How To Rounds

How To Rounds transforms How to Fish into a fast competitive multiplayer mode inspired by ROUNDS. Every player starts with the same simple loadout, then builds a unique character by collecting stackable upgrade cards between rounds.

Join the community, find players, report problems, and share feedback on our Discord server.

How to play

1. Every player must install the same version of How To Rounds and its dependencies.
2. Open HOW TO ROUNDS from the main menu.
3. One player creates a Steam room and shares the five-character room code.
4. The other players select JOIN WITH CODE and enter that code.
5. The host starts the match once everyone is in the lobby.
6. Before combat, players take turns choosing one card from their own random four-card draft.
7. After the last choice, a synchronized three-second countdown starts the round.
8. The last surviving player wins the round. Every losing player drafts another upgrade before the next fight.
9. The first player to win 10 rounds wins the match. The host may then begin another race to 10 while keeping all upgrades, or reset upgrades and scores for a fresh match.

The mod randomly selects Arena03, Arena04, or Arena05 each round when possible. All clients load the same arena selected by the host.

Combat rules

• Every player begins each round at full health with a vanilla Pistol and Knife.
• The starting Pistol has a three-round magazine, making ammunition upgrades especially valuable.
• Hunger and food-based regeneration are disabled. Healing comes only from upgrade effects.
• Weapons do not drop when a player dies, and eliminated players cannot revive during combat.
• Dead players enter a free-moving spectator camera until the round ends.
• Projectiles travel in dodgeable ballistic arcs, and higher-damage bullets have larger visuals, hit areas, and knockback.
• Explosions deal area damage, can hurt the shooter, and push nearby players.

Upgrade draft and stacking

Each player receives a different random selection of four cards. Draft choices are synchronized so everyone can see which player is choosing and which upgrade they take.

Cards are permanent for the current match and can be selected more than once. Unless a card says otherwise, each additional copy applies its effect again. Percentage bonuses and penalties generally stack multiplicatively, while flat values such as ammunition, health, jumps, bounces, projectiles, and knockback stack additively.

Current upgrades

• More More — Adds 2 bullets to the magazine and increases projectile speed by 10% per stack.
• Double Jump — Adds one extra airborne jump per stack.
• Faster Than Me — Increases movement speed by 20% per stack.
• Faster Charge — Cuts reload time in half per stack.
• Ricochet — Adds one bullet bounce per stack.
• Explosive Bullets — Bullets explode on impact, dealing 50% of projectile damage per stack in an area. The blast can damage and push the shooter too.
• Big Bullets — Increases bullet size by 50% and damage by 25%, but reduces projectile speed by 20% per stack.
• Quick Shot — Increases fire rate by 35%, but reduces bullet damage by 15% per stack.
• Glass Cannon — Increases movement speed by 40%, but halves maximum health per stack.
• Tank — Adds 50 maximum health, but reduces movement speed by 20% per stack.
• Lifesteal — Restores health equal to 30% of damage dealt per stack, up to maximum health.
• Healing Reload — Restores 20 health after completing a reload per stack.
• Poison Bullet — Turns bullets purple and deals 30% of projectile damage per second for three seconds per stack.
• Homing — Makes bullets seek nearby enemies. Additional stacks increase tracking strength and range.
• Grow — Reduces initial projectile speed by 20% per stack. For every second in flight, each stack increases bullet damage by 20% and size by 25%.
• Miniature — Reduces player size by 20%, increases movement speed by 20%, and removes 20 maximum health per stack.
• Impulse — Adds 3 projectile knockback per stack. Large bullets amplify the final push further.
• More Health — Adds 50 maximum health per stack.
• Quick Reload — Increases reload speed by 35% per stack.
• Heavy Hitter — Increases bullet damage by 30%, but increases weapon spread by 40% per stack.
• Tight Spread — Reduces weapon spread by 50% per stack.
• Double Shot — Adds one projectile and one ammunition cost to every shot per stack.
• Bullet Storm — Adds 12 bullets to the magazine, enables rapid fully automatic fire, and reduces bullet damage by 30% per stack.

Multiplayer requirements

• How To Rounds uses the game's native Steam networking and supports remote online play.
• Every player must use the same How to Fish game version and the same How To Rounds mod version.
• Room-code discovery uses a public worldwide Steam lobby listing.
• For the fairest result, let the host start only after every player appears in the waiting room.

Installation

1. Install BepInEx for How to Fish.
2. Extract this package into the game folder while preserving its BepInEx/plugins/HowToRounds structure.
3. Launch the game through Steam.

The normal game world remains loaded underneath as the networking foundation. How To Rounds is an experimental community mod and may require updates when the base game changes.

Changelog

0.18.0

• Added 20 new stackable upgrades: Long Barrel, Scatter Shot, High Caliber, Featherweight, Reinforced, Marksman, Trigger Finger, Extended Mag, Low Gravity, Meteor, Rubber Rounds, Armor Plating, Berserker, Executioner, Compact Rounds, Heavy Rounds, Regeneration, Last Stand, Ammo Thief, and Guardian Angel.
• Expanded each player's independent draft pool to 43 upgrades while keeping four deterministic offers per player.
• Added damage reduction, conditional damage, projectile gravity/speed profiles, jump-force changes, knockback resistance, regeneration, lethal-hit protection, and elimination magazine refills.
• Increased the upgrade storage capacity and ensured new weapon modifiers are restored when the host restarts the match.

0.17.6

• Reissued the current release with a unique Thunderstore version number.

0.17.5

• Improved main-menu compatibility across different menu layouts and localized installations.
• Added a standalone HOW TO ROUNDS button when the vanilla Create Game button cannot be found or cloned.
• A single incompatible gameplay patch no longer prevents the menu and diagnostic logging from loading.
• Added installation troubleshooting instructions for r2modman users.

0.17.4

• Replaced the old HTR package icon with the new square How To Rounds duel artwork.
• The new listing image includes both fish characters, contrasting projectiles, and the How To Rounds title.

0.17.3

• Changed the remaining Spanish mode button to HOW TO ROUNDS.
• Improved the English card names and descriptions for Explosive Bullets, More Health, and Poison Bullet.
• Rewrote the package page in English with complete rules, upgrade details, stacking behavior, multiplayer requirements, and the community Discord link.
• Added new promotional cover art for the mod page.

0.17.2

• Added the newly exported Arena05 to the synchronized random arena pool.
• The distributed map pool now contains Arena03, Arena04, and Arena05 only.

0.17.1

• Removed Arena01 and Arena02 from the distributed and selectable arena pool; Arena03 is now the fallback map.
• Kept automatic discovery enabled for Arena03, Arena04, and future numbered arena exports.
• Remote projectiles now render from the firing player's actual pistol muzzle before smoothly catching up to their authoritative network position.
• Projectile collision, damage, trajectory, and ownership remain authoritative and unchanged by the visual synchronization.

0.17.0

• Removed the temporary 400 base-damage override; pistol projectiles use their normal vanilla base damage again.
• Removed the vanilla projectile mesh reveal delay in How to ROUNDS so bullets visibly emerge from the muzzle instead of appearing farther ahead.
• Kept projectile physics, crosshair alignment, spread, damage scaling, and multiplayer trajectory unchanged.

0.16.9

• Added Quick Reload: +35% reload speed per stack.
• Added Heavy Hitter: +30% projectile damage and +40% weapon spread per stack.
• Added Tight Spread: -50% weapon spread per stack.
• Added Double Shot: +1 projectile and +1 ammo consumed per shot; insufficient ammo now triggers reload instead of granting a free projectile.
• Added Bullet Storm: +12 magazine capacity, rapid full-auto fire, and -30% projectile damage per stack.
• Expanded synchronized per-player upgrade storage and the random four-card draft pool to 23 cards.
• The temporary 400 base-damage test remains enabled for this test build.

0.16.8

• Hip-fired pistol projectiles now launch through the center crosshair, matching aimed fire.
• Damage size thresholds changed to 50=2.5x, 100=5x, 200=12x, 400=25x, and 800=60x.
• Giant projectiles now apply progressively stronger knockback, with Impulse stacking on top.
• The temporary 400 base-damage test remains enabled for this test build.

0.16.7

• Temporary projectile-scaling test build: base pistol projectile damage is forced to 400, producing 16x visual size and hit radius.

0.16.6

• Projectile visual size and collision radius now double at every damage doubling from the 25-damage baseline.
• Grow now recalculates the complete projectile size after every damage-growth tick while retaining its +25% size per second.
• Big Bullets, Grow, and damage-based scaling now combine through one synchronized visual and hit-radius multiplier.

0.16.5

• Restored a centered crosshair while preserving the vanilla first-person camera.
• The crosshair automatically hides during card selection, elimination, and menus.

0.16.4

• Fixed Miniature preventing jumping by no longer scaling the entire player root.
• Miniature now scales the character model and physical colliders independently, keeping ground detection aligned.
• First-person camera height and overhead health-bar height now follow each Miniature stack.

0.16.3

• Removed the experimental third-person camera system completely.
• Restored vanilla first-person camera, aiming, hand rendering, and projectile direction.
• Removed local-avatar preservation and all camera-render pipeline hooks.

0.16.2

• Fixed third-person camera application under URP by moving the active GameInfo.CurCamera during beginCameraRendering.
• Redirected local hand/tool positioning to the preserved third-person camera proxy.
• Explicitly hidden both sets of first-person hand renderers while the mode is active.

0.16.1

• Preserved the local player's third-person avatar, which vanilla normally destroys during local-player initialization.
• Applied the camera position during the final pre-render callback so later vanilla updates cannot restore first person.
• Disabled the first-person hand meshes while keeping the full character visible.

0.16.0

• Fixed third-person mode by applying the camera offset after the vanilla camera controller.
• Added a centered aiming reticle and corrected local projectile trajectories toward its world-space target.
• Hidden first-person camera view-model renderers while third-person mode is active.
• Disabled passive food-based health regeneration in How to ROUNDS without affecting card-based healing.

0.15.2

• Added the newly exported Arena04 to the automatic random map pool.
• The package now contains the preserved Arena02 plus the authentic Arena03 and Arena04 exports.

0.15.1

• Replaced the provisional Arena03 bundle with the correctly named Arena03 export.
• Preserved the previous Arena02 bundle and included both distinct maps in the automatic arena pool.
• Fixed the Unity exporter compilation ambiguity between System.Math and ProBuilder's Math type.

0.15.0

• Added a generic Build Current Arena for Windows editor command driven by scene names such as Arena03 and Arena04.
• Added Create Next Arena From Current Scene, which automatically chooses the next unused number, renames the map root, and saves a separate scene.
• Existing arena exports now require confirmation before replacement.
• The mod now discovers every valid howtorounds_arenaNN bundle automatically and synchronizes random map selection each round.
• Restored the previous Arena02 and added the newly exported map as Arena03, producing a two-map pool.

0.14.0

• Changed active How to ROUNDS combat to an over-the-shoulder third-person camera.
• Added camera collision so nearby walls pull the camera toward the player instead of blocking the view.
• Explosive Bullet now applies radial knockback to every affected player, including the shooter.
• Explosion knockback is strongest near the center and increases with every Explosive Bullet stack.

0.13.3

• Removed Arena01 from the mod and made Arena02 the only combat arena.
• Reduced the vanilla Explosive Bullet visual by 70%, to 30% of its original scale.
• Expanded Explosive Bullet's full-damage area to a 2.5-unit radius, including self-damage for the shooter.

0.13.2

• Increased the How to ROUNDS pistol projectile speed from 60 to 100 units per second.
• Explosive Bullet now uses a compact 1-unit damage radius and a 45% scale vanilla explosion effect.
• Explosive Bullet area damage now affects every player inside its radius, including the shooter.
• Projectiles now receive a deterministic 60 units/s² downward acceleration so upward shots reliably fall back down.

0.13.1

• Fixed the PlayerVitals.LocalHit Harmony signature that prevented version 0.13.0 from loading.

0.13.0

• Added synchronized multi-map support for Arena01 and Arena02.
• The first arena is random and every following round changes to another installed arena.
• Arena changes are published as part of the synchronized round identifier so every player loads the same map before drafting.
• Added a dedicated Arena02 exporter that preserves Arena01 and its generated meshes.

0.12.1

• Replaced Arena01 with the new custom forest village map.
• The new map includes sculpted terrain, painted paths, houses, trees, rocks, cover, and four player spawns.

0.12.0

• Added Miniature: -20% player size, +20% movement speed, and -20 maximum health per stack.
• Added Impulse: ranged hits gain 3 additional knockback per stack.
• Added More Heal: +50 maximum health per stack.
• All three upgrades are included in each player's independent four-card random draft.
• Health bars and full-health round resets now use the new modified maximum health.

0.11.0

• Added Homing: bullets seek the closest living opponent within 18 metres.
• Every Homing stack adds 35 degrees per second of steering and 8 metres of acquisition range.
• Added Grow: bullets start 20% slower per stack.
• Every second in flight, Grow adds 20% damage and 25% visual and collision size per stack.
• Grow combines dynamically with Big Bullets, Quick Shot, poison, gravity, and ricochets.

0.10.0

• Added synchronized win counters and a race-to-10 match objective.
• At 10 wins, combat pauses for a vanilla-styled host decision screen.
• Continue resets the scores for another race to 10 while preserving every upgrade.
• Restart resets both scores and upgrades for every player before another race to 10.
• Matches can be continued or restarted indefinitely without closing the Steam room.

0.9.0

• Added Tank: +50 maximum health and -20% movement speed per stack.
• Added Lifesteal: heals 30% of actual damage dealt per stack.
• Added Healing Reload: heals 20 health whenever a reload completes per stack.
• Added purple Poison Bullets: deals 30% of bullet damage per second for 3 seconds per stack.
• Projectiles now have a visible ballistic drop instead of always travelling perfectly straight.
• Bullet visuals and hit radius now grow with final bullet damage.

0.8.0

• Added Big Bullets: +50% projectile size and hit radius, +25% damage, and -20% projectile speed per stack.
• Added Quick Shot: +35% fire rate and -15% bullet damage per stack.
• Added Glass Cannon: +40% movement speed and -50% maximum health per stack.
• Health bars now display each player's Glass Cannon-adjusted maximum health.

0.7.5

• Replaced the vanilla bottom-left vitals display in How to ROUNDS with a compact numbered health bar.
• Added synchronized numbered health bars above every other player.
• Health fill now shrinks smoothly and changes from green to red as health is lost.

0.7.4

• Added a compact vanilla-style ammo HUD in the bottom-right corner.
• The HUD shows the pistol's current and maximum ammo.
• Added a smooth native-animation-driven reload progress bar and percentage.

0.7.3

• Reduced the How to ROUNDS pistol projectile speed from the vanilla 350 to 60 units per second so shots are visible and dodgeable.
• More More continues to add 10% projectile speed per stack on top of the new ROUNDS base speed.

0.7.2

• Bullet Explosive now uses the game's native dynamite explosion particles, audio, and screen shake.
• Reduces Bullet Explosive's damage radius by 50%, from 4 units to 2 units.

0.7.1

• Keys every upgrade stack to the player's SteamID instead of FishNet connection order.
• Fixes players 2, 3, and 4 receiving another player's upgrades in larger lobbies.

0.7.0

• Adds Ricochet, with one additional surface bounce per stack.
• Adds Bullet Explosive, dealing 50% weapon damage as splash damage per stack.
• Uses a 3-round base Pistol magazine; More More remains the way to expand it.
• Each player now receives their own random four-card draft from the complete upgrade pool.
• Adds a free-flying third-person spectator camera for eliminated players.
• Refills the Pistol when a new combat round begins.

0.6.1

• Card clicks are now read directly by the draft HUD, so pressing Escape is no longer required.

0.6.0

• Keeps the mouse visible and unlocked while upgrade cards are on screen.
• Disables hunger and restores full health at the start of every combat round.
• Adds last-player-alive round victories and synchronized winner announcements.
• Only losing players draft another upgrade before the next round; upgrade effects stack.
• Prevents resurrection and giving up during active rounds.
• Prevents the starting Pistol and Knife from dropping on death and restores players with their loadout.

0.4.0

• Every player now starts Arena01 with the vanilla Pistol equipped and the vanilla Knife in their inventory.
• Starting weapons are granted through the game's networked item system and cost no money.

0.3.5

• Marks every solid custom-arena collider with the game's runtime Level layer and tag.
• Custom floors now pass the vanilla grounded check, restoring jumping and safe grounded positions.
• Applies the correction automatically to future exported arenas.

0.3.4

• Fixed fall detection reading the stationary network-holder transform instead of the player's physical Rigidbody.
• Stops false respawns every 1.5 seconds and restores normal jumping and movement.

0.3.3

• Removed the repeated unconditional spawn teleports that caused rubber-banding after entering Arena01.
• Fall recovery now activates only when the player moves below the kill volume's upper plane.
• Retains one delayed distance check to recover from a late native-world teleport without interrupting normal movement.

0.3.2

• Rebuilt Arena01 using ordinary baked Unity meshes and colliders.
• Removed all runtime dependencies on ProBuilder, eliminating missing-script console spam.
• Fixed players falling through the custom arena floor.
• Added an independent height-based respawn fallback.

0.3.1

• Fixed START getting stuck when the host was the only player in the staging lobby.
• Explicitly connects the host's local client after starting the Steam server, allowing its Player object and Arena01 to load.

0.3.0

• Added the first custom Arena01 AssetBundle.
• Loads the arena locally for every lobby member when the host starts the match.
• Assigns players consistently to the four authored spawn markers.
• Added fall detection through the authored HTR_KillVolume.

0.2.1

• Renamed the cloned vanilla menu button to Crear round and locked it against localization overwrites.
• Replaced long Steam-ID codes with searchable five-character room codes such as A6D5S.

0.2.0

• Restyled the menu using the vanilla button, font, colors, and borders.
• Moved How to ROUNDS above Create Game.
• Added a Steam pre-match waiting room with live player slots.
• Added host-only Start and shared Leave controls.
• Prevented the world from loading before the host presses Start.

0.1.0

• Added the How to ROUNDS main-menu entry.
• Added Steam room creation.
• Added short room-code generation and clipboard copy.
• Added joining a Steam room by code.

0.5.1

• Fixed room-code searches failing to discover the host's lobby.
• Room-code lobbies are now explicitly public and searchable worldwide.
• Search retries while Steam propagates new lobby metadata.
• Version mismatches now report both versions instead of appearing as a missing room.

0.5.0

• Added a synchronized, turn-based four-card upgrade draft before combat.
• Added visible remote hover/pick feedback and a 3-second synchronized countdown.
• Added More More, Double Jump, Faster Than Me, and Faster Charge with real gameplay effects.
• Disabled movement, shooting, and melee attacks until the draft finishes.