🎬 LabysWatchParty

Cinema screens for your Minecraft server.
Put a YouTube, Twitch or TikTok video on any wall and let your players watch it together, perfectly in sync.

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✨ Features

• Two commands to a running cinema. Create a screen by looking at a wall, paste a link, done.
• Everyone in sync. The server owns the timeline. Late joiners jump right into the current scene, pause and seek apply to everyone at once.
• Sound stays in the room. Only players near a screen see and hear it, walk out and it's gone.
• Invisible for everyone else. The screen is drawn by the LabyMod client. Players without it just see your wall (and get a friendly hint once).
• Zero dependencies. The LabyMod Server API is bundled and relocated, it can't clash with other plugins.
• Proxy friendly. Works on Paper/Spigot backends behind Velocity or BungeeCord.
• Fully translatable. Every message lives in config.yml.

📦 Installation

1. Grab LabysWatchParty-<version>.jar from Releases (or the artifact of the latest build).
2. Drop it into plugins/ and restart the server.

Server	Paper or Spigot 1.20.1+ (Folia is not supported)
Java	17+
Players	LabyMod 4 with Watch Party enabled (on by default)

🚀 Quick start

1. Build a screen. Stand in front of a wall, look at the block where the top center of the screen should be and run:

/wp screen create cinema 16x9

2. Press play.

/wp play https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ

That's it. 🍿

Where does the screen go?

The plugin places a waxed sign one block behind the wall and one block up from the block you looked at. LabyMod draws the video right on the wall surface, hanging down from the top of that block.

      behind      wall      in front
     ┌──────┐
     │ sign │  ◄── hidden, placed for you
     └──────┘┌──────┐
             │ aim  │▌ ◄── top edge of the video (the block you looked at)
             │      │▌
             │      │▌     the video, drawn on the wall surface
             │      │▌     and hanging down 9 blocks for 16x9
             │      │▌

Tips:

• Keep the space behind the wall closed, so players without LabyMod never see the sign.
• Even widths (like 16) center on the middle of the block you aim at, so the screen extends half a block further on one side. Use odd widths (like 15 or 17) if you want the edges flush with the block grid.
• /wp screen remove <id> puts back whatever block the sign replaced.

🎮 Commands

/wp is short for /watchparty. The screen id is optional when there is only one screen or you're standing next to one.

Command	What it does
/wp play [screen] <url>	Starts a video from the beginning
/wp pause [screen]	Pauses for everyone at the same position
/wp resume [screen]	Continues
/wp seek [screen] <time>	Jumps to 1:30, 90, 1:02:03, or relative: +10, -30, +1:00
/wp stop [screen]	Stops and clears the screen
/wp list	All screens, what they're playing and how many watch
/wp screen create <id> <size> [radius]	Creates a screen. Size in blocks: 16x9, or just 16 to keep 16:9
/wp screen remove <id>	Removes a screen and restores the wall
/wp reload	Reloads config.yml and screens.yml

Supported links: youtube.com, youtu.be, twitch.tv, tiktok.com. Direct video files (.mp4 etc.) are not supported by the client.

🔐 Permissions

Permission	Grants	Default
watchparty.admin	Everything below	op
watchparty.control	play, pause, resume, seek, stop, list	op
watchparty.screen	screen create, screen remove, reload	op

Want your players to run their own movie night? Give them watchparty.control.

⚙️ Configuration

plugins/LabysWatchParty/config.yml

# Radius in blocks around a screen in which LabyMod players see and hear it.
# Audio does not fade with distance, so outside this radius the screen is switched off.
# Can be overridden per screen: /wp screen create <id> <size> <radius>
default-radius: 48

# How often player distances to screens are checked, in ticks (20 ticks = 1 second).
range-check-ticks: 10

# How often everyone watching gets the current position again, in seconds.
# Clients only correct themselves when they drift more than 3 seconds, so this is cheap.
sync-interval-seconds: 20

# The LabyMod client only plays links from these hosts (subdomains included).
# Links from other hosts are rejected by the command right away.
allowed-hosts:
  - youtube.com
  - youtu.be
  - twitch.tv
  - tiktok.com

# Tell players without LabyMod once per session that they are missing a screen.
hint-without-labymod: true

# Color codes use &. Placeholders are written as {name}.
messages:
  prefix: "&8[&dWatchParty&8] &7"
  playing: "Now playing on &f{id}&7: &f{url}"
  hint: "&7There is a screen here. Play with &dLabyMod&7 to watch it!"
  # ... every other message is in the generated file

Option	Default	Notes
default-radius	48	The single most important setting. Big enough to cover your cinema, small enough that the lobby next door stays quiet.
range-check-ticks	10	Lower = screens pop in faster when walking in. 10 (half a second) is plenty.
sync-interval-seconds	20	Safety net against drift. The actual play, pause and seek commands are sent instantly.
allowed-hosts	see above	Mirrors what the LabyMod client accepts. Adding hosts here won't make the client play them.
hint-without-labymod	true	One chat message per session for players without LabyMod standing near a screen.
messages.*	English	Translate freely. & color codes and {placeholders} are supported.

Screens are stored in plugins/LabysWatchParty/screens.yml. The radius can be changed by hand (then /wp reload). For a new size or position, remove the screen and create it again, the sign text is only written on creation.

screens:
  cinema:
    world: world
    x: 120        # position of the hidden sign
    y: 71
    z: -34
    facing: SOUTH # direction the video faces
    width: 16.0
    height: 9.0
    radius: 48
    replaced-block: minecraft:stone  # restored on removal

🛠️ How it works

LabyMod turns wall signs in this format into a video canvas:

laby:media
16x9         <- width x height in blocks
id:cinema    <- canvas id

The plugin keeps the playback state (link, position, playing or paused) on the server and talks to the clients with the LabyMod Server API Watch Party packets:

Moment	Packet
Player walks into a screen's radius	register, then sync if something is playing
Player walks out	unregister
/wp play	play
/wp pause / /wp resume	sync with the exact position, so nobody pauses a few seconds apart
/wp seek	seek
/wp stop	stop
Every sync-interval-seconds	sync to all viewers

❓ Troubleshooting

Nobody sees anything. Check that the player uses LabyMod 4 and has Watch Party enabled in the LabyMod settings. Players who were already online when the plugin got enabled (e.g. after /reload) need to rejoin once.

The link doesn't play. Only YouTube, Twitch and TikTok links work, age-restricted or region-locked videos may fail on the client.

I hear the movie everywhere. Lower the screen's radius in screens.yml and run /wp reload.

Late joiners see "ended". The server doesn't know how long a video is. After it ended, the timeline keeps running until the next /wp play or /wp stop.

🧑‍💻 Building

./gradlew build       # jar in build/libs, runs the tests
./gradlew runServer   # local Paper test server with the plugin

Every push builds the jar via GitHub Actions (grab it from the run's artifacts). Pushing a tag like v1.0.0 publishes a GitHub release with the jar attached.