[Extension] arcade-second-screen

[ChimbroDaPro]

This is HUGGGGEEEEEEEEEE!!! OH MY GOD!!! Literally, unironically, in my honest opinion, this is the best fix in the history of makecode, imo. Absolutely MASSIVE, the type of STUFF I woulda made with this…

[WoofWoof]

no

@richard

Note: There is no way to have more than 2 screens or to allocate the screens differently (e.g. players 1+2 on one screen and players 3+4 on the other). There will always be one screen for player 1 and one for all of the other players. This is due to how MakeCode Arcade’s online multiplayer is implemented and there is no way to workaround it.

[NeverStopTheCoder]

to be fair we thought that this was not possible so you never know maybe just give it a few years

[NeverStopTheCoder]

wait if its only host and non host what about the way i saw that chess on the minecraft video where you have 1 server and 2 clients where you move say right sends to the server the server sends both updated screens or like x and y of each player so you might be able to have more than 2 right?

@richard

one screen for player 1 and one for all of the other players

but also what about the split screen extension way?

[AlexK]

@NeverStopTheCoder

the server the server sends both updated screens or like x and y of each player

That’s not how multiplayer works in MakeCode Arcade.

@NeverStopTheCoder

but also what about the split screen extension way?

You really should watch Friday’s livestream (22 May 2026). Richard made a game that used it.

[WoofWoof]

There is no “server” in Makecode Arcade. One person (the host) is the server and every frame they can send an image to a small Microsoft server that simply holds that image. The “clients” are the other 3 connected players, which all download that same image all at the same time. Because the 3 clients are just empty Makecode projects, we cannot edit their code to, say, pretend that that image is just data and run a game based off that data. Their only job is to download that one image and display that image, and then send back any button presses that happen to the server. Because of this, there is no way to send the image to only one client, or send different data to different clients. All 3 clients are functionally exactly the same and cannot display different images.

[GoObErsandwichdude64]

oooooo fancy pantsy

[BuiltLord]

Maybe you could allow compatibility with the split-screen extension so that the server sees their own screen, but the clients see all of their screens in split-screen mode. Just, the clients and server cannot see each other’s screens.

[richard]

@BuiltLord that already works! now that split-screen is a sprite, you can just mark the split screen to only render for clients:

[YamJam]

@richard do you know if second screen works with the lanterns extension? I was making a game with it and wanted only the servers light sources to show up on their screen and the clients light sources to show up on only their screen.

[VoxelMaster64]

I think the whole purpose of arcade-second-screen is to do things like that