Hot Potato Game

Hot Potato

Hot Potato is a hidden, long duration minigame designed to run on top of a normal SMP without disrupting daily gameplay.

An admin can quietly place a custom baked potato in the world using /hotpotato give. On its own, the potato does nothing. Once an admin runs /hotpotato arm, the next player who picks it up starts the round.

From that moment, the timer begins.

How It Works

The current holder:

• Cannot move the potato in their hotbar
• Cannot drop it
• Cannot place it in containers
• Cannot put it in item frames
• Cannot eat it
• Can punch other engaged players to pass it

When the holder punches another engaged player, the potato transfers instantly. The new holder now carries the risk.

If the round timer reaches its limit, the potato explodes. The holder dies and their inventory is cleared. They are then disengaged from the round and added to the loser list, unless infinite engagement is enabled in config.

Burn Mechanic

To prevent hiding or logging off with the potato, a hold limit exists.

If a player holds the potato longer than the configured holdLimit, they begin to burn until they pass it or the round ends in an explosion.

Designed for SMP Servers

This plugin was originally made for FishSMP. The idea was simple. Admins secretly plant the potato. Players discover it naturally. No announcements. No warning. The panic spreads on its own.

The game runs over long durations such as 24 hours, which makes it perfect for survival servers instead of short lobby minigames.

There is now a discord webhook feature, that allows you to follow the game state through discord.

Configuration

All timers use Unix timestamps in milliseconds.

• holdLimit Maximum time a player can hold the potato before burning
• graceTime Cooldown after being tagged. During this time, a player cannot be tagged again
• roundDuration Maximum total round length before automatic explosion
• webhook
  • enabled Enabled/disables the webhook feature
  • url The discord webhook url goes here
  • username The username displayed with the webhook messages sent
  • avatar_url The profile picture shown with the webhook messages sent

Game state is stored separately and should not be manually edited except for the loser list if you want to exclude specific players.

Commands

• /hotpotato give Gives the custom potato item
• /hotpotato arm and /hotpotato unarm Arms or disarms the planted potato
• /hotpotato engage Forces a player into participation
• /hotpotato disengage Removes a player from participation
• /hotpotato stats Shows armed state, round state, timers, and losers
• /hotpotato reset Resets the current round but keeps engagement data

LuckPerms is supported for permission control.

If you have ideas, balance suggestions, or feature requests, open an issue on GitHub.