What is Slippi? The Smash Melee mod that has enraged Nintendo

The Melee community has had setbacks throughout the year due to COVID-19 impacting regular tournaments and just like the rest of the fighting game community, they've had to adapt to this new normality.

Enter Slippi, a third-party tool developed by a team of Melee enthusiasts aimed at smoothing the online experience of netplay, a home-brewed mod that enabled playing using an internet connection in the first place.

But what exactly is Slippi? Well, if you're unfamiliar with the mod and only recently discovered after Nintendo issued a cease and desist to The Big House tournament organisers for using this tool, here's a quick rundown.

What is Slippi?

(Photo: Slippi)

Taking it from the developers themselves, Project Slippi's goal is to is "to bring Melee into the future and invigorate the sport surrounding the game."

The way to do this is by optimising functionalities that allow the game to thrive in modern times. This means, developing and implementing rollback netcode, a system that better handles fluctuating connections while playing online. 

Basically, when a player with an unstable connection makes an input, rollback netcode will try to predict which button the person's using, if the prediction is not correct the game will rollback a few frames to match it. Delay based netcode would stop the game in this case, causing lag. 

• Read more: Nintendo had "no choice but to step in" after The Big House Melee tournament revealed to use Slippi

The creators have made sure to give everyone interested in using Slippi to play Melee online all the tools and information you need before you even start thinking of wavedashes and shine cancels. So head to their page for the specifics on installations you require, as well as all the necessary equipment to take full advantage of their mod.

For more on Smash Melee, check out Ludwig's $10K tournament announcement.