In the past I've rewritten this game in both GameMaker Studio and Godot, and both versions were pretty buggy and I ran out of time/energy/motivation.
Recently I went back to the original XNA/FNA source and have beeing expanding on that. So for now, I've put up a new beta branch called "hipsonline". I'd like to invite you to give it a try.
The goal is to support online play for up to 8 players, and keyboard/mouse support for one player. I'm working on getting 8 local players working as well.
If you try 8 local players and it doesn't recognize more than four controllers, it's probably because Steam is re-allocating your devices into virtual Xinput devices, which have a limit of four. I'm actively working on this, so reporting any successes or failures would be helpful!
Caveats are that it only supports one player per computer for online play (can't mix couch-coop and online play... must pick one or the other). This is for the Windows version of the game only. Steamdeck might possibly serve the original (Linux) version.
It's still a little rough but if you are reading this and could give it a quick test with some friends, that would be cool.
Frankly, I'm not sure this is a good idea. Part of the magic of this game is that it's played in the same room, shoulder-to-shoulder with your friends and family. Will making it an online game degrade the experience? It's certainly possible. So I'd really like to get your honest, genuine feedback, not only technical but philosophical.
This is really just a test, so please keep your expectations low! This beta is in active development, so there may be bugs/changes/updates. Nothing is set in stone.