Hosting and Joining

Multiplayer in Campfire is organized around rooms. The host creates a room and enters a singleplayer world, which Campfire opens to LAN; friends join with the invite code the host shares, or find the room in the Lobby. The host's world then appears in the friends' LAN world list, and they enter it exactly as they would on a real local network.

No public IP, port forwarding or dedicated server is needed, and players do not have to use the same launcher.

Before you begin

• Both sides must run the same game version.
• Both sides need Campfire running for the whole session. After the window is closed, Campfire can keep running in the notification area; see Personalization.
• The first time, Campfire downloads a networking component of about 14 MB and verifies every file. Windows Firewall may ask whether it may use the network; choosing Allow improves the chance of a direct connection.

Host: create a room

1. On Home, click Create a room.

2. Start the game and enter the singleplayer world you want to share. Campfire opens it to LAN for you; see Opening to LAN automatically. If that is not possible, open it to LAN yourself:

   • press Esc, choose Open to LAN and click Start LAN World;
   • newer game versions have no such button; instead, open World Options and turn LAN on under Multiplayer.

3. Campfire finds the open world and continues on its own:

   Step	What happens
   Prepare the networking component	Downloaded and verified on first use, then reused
   Wait for Open to LAN	The game port on this computer is detected; nothing to type
   Create the room	The room and its invite code are created
   Connect to the network	Campfire connects to the nodes so friends can find the room

4. Once the room is ready, the invite code is copied to the clipboard. Share it with your friends, or choose List in the lobby to make the room visible to more players; see Listing your room.

Opening to LAN automatically

Once a room is created, Campfire performs Open to LAN as soon as you enter a singleplayer world, preserving the world's game mode and cheat setting. The multiplayer page then shows the port in use.

The feature is provided by the component attached to the game and supports vanilla 1.7.2 and later, as well as loaders that keep the official names. With Fabric or Quilt, or on a Java runtime that cannot attach components, open to LAN manually. Should the process not continue within a few seconds, follow the manual steps above.

The feature can be turned off with Open to LAN automatically when creating a room in the multiplayer settings.

While the room is open, the multiplayer page shows the invite code, the game port, this computer's network type, the number of direct and relayed connections, and the players in the room.

Entering the port manually

If Campfire does not find the world, click Enter the port manually and type the LAN port shown in the game's chat. A dedicated server running on this computer can be shared the same way.

When the room closes

The room closes when the host leaves the world or turns LAN off, or when Close room is clicked. Everyone in the room is disconnected.

Friends: join a room

Alternatively, open Lobby on Home and choose a public room; see Lobby.

1. Copy the invite code from the host. Codes look like U/XXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXX; you can copy the whole message containing it and Campfire picks out the code.
2. Open Campfire. When Home sees a code on the clipboard, it offers to join that room. You can also click Join a room on Home and paste.
3. Campfire connects to the network, finds the host and enters the room. On restrictive networks, finding the host takes longer.
4. Open the game's Multiplayer screen, find the room among the LAN worlds at the bottom of the list and double-click it.

By default the entry is called Campfire Room and shows the player count and latency. You can rename it in the multiplayer settings.

Enter through the LAN world list

When the host opens LAN with a premium account, the game verifies every joining player. Offline accounts are let in only when the world is picked from the LAN world list; entering the address through Direct Connection or a server entry ends with an "invalid session" error.

After joining, the multiplayer page shows the local server address, latency, connection type and the players in the room. Click Leave room to leave.

Room information in the game

Inside the host's world, Campfire shows the room status in the game itself:

• Chat greets each player on arrival.
• Tab list header and footer show the host, player count and latency live.
• LAN world list shows the player count and latency on the room entry.

The chat and Tab information are sent by the game server itself through a small component attached to the host's game, so they work with premium authentication and encrypted connections, and the host sees them too. The component covers every release since 1.7.2: 1.14.4 to 1.21.11 rely on Mojang's official name mapping file, downloaded and verified on first use; earlier releases use name tables built into Campfire; releases since 26.1 require none.

If the host's Java runtime cannot attach components, or a mod loader such as Fabric or Quilt remaps the game, Campfire falls back to showing the information in the LAN world list only; the connection itself is unaffected. The reason is written to %LocalAppData%\Campfire\agent.log.

The room in the notification area

With the notification area icon enabled, the icon follows the room: the flame stays lit while a room is open. Right-click it to see the members, copy the invite code, host or join a room, or exit Campfire.

Next steps

• Managing a Room: members, removing and blocking.
• Network and Privacy: direct and relayed connections, custom nodes, hiding your IP address.
• FAQ: troubleshooting joins, invalid sessions and more.