You can run minigames on a single server, and for most communities that is the right size. The point at which you need a proxy network is later than people think, and knowing where it is saves you building infrastructure you do not need.
What a minigame setup needs
- A separate world for arenas
Minigame worlds get reset between rounds. Keeping them out of your survival world means a reset is a world reload, not a careful surgical operation.
- Per-world game rules and inventories
A player entering an arena should not bring their survival gear. Most minigame plugins handle this, but check rather than assume.
- A lobby area
Somewhere people wait, see what is running, and join. This is the one part worth building properly, because it is the part everyone sees most.
- Arena resets that actually work
Test the reset twenty times before opening. An arena that resets incorrectly on the tenth round is a bug you find in front of an audience.
One server or a network?
| Situation | Answer |
|---|---|
| A few games, a dozen players | One server. A proxy adds complexity and solves nothing. |
| Minigames alongside a survival world | One server with separate worlds is usually still fine. |
| Games that need different plugin sets | A network. This is the real reason to split. |
| Enough players that one instance struggles | A network, and the memory to back it. |
| You want restarts that do not disconnect everyone | A network. |
Regenerating or pasting an arena between rounds is a large block operation on the main thread, and it happens every few minutes. If your TPS dips at the end of every round, that is the reset, and doing it asynchronously or in smaller pieces is the fix.
A server with one polished minigame that people queue for beats one with six that each have four players and a bug. The failure mode of minigame servers is breadth without depth, and it is very hard to reverse once the lobby has six portals.