A Minecraft Deathrun plugin for Paper 1.21.8. Players race in one cardinal direction — every heart lost is permanent, the corridor is enforced by a moving WorldBorder, and the scoreboard tracks live distances for all participants.

All players start inside a glass cage. When the countdown ends, the lime-glass front wall opens and everyone sprints in the configured run direction (e.g. North). Health regeneration is completely disabled — every point of damage is permanent. A per-player WorldBorder follows each runner and deals damage outside the corridor. The player who travels the furthest wins.

• Paper 1.21.8
• Java 21
• Maven 3.6+

mvn clean package

The compiled JAR is placed in target/Deathrun.jar. Copy it to your server's plugins/ folder.

If you don't have Maven installed, you can download it from maven.apache.org or install it via a package manager:

# macOS (Homebrew)
brew install maven

# Windows (Chocolatey)
choco install maven

# Debian / Ubuntu
sudo apt install maven

1. Start the server — only OPs can join (maintenance mode shown in server list)
2. Join as OP, stand at the desired cage location, run /dr buildcage
   • Cage is built, spawn point and measurement start are set automatically
   • All mobs and item drops in the area are removed automatically
3. Optionally adjust direction with /dr setdirection — the indicator wall moves live
4. Run /dr open to allow all players to join
5. Players join and see the lobby scoreboard
6. Run /dr start to begin the countdown
7. After the race, use /dr stop to reset for the next round

Most commands require the deathrun.admin permission (default: OP). /dr goto is available to all players.

plugins/Deathrun/config.yml:

# Language / Sprache
#   de, en, fr, es, ...        – one language for all players
#   auto                       – each player sees their Minecraft client language
language: de

server-name: "DeathRun"        # Scoreboard title
direction: NORTH               # Run direction
corridor-width: 30             # WorldBorder half-width (blocks left/right)
countdown: 10                  # Countdown in seconds before race start

# PvP settings
pvp: false                     # Enable PvP between participants
pvp-delay: 30                  # Seconds after race start before PvP activates (0 = immediately)
pvp-countdown: 5               # Seconds of countdown warning before PvP activates

max-time: 0                    # Time limit in minutes (0 = no limit)
border-damage-per-block: 0.5   # Damage per block outside border per second
border-damage-buffer: 0.0      # Grace distance before border deals damage

# Cage settings
cage:
  radius: 3                    # Base cage radius (actual width = radius × 3)
  built: false                 # Set automatically by the plugin – do not edit

# Set automatically by /dr buildcage:
start:
  world: world
  x: 0.0
  y: 64.0
  z: 0.0
spawn:
  world: world
  x: 0.5
  y: 64.0
  z: 0.5
  yaw: 180.0

• Building: /dr buildcage clears the area (no item/plant drops), removes all mobs and animals in the zone, and builds the cage with a lime-glass wall facing the run direction.
• Direction indicator: The lime-glass wall always faces the run direction. Running /dr setdirection while a cage is standing updates the wall in-place without rebuilding.
• Terrain restoration: /dr removecage restores the original blocks using a pre-build snapshot. If the server was restarted since the cage was built, the fallback applies: walls and ceiling → air, floor top → grass, floor below → dirt.
• Block protection: Cage blocks are indestructible at all times for all players. During pause, no blocks can be broken or placed by participants either.
• Persistence: The cage state is saved to config.yml (cage.built). After a server restart the plugin re-registers all cage positions automatically — /dr start, /dr removecage, and block protection all work immediately without rebuilding.

When pvp: true is set, PvP is not active immediately at race start. The delay system works as follows:

1. At race start: "⚔ PvP activates in 30 seconds!"
2. At pvp-delay - pvp-countdown seconds: per-second countdown broadcast begins
3. At pvp-delay seconds: "⚔ PvP is now active!"

PvP is only ever active during an active, unpaused race. It is automatically disabled before the race, during pause, and after the game ends. The delay timer also pauses when the game is paused and resumes on unpause. Set pvp-delay: 0 to activate PvP immediately at the GO signal.

The day/night and weather cycles are controlled automatically:

The plugin ships with 19 languages. All bundled language files are extracted to plugins/Deathrun/lang/ and overwritten on every server start to keep them up to date. If you want to customise a bundled language, create a new file with a different code (e.g. en_custom.yml) — those are never overwritten.

Modes:

• language: de (or any code) — everyone sees that language, regardless of client settings
• language: auto — each player sees texts in their Minecraft client language; falls back to English if unavailable

Adding a custom language: Place a new xx.yml file (e.g. ar.yml) in plugins/Deathrun/lang/ using the same key structure as en.yml. With language: auto it is picked up automatically on the next server start.

Scoreboard states:

Tab list shows each participant's rank, name, distance, alive/dead icon, and current hearts (color-coded: green > 6 ❤, yellow 3–6 ❤, red < 3 ❤). Dead players show no heart count.

The server list entry changes automatically based on game state (text follows the configured language):

• [Maintenance] — Server locked (setup phase)
• [Countdown] — Countdown running
• [Running] — Race in progress
• [Ended] — Game ended, results available

• Health: Regeneration is fully disabled. All damage is permanent.
• Corridor: A per-player WorldBorder follows each runner and deals configurable damage outside the corridor.
• Score: Blocks traveled in the run direction from the cage's outer wall.
• End condition: Game ends when all players are dead, or the last survivor overtakes the highest dead player's score.
• Disconnects: A disconnected player is marked as absent (not dead) and can reconnect to continue racing.
• Late joiners: Blocked during an active game. Admins can always join.
• After game ends: No damage, no mob targeting. A clickable chat message lets everyone teleport to the winner's position.

/dr pause freezes the game for all participants:

• Movement locked (vertical movement still allowed)
• No damage, no mob targeting
• Day/night and weather cycle frozen
• PvP delay timer frozen
• All inventory interaction, item use, attacking, projectiles, drops, pickups and block placing/breaking blocked
• Visible ⏸ PAUSE action bar for all participants

de.flyingfinger.minecraft.deathrun

MIT