SPZ Paradise
SPZ Paradise was a Minecraft server offering several mini-games.
I created this server to practise and sharpen the skills I was learning in class. Being just a project meant to make me better, I moved at my own pace, whenever I wanted.
Thinking it through before building!
(3 days)
Before building the server, I thought about which mini-games it would have, how it would be hosted and what it would be called.
The server is called “SPZ PARADISE”: rest assured, “SPZ” was just short for my old username, and “PARADISE” was meant to suggest a warm, peaceful place.
Hosting
Hosting was no problem at first: I was alone and only building maps on my own computer. But friends soon wanted to help. As they could not connect to the maps I was building, I set up a Debian server on an old machine I had.
Two months later the Minecraft server had come a long way and we were starting to welcome players. My connection was not strong enough for more of them, so I began renting a VPS (Virtual Personal Server) and hosting the game server and its website there.
The servers
The overall server is made up of several small game servers, all linked together through a proxy. As I was working from home, I opened the ports so that my friends could connect to my server and help.
Website
The first version of the website was just a shop window: a single home page.
After several styling passes, I decided to make it more dynamic by adding a database. It holds the authentication details on the server and each player’s game statistics, so they can be displayed on the site.