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A match is one round of one game. Gamesmith runs it from join to reset on its own. A match always plays a copy of the game, so editing a game never changes a match in progress.

Joining

Players have three ways in:
  • /gs opens the game menu. Every ready game shows its icon, win rule, player count, state and the player’s own wins. Click to join. If you are already in a game, the menu has a Leave your game button.
  • /gs join <game> joins directly.
  • /gs list shows every game. Click a name to join.
On joining, Gamesmith saves the player’s inventory, XP, health, effects and location. The player is healed, their inventory is cleared, and they wait in the lobby in adventure mode. A player cannot join when:

Lobby and countdown

  1. The boss bar shows waiting for players with the count against the game’s minimum.
  2. When the minimum is reached, the countdown starts from the game’s countdown setting. Chat announces it, and the last five seconds show as big titles with a sound.
  3. When the game is full, the countdown drops to 5 seconds.
  4. If players leave and the count falls below the minimum, the countdown stops: Not enough players. Waiting for more.
Admins can skip the wait with /gs start <id>. It starts the waiting match even below the minimum. The editor’s Test button does the same for you alone.

Playing

When the match starts:
  • Teams are filled evenly and each player is told their team.
  • Players switch to survival mode, go to their spawns and get the kit.
  • A sidebar scoreboard shows each player’s score, or each team’s total in a team game.
  • The boss bar shows the game, the current phase and the time left in it.
During the match:
  • Each phase’s rules and permissions apply: PvP, fall damage, hunger, placing, breaking and drops.
  • Players cannot use other commands. /gs always works, and match.allowed-commands lists the others that do (msg, tell, r and w by default). gamesmith.bypass skips the block.
  • Players stay inside the arena region.
  • When a phase’s time runs out, the next phase starts. After the last one, the game ends.

Deaths and eliminations

Players never really die in a match. There are no drops and no respawn screen. Instead, the phase’s Player dies rules run. A phase with no death rule eliminates the player. Eliminated players lose their match inventory and watch from the lobby in spectator mode. They still see the match’s chat messages, titles and sounds. They can leave with /gs leave at any time.

The end

The match ends when the win rule is met, when an End the game action runs, or when the last phase runs out.
  • Winners see Victory! and everyone else sees Game over, with the winner’s name.
  • Wins and games played are recorded for every player still in the match.
  • After match.end-delay-seconds (5 by default), every player is put back exactly as they were before joining: inventory, XP, health, effects and location.
  • Then rewards are handed out, into the player’s own inventory. Items that do not fit drop at the player’s feet.
  • The arena is reset.
If every player is eliminated, nobody wins.

Leaving early

  • /gs leave puts the player back right away.
  • Disconnecting does the same, in the same tick.
  • If End when too few stay is on (the default) and fewer than the minimum remain, the match ends. In a contest, the win rule picks the winner from the players still in. A co-op game just stops with no winner. A match started with /gs start or Test keeps going instead.
  • /gs stop <id> ends every match of the game with no winner. Players and the arena come back.

Crash safety

Gamesmith writes each player’s saved state to disk when they join, and saves the arena’s block changes while the match runs.
  • If the server stops mid-match, players get everything back the next time they join: The server stopped during your game. Your things are back.
  • The arena is restored on the next start. If the arena’s world loads late (for example through Multiverse-Core), Gamesmith waits for it.
  • If Gamesmith cannot save a player’s state when they join, it takes them straight back out: Could not save your things, so you can't join right now.
On a normal shutdown, every match stops and everything is put back at once.

Stats and leaderboards

Every finished match adds to each player’s wins and games played, per game, in plugins/Gamesmith/data/stats.yml. Both editions record them, and the /gs menu shows each player their wins. PRO adds /gs top [game] (the top ten by wins) and PlaceholderAPI placeholders.