Chat Games v2.5

v2.5 fixes the configurable top-separator in /chatgames top, which was being read from the wrong config key and never showed up. No settings change.

Fixed /chatgames top Separator Now Appears
The configurable top-separator (set under messages.top-separator in the language file) was being read from the wrong config key, so whatever you put there (e.g. a custom line or meow) never showed up between the leaderboard sections. It now displays correctly.

Fixed /chatgames top No Longer Shows a Stray Dash
The decorative separator line at the top of the /chatgames top leaderboard rendered as a stray long dash before TOP PLAYERS (the same issue as the game result messages). The top line is now removed while the footer line is kept, so the leaderboard starts clean.

Good News Nothing Is Removed
v2.5 changes no settings. Your existing config.yml and language files keep working exactly as before.

1. Replace ChatGames.jar with the new version.
2. No manual config or language changes are required.
3. Restart the server (or run /chatgames reload).

v2.4 fixes two cosmetic issues: the decorative header/footer lines in game messages no longer spill onto a new line, and the startup banner no longer prints placeholder warnings into the console. No settings change - your existing config and language files keep working exactly as before.

Fixed Stray Separator Line Removed from Game Results
The horizontal rule lines (the ──── separators) above and below game result messages were built from a strikethrough run of spaces, which Minecraft renders far wider than expected - so the line overflowed and its leftover ─ characters landed on the next text line, looking like a stray long dash. These separators are now removed from the top of game result messages (the footer line is kept), so the message stays clean and the text lines up correctly.

Fixed Crafting Game Item Duplication
In the crafting game a player could hold Q on a material slot and throw the item out of the crafting GUI, keeping it for free (duplication). All actions that move an item out of the crafting grid or drop it (Q / shift+Q / hotbar / clone) are now blocked, and items on the cursor are cleared when the GUI closes.

Fixed Startup Banner No Longer Leaks Log Warnings
The ASCII logo on server startup contained {} characters that the console logger interpreted as argument placeholders, printing found N argument placeholders, but provided M warnings and stray {} inside the artwork. The banner is now logged without placeholders, so the logo prints cleanly.

Good News Nothing Is Removed
v2.4 builds on v2.3 and changes no settings. Your existing config.yml and language files keep working exactly as before.

1. Replace ChatGames.jar with the new version.
2. No manual config or language changes are required.
3. Restart the server (or run /chatgames reload).

v2.3 adds a debug mode so you can see exactly what the plugin is doing, and fixes a few commands that silently did nothing. Nothing is removed - your config and language files keep working exactly as before.

Added Debug Mode
Turn on debug: true in config.yml (or run /chatgames debug) to get extra [DEBUG] lines in the console - command dispatch, database setup and reloads. Use it to figure out why something is not working, then turn it off on a live server.

Added The /chatgames debug Command
Admins can toggle debug on the fly with /chatgames debug (no argument flips it, or use /chatgames debug on|off). The setting is saved to config, and /chatgames status shows whether debug logging is enabled.

Fixed /chatgames top Shows the Leaderboard Again
Typing /chatgames top on its own now shows the leaderboard. Previously it silently did nothing and asked for a player name because the optional argument was treated as required. Typing /chatgames top still shows a player's place.

Fixed /chatgames stats and /chatgames debug on Their Own
/chatgames stats now shows your own stats when no name is given, and /chatgames debug toggles debug when no argument is given.

Fixed Commands No Longer Fail Silently
/chatgames top, /chatgames stats and /chatgames reset now log the real error to the console and tell you something went wrong, instead of doing nothing and showing no message.

Good News Nothing Is Removed
v2.3 builds on v2.2 (MiniMessage support) and changes no settings. Your existing config.yml and language files keep working exactly as before.

1. Replace ChatGames.jar with the new version.
2. No manual config changes are required.
3. Optional: set debug: true in config.yml (or use /chatgames debug) for extra logs.
4. Restart the server (or run /chatgames reload).

v2.2 adds optional MiniMessage support so you can format every plugin message with modern tags like , and instead of the old & codes. The classic legacy format stays as the default, so nothing changes unless you opt in.

Added MiniMessage Chat Format
Set chat.format: "minimessage" in your config.yml to use MiniMessage tags in every message. You can now write text, use named colors like or , and build gradients with . The plugin keeps working with the rest of the server exactly as before.

Added Graceful Fallback If MiniMessage is not available on your server for any reason, ChatGames automatically falls back to the legacy format so messages never break.

Added Center Tag Still Works The

v2.1 fixes the crash some players hit after updating, makes cross-server mode behave correctly, and is a bit kinder to your server on large networks. No settings were removed - everything keeps working exactly as before.

Fixed The "Contact the Developers" Crash
Some players saw /chatgames top and /chatgames reload fail with an error telling them to contact the developers. This happened when a language or config file could not be read. Now the plugin logs the real reason, keeps a backup of the broken file (as .broken), and rebuilds a fresh copy from the bundled defaults so the commands keep working.

Fixed Invalid Material Name in Crafting Recipes
The Observer and Daylight Detector recipes used the old name NETHER_QUARTZ, which no longer exists on Paper 1.21+. They now use QUARTZ. If you already have an older config, change NETHER_QUARTZ to QUARTZ in crafting.crafts to remove the console warnings.

Fixed Slave Servers No Longer Judge Answers
In Redis mode, only the MASTER server now decides who wins and updates the leaderboard. A player on a slave server no longer gets a win recorded only on that server's database or a game that silently ends. The /chatgames status command now shows whether this server judges answers.

Fixed No More Main-Thread Lag from Redis
Redis messages are now sent on a background task instead of on the server's main thread, so a slow Redis connection can't stall your server.

Improved Cleaner Logs
Cross-server messages are no longer dumped in full into the console, keeping the log easier to read on busy networks.

Improved Faster Streak Resets
When streaks are enabled, the plugin used to update every player's streak one by one. It now does this in a single database step, which matters on servers with many online players.

Good News No Settings Are Removed
Your current config and language files keep working exactly as before. The update-checker option is now shown in the shipped config.yml so you can turn it off if you wish.

1. Replace ChatGames.jar with the new version.
2. No manual config changes are required.
3. If the console shows invalid material 'NETHER_QUARTZ', change it to QUARTZ in your config.yml.
4. Restart the server.

v2.0 makes the leaderboard nicer and the games fairer. You can now choose how many players show up on the list, look up any player's place, and clear a player's results. Some games can also appear more often than others, you can see a countdown while a round is running, and get a short heads-up before a game starts.

Added Choose How Many Players Show on the List
You can now decide how many players appear in /chatgames top - 5 by default. Just change one number (top.size) in the config file.

Added Check Any Player's Place
Type /chatgames top to see how many wins a player has, their best time, and where that puts them on the list. It works even when the player is offline.

Added Clear a Player's Stats
Admins can wipe a player's results with /chatgames reset . That player is removed from the leaderboard and starts over from zero.

Added A Timer While a Game Runs
While a round is going, you can show a timer that counts down the remaining time. It can appear at the bottom of the screen or as a bar at the top. Players who turned games off won't see it.

Added Make Some Games Appear More Often
You can now make certain games show up more often than others. Just give a game a higher number (weight, e.g. math.weight: 3). By default every game is treated equally.

Added A Heads-Up Before a Game Starts
You can turn on a short message before a game starts, like "A Math game starts in 5s". It's off by default, and you can change the text and how many seconds of warning to give.

Good News Your Settings Stay as They Are
Your current settings keep working exactly as before. The new options are simply added automatically the first time the plugin loads; nothing you already changed is overwritten.

Note New Text Is Added Automatically
The new texts (for a player's place, reset, countdown and game warning) are added to your language file automatically - even if you use a custom one.

1. Replace ChatGames.jar with the new version.
2. No manual config or language file changes needed - new keys are merged in automatically.
3. Restart the server.

This update keeps polishing the experience. Players get a personal stats command and admins get a skip command, the leaderboard units are now fully translatable, and every new behavior can be tuned or disabled from config.yml. On top of that we fixed several edge cases: wins and streaks can no longer be lost, an invalid sound name can't crash a game, the crafting game no longer asks players to "type" an answer, and multi-word puzzles now display their spaces properly.

Added /chatgames stats Command
Anyone can run /chatgames stats to see their own wins, fastest time, current streak and best streak. You can also check another player with /chatgames stats . The whole panel is translatable through your language file (the messages.stats-* block).

Added /chatgames skip Command
Admins can instantly skip the current game with /chatgames skip. It shares the chatgames.stop permission, so it's great for retrying a bad round or moving straight to the next one.

Added Optional Starting Chat Prefix
The hard-coded leading "!" that used to be stripped from chat messages is now optional. Set chat.ignore-prefix to add your own prefix character, or leave it empty (the default) to disable stripping entirely - which also makes sure the copy-challenge game stays solvable when its random string happens to start with "!".

Added Private Range Hints
Set range.hints-private: true to send the "Higher / Lower" feedback only to the player who guessed, instead of broadcasting it to everyone. Less chat spam and no accidental hints for the whole server.

Added Sounds Respect the Toggle
Players who opted out with /chatgames toggle no longer hear the start and win sounds. Toggle this off with sounds.respect-toggle: false if you prefer everyone to hear them.

Added Config Check on Startup
The plugin now validates your config.yml when it loads, not just on /chatgames reload. If a sound name, crafting material or number range is wrong, you'll see a clear warning in the console before it causes trouble in a live game.

Fixed Leaderboard Units Are Now Translatable
The "wins" and "s" labels in /chatgames top were hard-coded in English. They now come from messages.top-wins-unit and messages.top-time-unit in your language file, so the leaderboard is truly fully translatable.

Fixed Wins & Streaks Could Be Silently Lost
If a player wasn't in the database yet, a win or streak update could do nothing and quietly vanish. All win, streak and fastest-time writes now upsert, so a player is created on the fly and nothing is lost - whether they answer in chat or craft in the GUI.

Fixed Invalid Sound Name Could Crash a Game
An invalid sound in sounds.start.sound or sounds.win.sound used to throw an error and interrupt the game start. It now logs a warning and safely skips the sound instead.

Fixed Crafting Game Showed a Misleading Prompt
The "▸ Type your answer in chat!" reminder was also shown for the crafting game, where you answer by placing items in a grid. It is now hidden for crafting by default - enable it with type-answer.show-crafting: true if you want it back.

Fixed Fill-Out & Hangman Spaces Were Hidden
Multi-word answers could lose their spaces (e.g. "Ender Chest" looked like one long word). Spaces are now always kept visible in the fill-out board, and hangman words with spaces are handled correctly too.

Fixed Word Guess Could Show the Same Word
Rarely, the scrambled word came out identical to the original, making the round trivially easy or confusing. The scrambler now re-shuffles until the result is different from the answer.

Good News Your Config Is Kept
Your existing config.yml keeps working exactly as it is. The small number of new options (chat.ignore-prefix, type-answer.show-crafting, sounds.respect-toggle and range.hints-private) are added automatically on first load, and your current values are never overwritten.

Note New Language Messages
The new messages (messages.top-wins-unit, messages.top-time-unit, messages.skipped and the messages.stats-* block) are merged into your language file automatically when the plugin loads - even for custom language files.

1. Replace ChatGames.jar with the new version.
2. No manual config or language file changes needed - new keys are merged in automatically.
3. Restart the server.

This update is all about making the plugin friendlier and more comfortable to use. Hangman is easier to win, the number game tells you if you are close, win messages can show the actual reward, players have an anti-spam delay, and there is a help command. On top of that,

This is a polish release focused on fixing the

This update adds the {streak} placeholder to win messages, so you can show how many games a player has won in a row right in the chat announcement. It now works exactly like the other win message placeholders - on a single server and across your whole network.

Added {streak} Placeholder in Win Messages
You can now use {streak} in the win message of every game type (math, who-am-i, word-stop, word-guesser, reverse, fill-out, random-characters, crafting, hangman, range). It shows the winner's current win streak, including the win that was just announced.

Added Works Across Your Whole Network
The {streak} placeholder also works on slave servers in Redis cross-server mode, so the win message looks the same on every server in your network.

Fixed {streak} No Longer Shows as Plain Text
Previously, adding {streak} to a win message displayed it literally in chat. It is now replaced with the correct streak number.

Good News Your Config Stays the Same
Your config.yml and language files work as-is - no reset or migration needed.

Improved More Customizable Win Messages
Every win message can now include {streak}, giving you more freedom when designing your announcements.

1. Replace ChatGames.jar with the new version.
2. No config changes needed - everything works with your current settings.
3. Optional: add {streak} to any win message in your language files to show the winner's streak.
4. Restart the server.

This update fixes a problem that prevented ChatGames from starting on the newest Paper and Purpur versions (26.x). If your server updated to a newer version and the plugin stopped loading, this update is for you.

Fixed Plugin Now Loads on the Newest Paper/Purpur Versions
On newer server versions (Paper/Purpur 26.x), the plugin could fail to start because of an outdated command library. The command library has been updated, so ChatGames now starts correctly on the newest versions.

Fixed No More Startup Error
The plugin no longer shows the startup error (ExceptionInInitializerError) when launching on newer server versions.

Improved More Reliable Commands
The underlying command system was updated to a newer version, making command registration more stable and future-proof.

Good News Your Config Stays the Same
Your config.yml and language files work as-is - no reset or migration needed.

Improved Works With the Newest Server Versions
The plugin now loads on Paper/Purpur 26.x, while still fully supporting Paper 1.21 and newer.

1. Replace ChatGames.jar with the new version.
2. No config changes needed - everything works with your current settings.
3. If you had library files in plugins/ChatGames/libs/, you can delete them - the plugin will download the updated files automatically on the next start.
4. Restart the server.

This update makes ChatGames more stable and fixes the most important issues, especially for servers that sync games across multiple servers with Redis. If you run ChatGames on more than one server, we strongly recommend this update.

Fixed Games Now Sync Across Servers Out of the Box
Cross-server mode works with the default config now - you no longer need to change any settings for games to be shared between your servers.

Fixed Wins and Timeouts Now Show on Every Server
When Redis was enabled, the main server did not show win or timeout messages to its own players. Now every server on your network sees every game, win, and timeout.

Fixed Crafting Game Works on All Servers
The crafting challenge no longer fails to start on the other servers in your network.

Fixed Better Performance on Long-Running Servers
Fixed a memory issue that slowly grew over time on servers that use PlaceholderAPI. The plugin now uses less memory the longer your server runs.

Fixed No More Crashes From Missing Settings
If a setting is missing from your config, the plugin no longer crashes - it simply uses a safe default.

Fixed /chatgames status Now Shows Colors Correctly
The status command no longer displays raw color codes as text.

Fixed Cleaner Shutdown
Running games are stopped properly when the plugin is disabled or reloaded, so nothing is left behind.

Fixed More Reliable Update Check
The update check now correctly tells you when a newer version is available.

Removed Broken Usage Reports
Removed a statistics feature that was not working correctly and reported data nowhere.

Good News Your Config Stays the Same
Your config.yml and language files work as-is - no reset or migration needed.

Improved Ready for Future Minecraft Versions
Win notifications (toasts) now use a modern, future-proof system that keeps working on the newest Paper versions.

1. Replace ChatGames.jar with the new version.
2. No config changes needed - everything works with your current settings.
3. If you use Redis cross-server sync: leave "server-id" empty (recommended) or set a different value on every server. Servers with the same server-id will not see each other's games.
4. Restart or reload the plugin.

This update focuses on stability, performance, and cross-version compatibility. Every critical bug discovered has been resolved.

Fixed Streak System Not Working
The streak milestone system was referencing the wrong config API, causing all streak rewards and messages to silently fail. Streak tracking, milestone rewards, and streak-loss announcements now function correctly.

Fixed Reload Command Permission Mismatch
The /chatgames reload command had a permission typo that prevented it from ever working. Permission now correctly matches plugin.yml.

Fixed Main Thread Freeze from PlaceholderAPI
Placeholder requests were blocking the server main thread with synchronous database queries. A caching layer now serves placeholder values without any main thread delay, eliminating TPS drops on servers using scoreboard placeholders.

Fixed Config Not Updating After Reload
Game configuration and language values were cached at startup and never refreshed. Running /chatgames reload now properly reloads all game settings and messages without requiring a server restart.

Fixed Auto-Game Processor Silent Failure
A single unhandled exception in the auto-game scheduler would permanently stop all automated games until the next server restart. The scheduler now recovers from errors automatically.

Fixed Server Startup Delay
Removed a 500ms main thread sleep during Redis initialization that was blocking server startup.

Fixed Sound Configuration Format
Sound values in config.yml were using namespaced key format incompatible with the plugin's sound engine. Defaults corrected to valid Sound enum values.

Fixed Missing Default Configuration Sections
Several game types were missing their default configuration sections, causing errors on fresh installs. All 10 game types now have complete default configs: math, who-am-i, word-stop, word-guesser, reverse, fill-out, random-characters, crafting, hangman, and range.

Added Paper 1.26 Support
The plugin now runs on Paper 1.21 through 1.26.x. API compatibility issues with newer Paper versions have been resolved while maintaining full backward compatibility.

1. Replace ChatGames.jar with the new version.
2. Delete your existing config.yml to generate the updated default with all new sections.
3. Restart or reload the plugin.

If you customized your config, compare it with the new default - several new sections have been added for crafting, hangman, range, streaks, sounds, toast notifications, and PlaceholderAPI formatting.

FV