInEx\interop exists

Setup:

# 1. Install and launch the game modded through Gale or r2modman
#    (this generates the interop files you need to build)

# 2. Verify .NET SDK is installed
dotnet --version

# 3. Build and deploy the mod
.\scripts\build.ps1 -Deploy    # build and copy into <BepInEx>\plugins\BigScreen

# Alternative: create a Thunderstore-ready package
.\scripts\package.ps1          # creates dist\BigScreen-*.zip

The build auto-detects the Gale profile, the r2modman profile, and the Steam game folder in that order. For a custom BepInEx path: copy Config.Build.user.props.template to Config.Build.user.props and set BepInExPath.

New to Unity or game modding? Start with docs/MODDING-PRIMER.md.

Docs

• docs/MODDING-PRIMER.md: how Big Walk modding works, the toolchain, the dev loop, publishing.
• docs/ARCHITECTURE.md: design, sync protocol, risks, roadmap.
• docs/MIRROR-MESSAGING.md: how the networking works and why it bypasses Mirror's public message API, for readers new to Mirror.
• docs/TASK_LIST.md: planned improvements, and what the game's own interaction systems offer.
• docs/PLAYTEST.md: what to verify on the first in-game runs.

Credits

Built on the shoulders of the Big Walk modding community, in particular dougwithseismic/bigwalk-mods (toolchain and reverse-engineering guide), iameli/big-walk-practice (Mirror ownership notes, CI pattern) and the Trifocals mods (in-game patterns for players, audio and effects). BepInEx, Il2CppInterop, Harmony, Mirror and yt-dlp do the heavy lifting. Not affiliated with House House or Panic.

License

MIT. See LICENSE.