Designing Blazey: mechanics that respect the player

Blazey started as one idea: what if the Nether punished carelessness instead of punishing time? Most difficulty plugins just add hitpoints. That's not harder, it's longer.

So every mechanic in Blazey has a tell. Ember pools glow before they erupt. Blazes telegraph a volley. If you die, you can name the mistake — and that's the whole design bar.

The technical side is boring on purpose: event-driven, no per-tick scans, everything cached per chunk. Boring code is what lets the fun code stay expensive.