Find The Needle multiplayer and co-op: the unofficial mod

The official game is single-player. The Steam listing for app 5160800 declares only Single-player and Family Sharing, so there is no official co-op and no official multiplayer. What players mean by "Find The Needle co-op" is an unofficial open-source mod that adds co-op to the free demo — the most-used version is the one by AleDev11, with a community fork by xRangerDE. Both are unaffiliated with the developer.

The mod most players use

The AleDev11 "Find The Needle co-op mod" adds co-op to the demo over Steam's relay network, so there is no port forwarding and no IP addresses to exchange. The host invites from the Steam friends list.

Requirements, all four of them:

• The Find The Needle demo (free on Steam), build V26 or newer
• Windows 64-bit
• The same mod version on every machine
• The game has to be launched from Steam, or the invites will not work

Install, step by step:

1. Download the zip from the project's Releases and unzip it.

2. Copy the mods folder next to FindTheNeedle.exe. In Steam: right-click the game, Manage, Browse local files.

3. Open override.cfg in that same folder with any text editor and add:

   [autoload]
   MPMod="*mods/multiplayer/mp.gd"
   

   If the file already has an [autoload] section, only the second line is needed.

4. Launch from Steam. A MULTIPLAYER entry appears in the main menu.

There is also a tools/install-helper.bat in each release that performs step 3 for you, and tools/uninstall-helper.bat to undo it.

The one step people forget: game updates replace override.cfg, so add the two lines again after every game update. If the MULTIPLAYER entry has vanished from the main menu, that is why.

In a session:

Host flow: MULTIPLAYER, CREATE GAME, INVITE FRIENDS, then start or load a save as usual. Everyone else joins by accepting the Steam invite; if their game is closed, Steam starts it and takes them in. There is a direct-IP mode under "IP connection (advanced)" as a fallback.

The community fork, up to eight players

The fork maintained by xRangerDE raises the session size to eight players in total — one host and seven guests. Upgrades and the account are shared; carried equipment stays personal. Its current release is 0.19.6-xRangerDE.79, and its own validation notes say the current checks use Demo V66, Steam build 25963876.

Its install is the same shape as the upstream mod: copy the mods folder beside FindTheNeedle.exe, make sure MPMod="*mods/multiplayer/mp.gd" is present under [autoload] in override.cfg, and start through Steam. It also adds a guided multiplayer menu (open Multiplayer directly below Load Game), F7 overhead building view, four, six and eight-port mergers and splitters, and rotation controls for free placement.

What the mod does and does not do

It syncs the haystack, buildings, money and debt, hay sold, needles found and the collection, the tech tree, new hay loads, player positions and the tool in hand, loose items, what is riding on the belts, and machine movement, smoke and settings.

Its own limits, straight from the project:

• Machines run on the host only, so the same hay cannot be counted twice. Clients see them move and their settings match, but the work happens on one machine.
• Bought tools are per player. Money is shared.
• Only the host saves. Clients never write to their own save files.
• The online leaderboard is disabled while the mod is loaded. The F6 test menu also marks the run so it stops counting.
• Money can dip below zero if two players spend at the same moment.
• Hay loaded on a tool is not drawn for the other players, though what is in bare hands and straw on the ground is.

What is not the same game

Find The Needle Together is a separate product — Steam app 5439110, with its own 16 November 2026 Early Access date. It is not this game and not this mod, so do not treat its store page as the full game's page.

What is still unconfirmed, and when to re-check

The demo build reference is the moving part. The upstream mod needs V26 or newer, and the fork's current checks are against Demo V66 / Steam build 25963876. Both projects were written against a specific demo build, and the demo has already been updated without published notes, so check the mod's release notes against your installed demo version before a session — the demo updates page tracks what the demo has changed, and the demo save page covers backing up first.

Nothing on either project is endorsed by the developer, and neither is published by the developer.