MurderCraft

MurderCraft

A multiplayer Minecraft mod inspired by the Murder game mode designed by Squeezie & Théodore Bonnet (itself inspired by Garry’s Mod Murder). Bluff. Paranoia. A knife in the dark.

Step into a tense party of suspicion: hidden killers stalk the crowd, a lone detective tries to spot them in time, and innocents have one job — stay alive. With only one armed defender, two bullets per pistol, and a single hidden pistol up for grabs mid-round, every match is a tightening spiral of fear, accusations, and split-second decisions.

⚠ Important attribution: The ruleset in this mod follows the variant designed by Squeezie & Théodore Bonnet (2 murderers who don’t know each other directly, hidden pistol mid-game, friendly fire = lose your gun permanently, 4 rounds of 15 minutes, task-based reveal mechanic from round 3, 2 bullets per pistol). It does not reproduce the exact rules of the original Garry’s Mod Murder.

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✦ The Concept

At the start of each round, every player is secretly assigned one of three roles. No one knows who’s who — and that’s exactly the point.

| Role | Count | Weapon | Goal |
|—|—|—|—|
| ☠ Murderer | 2 | Knife (one-shot) | Discreetly eliminate all innocents. The two murderers don’t know each other directly — but they can spot each other via subtle soul-flame particles visible only to them. Murderers cannot pick up a pistol — it’s auto-ejected with full velocity. |
| ⚭ Detective | 1 | Pistol (2 bullets) | Identify the murderers and shoot them. Shooting an innocent makes you permanently lose your gun (dropped on the ground with remaining ammo, only innocents can pick it up). |
| ☺ Innocent | All others | None | Survive. Watch. Whisper warnings to the detective. Find the hidden pistol that drops mid-game to become the new Detective. |

Win conditions

• Innocents & Detective win if both murderers are eliminated, OR if the timer runs out.
• Murderers win if they kill every non-murderer before the timer ends.

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🏆 Session structure (4 rounds)

A complete session is 4 rounds of up to 15 minutes each. The team with the most round wins takes the session.

Between rounds, there’s a 15-second pause for breathing room before roles are reshuffled and the next round begins.

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🗺 Random spawn with immunity

At every round start:

• All participants are teleported to random valid land positions within a configurable radius (default 200 blocks) of the world spawn (/setworldspawn).
• Ocean, river, and deep ocean biomes are excluded — no one spawns in water.
• Players spawn 25 blocks in the air and benefit from 8 seconds of full damage immunity (configurable). Prevents fall damage, lava deaths, and instant-kills during the chaotic round start.
• Minimum distance between players is enforced (scales with player count): 60 blocks for 4 players, 30 blocks for 16, 20 blocks for 32+. Spawns are dispersed, never clumped.
• Action bar shows the immunity countdown: 🛡 Damage immunity: 5s... followed by ⚠ You are no longer invulnerable! when it expires.
• All participants are automatically switched to survival mode for fair play.

Square world border

A configurable square world border is automatically set at session start, centered on the world spawn. Default size: 500 blocks across. Forces the action to happen in a defined zone — no more innocents running 5000 blocks away to hide. The original world border configuration is saved and restored when the session ends.

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🎯 Tasks (from round 3)

Starting at round 3, one task appears per round:

• Exploration — A glowing chest with a Mystery Token spawns nearby. First to grab the token wins.
• Crafting — A random recipe (torch, ladder, bread, paper, etc.) is announced. First to craft it wins.

The task winner receives a 30-second window to use /murder task reveal <player> and privately learn that player’s role. Whether to share the info in voice chat is entirely up to the player — the mod just shows the role.

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🔫 Weapon system

Pistol (Detective only)

• 2 bullets per pistol (Squeezie ruleset). Once spent, the pistol becomes a useless click.
• Ammo persists across drops and pickups: a pistol that fired one bullet keeps 1 bullet remaining when picked up by anyone else.
• Visible ammo count in tooltip (green when loaded, red when empty) and action bar after each shot.
• Dry-click sound when trying to fire an empty pistol.
• Layered gunshot sound with muzzle flash particles (smoke + flame).
• Range up to 64 blocks, 1-second cooldown between shots.

Hidden pistol

• Spawns at a random nearby location 60 seconds (configurable) into each round.
• Always glowing yellow so it stays visible until picked up (never despawns).
• Only innocents can pick it up — if a murderer walks on it, it’s auto-ejected with velocity and a 3-second pickup delay.
• When an innocent picks it up, they’re automatically promoted to Detective with the pistol’s remaining ammo.

Knife (Murderer only)

• One-shot kill on any player.
• Cannot be used by non-murderers (vanilla 1-damage punch instead).
• Combo trident-hit + wool-break sound with blood splatter particles.

Anti-griefing protection

All custom items (knife, pistol, hidden pistol, mystery token) cannot be dropped manually. Pressing Q or dragging out of inventory returns the item instantly with a clear action-bar message. Prevents accidental loss in lava, off cliffs, etc., and stops players from breaking the game by intentionally discarding their role items.

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✨ Visual & audio polish

• Cinematic title overlays on screen for role assignment (“Your role: Murderer”), round start (“Round 2/4”), end-of-round banners with cumulative score, and task completion.
• Murderer awareness: subtle soul-flame particles appear above other murderers, visible only to fellow murderers — coordinate without revealing yourself to others.
• Role-specific briefing sounds: wither ambient for murderers (horror vibe), bell for detective (official), toast for innocents.
• End-of-round sounds: triumphant fanfare for innocent wins, wither death for murderer wins.
• Right-side scoreboard HUD with golden borders showing round, role, and timer — clean and out of the way.
• Layered weapon sounds and particles for satisfying combat feedback.

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⚙ Requirements

| Mod | Required? | Purpose |
|—|—|—|
| Fabric API | Required | Core APIs |
| Cloth Config | Recommended | Config GUI |
| Mod Menu | Recommended | In-game config access |

• Minecraft: 1.21.1
• Loader: Fabric
• Java: 21+
• Must be installed on both server and every client.

Multiplayer only. The mod loads in singleplayer but cannot start a match alone. Minimum 4 players required (default: 5 for better balance, supports up to 32).

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🎮 Commands

| Command | Description | Permission |
|—|—|—|
| /murder join | Join the lobby | Everyone |
| /murder leave | Leave the lobby | Everyone |
| /murder status | Show current game state | Everyone |
| /murder task reveal <player> | Reveal a role (after winning a task) | Everyone |
| /murder start | Start the session | OP |
| /murder stop | Stop the current game | OP |
| /murder config show | Print current config | OP |
| /murder config minPlayers <n> | Change min players | OP |
| /murder config duration <s> | Change round duration | OP |
| /murder kick <player> | Remove a player | OP |

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🔐 Two build variants

| Build | Debug commands | Mob damage | Use case |
|—|—|—|—|
| PUBLIC (this one) | OFF (cannot be re-enabled) | OFF | Real servers, public play |
| DEBUG (GitHub releases only) | ON | ON | Solo testing by the maintainer |

Server admins can trust the public build to behave consistently with no hidden cheat surface — debug flags are forced to false even if the config file says otherwise, with a console warning if detected.

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🛠 Configuration

All settings persist in config/murdercraft.json and can be tweaked live via Mod Menu:

• Game: minimum/maximum players, game duration, start countdown, hidden pistol delay, rounds per session, inter-round delay
• Roles: murderer count, detective count
• Gameplay: knife one-shot toggle, friendly-fire punishment toggle
• Spawn: random spawn enabled, radius, height, immunity duration, world border enabled, world border size
• UI: custom HUD toggle, subtitles toggle

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🗺 Roadmap

• [x] Three-role system (Murderer / Detective / Innocent)
• [x] 4-round sessions with 15-minute rounds
• [x] 2-bullet pistol with persistent ammo
• [x] Pistol drop rules (death, friendly fire, murderer auto-eject)
• [x] Hidden pistol auto-promotion
• [x] Task system with private role reveal
• [x] Murderer awareness particles
• [x] Random spawn with damage immunity
• [x] Configurable world border
• [x] Anti-drop protection on custom items
• [x] Title overlays + right-side scoreboard HUD
• [x] Public/Debug build variants with security flags
• [ ] Custom OGG sound files (currently uses vanilla sounds)
• [ ] Persistent statistics (kills, wins, MVP)
• [ ] Dedicated map integration
• [ ] Forge / NeoForge support via Architectury

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💬 Community & feedback

This is a public beta — real multiplayer testing is still needed, so every piece of feedback is valuable. Here’s where to reach out:

• 🐛 Report a bug or crash → use the Issues link in the sidebar of this page to open a GitHub issue. Please include mod version (0.5.0-beta.7), Minecraft version (1.21.1), steps to reproduce, and any crash log or video.

• 💡 Suggest a feature or share a gameplay idea → fill out the MurderCraft suggestion form. All submissions are read and considered for future updates.

• 📖 Read the source code → use the Source link in the sidebar to browse the GitHub repository. Contributions via Pull Request are welcome.

Thanks for helping shape MurderCraft!

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📜 License

Released under the MIT License (see LICENSE file in the source repository) — fork, modify, redistribute freely with attribution.

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🙌 Credits

• Direct ruleset inspiration: The “Murder” game mode designed by Squeezie & Théodore Bonnet. The specific rules implemented here follow their variant.
• Genre origin: Garry’s Mod — Murder
• Other gameplay inspirations: UHC, UHC Werewolves, Hypixel Murder Mystery
• Mod design & development: Remilulz_91