Introduction to Creating Minigames

Introduction to Creating Minigames

Creating a Minigame is fairly simple and all Minigame types follow the same basic setup. Once you get familiar with this tutorial, it will be easy to follow more tutorials and create other Minigames. This tutorial will just tell you the basic use of Minigames, and you can expand to other tutorials from here.

Step 1: Creating the Minigame Arena

Before you start using the Minigames plugin, you'll need to set up your arena. Depending on what you're doing with the Minigame, this can be fairly simple, but in some cases, balancing a Minigame and making it fair for all players is pretty tricky.

Free for all types are usually one of the trickiest Minigames to create. You need to make sure all players have a fair chance at any spawn position. This includes distance to special areas and the distance between other players.

Team games are another tricky one, though symmetry is your friend. Team base layouts should be nearly identical in the form of play. You can customise them and make them look different, but as long as players have an even chance on either team, it usually plays fair.

Step 2: Creating the Minigame

Once you have your Minigame ready, its quite easy to get started. All Minigames follow the same basic setup so its easy to continue another tutorial or make any Minigame.

Firstly, you'll need to create the Minigame. Type:

/minigame create <YourMinigameName>

This will create a SinglePlayer Minigame with the spawn point where you are standing (don't worry, you can change both of these things later). Optionally, you can put the game type at the end of the above command to set the Minigames type directly to what you want.

/minigame create <YourMinigameName> [MinigameType]

Step 3: Setting up Positions

Minigames needs to know where to put players who win, quit or start a Minigame. The easiest way to set these up is using the Minigame Tool, but they can also be done via commands (Setting up start positions this way can get repetitive though). Here are some of the main positions you need:

Quit Position

This position is where a player will be teleported if they quit via command or sign. Players will also be teleported here if they lose in a Multiplayer Minigame or run out of lives (if enabled). If you don't already have the Minigame Tool, simply execute:

/minigame tool

and you will be given a new tool. Set its Minigame by executing this command:

/minigame tool minigame <YourMinigameName>

and now sneak+right click to open the menu. Select the quit position option then close the menu. Now stand where you want the quit position to be and right click.

Alternatively, you can execute this command:

/minigame set <MinigameName> quit

This sets the quit position in the direction you are facing as well. You can only set one of these positions currently.

End Position

This is where players are teleported to when they win a Minigame (and only in that case). If you have your Minigame tool ready from the Quit section, simply sneak+right click again and select the end position option, then stand where you want the end position to be and right click.

Alternatively, stand where you want it to be and use the following command:

/minigame set <MinigameName> end

This also follows the orientation you are standing at. You can only set one of these positions currently.

Start Positions

These positions are where players are teleported when they start a Minigame. For single player, currently only one starting position can be used. For multiplayer, you can set as many as you want and there are special configurations you can set. If you have the Minigame tool, open the tool menu and select the start position option. Also if the spawn point is for a specific team, change the option below the start position option (called Team) and that will toggle between the teams available. Now stand where you want your spawn positions to be and right click. Every time you right click you will set a new spawn position. If the game is Singleplayer, having more than one won't do anything. For any multiplayer game, these will act as respawn points and initial start points.

Alternatively you can type:

/minigame set <MinigameName> start

If you would like to add more starting positions, for example one for each player in a Multiplayer game, type:

/minigame set <MinigameName> start <PlayerNumber>

If you want to set a red or blue team specific spawn point, type:

/minigame set <MinigameName> start <red OR r OR blue OR b> <PlayerNumber>

If Team start positions are set, regular start positions are ignored (only in Team Deathmatch).

Lobby Position

This is only required for a Multiplayer Minigame. This position should just be a small room where players wait to start. To set these, open the Minigame Tool menu and select lobby position, then right click where you want it to be.

Alternatively, type:

/minigame set <MinigameName> lobby

Only one lobby can be set at the present time.

Step 4: Setting up Signs

Minigames is sign based since its a lot easier for players to interact with signs instead of issuing commands. Some of the main signs you'll need to use are:

• Join
• Bet
• Quit
• End
• Team
• Checkpoint

All Minigame signs follow a very basic layout:

[Minigame]
<Sign Function>
[Parameter]
[Parameter]

For example, a join sign would be laid out like so:

[Minigame]
Join
MyMinigame

The fourth line is left empty as it is not needed. Optionally you can just type [mgm] on the first line and it will automatically change to [Minigame].

For full details on sign usage, visit the Minigame Signs page.

Step 5: Configuration

Now that the basics are done, all thats left to do is customise it to the way you like. The easiest way to see what settings you have available is via the Minigame edit menu (/minigame edit <YourMinigameName>), there are lots of settings to change in there. Alternatively, if you wish to use commands and you're not sure what you can set in the current Minigame type you have, you can simply type:

/minigame edit <MingiameName>

This brings up the edit menu and shows all settings that can be applied for the game. Alternatively you can use the set command:

/minigame set

And it will show you a list of all the possible set commands. If you want more information on one of these set commands, you can type the command without any parameters and it will show you information on this command. For example:

/minigame set <MinigameName> lives

Will tell you how the lives parameter works along with what arguments it requires.

Conclusion

As said at the start, all Minigames follow the same basic setup. Once you learn to use this, the rest comes easily. There are so many options in Minigames and more are being added all the time. Doing the last few commands is the easiest way to find out how new functions work.