8 ms·

Minetest – A free, open-source voxel game engine and game

161 points by mynameislegion 10y ago

giancarlostoro 10y ago
It's worth noting that Minetest is available on Ubuntu (and possibly Debian?) via apt (apt-get). Not sure how dated it may be, but it's still playable and useful.
- mynameislegion 10y ago
  The minetest packages are in Debian too. Also a number of mods are in Debian and Ubuntu.
- Sylos 10y ago
  Ubuntu 16.04 seems to ship with 0.4.13, Debian Jessie with 0.4.10. Current version is 0.4.14, which is also what Ubuntu 16.10 will then ship with.
  - _JamesA_ 10y ago
    Debian has 0.4.14 available in jessie-backports[1]. [1]: https://packages.debian.org/jessie-backports/minetest https://packages.debian.org/jessie-backports/minetest
qznc 10y ago
I made a few mods a while ago. Pleasurable experience even though I was new to Lua.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
qwertyuiop924 10y ago
As a longtime MC user, I have to say this is really cool. OTOH, it doesn't have MC's amazing mod ecosystem, which is a huge part of why that game is so great.
- frik 10y ago
  Last time I checked, it can be modded with Lua language. Easier than Minecraft which stills lacks an official API, but the community is smaller.
  - qwertyuiop924 10y ago
    Exactly. Part of what makes MC so great is that there are a lot of high-quality, well designed mods, which all work together to create a really solid experience. MT doesn't have that yet, and the community's small enough that it perhaps never will.
- dcposch 10y ago
  Minecraft never got an open source release or official mod support. Mods are made using libraries reverse engineered from the official game, then installed by patching the game. (This is made a bit easier than it would otherwise be because Minecraft is written in Java, but Mojang runs it thru a code obfuscator so unzipping the .jar shows a huge codebase with class and method names like "Ijf8". It's pretty gross.) MineTest is open source and has modding support as a feature.
  - qwertyuiop924 10y ago
    true, but with Forge and FML, the unofficial mod support is pretty slick. Besides, the problem isn't that modding is hard, it's the ecosystem.
  - dangoor 10y ago
    The C++ Minecraft implementation (Minecraft Pocket Edition and Windows 10 edition) is getting a fully supported add-on system. They're angle for data-driven entity/item customization (simple JSON files) and C# code for implementing entirely new behaviors and components. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e2MNYIa411k https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e2MNYIa411k https://minecraft.net/en/addons/ https://minecraft.net/en/addons/
    - 10y ago
dcposch 10y ago
This is pretty cool. Props for doing a massive amount of work and creating something open and extensible. -- I just tried reading the code to learn how MineTest does voxel meshing, and it didn't go so well. (Voxel meshing is about turning blocks into triangles efficiently, and it's surprisingly tricky. Mikola Lysenko wrote a great exposition of the problem and several solutions way back in 2012: https://0fps.net/2012/06/30/meshing-in-a-minecraft-game/ https://0fps.net/2012/06/30/meshing-in-a-minecraft-game/ ) I was curious which approach MineTest chose, and I still don't know. I think I found the files where the meshing happens, mapblock_mesh.h/cpp. The code quality is... less than perfect. There are 200+ line C++ functions. There's commented out code and preprocessor "#if 0" ignored code. There's a struct that looks important, but it's called "MeshMakeData", and I don't know what it represents. The comment above just says "Mesh making stuff": https://github.com/minetest/minetest/blob/0a16e53b40d347db7dcd04cb694d0f8f2ed1a5a7/src/mapblock_mesh.h#L40 https://github.com/minetest/minetest/blob/0a16e53b40d347db7d... The file that seems to run everything, game.cpp, is almost 5000 lines long. -- For an example of really clean game code, check out Quake or Doom 3. Both have: * short and sweet main() methods * comments that guide the reader and explain what does what * clean decomposition * short, readable functions, and... * reasonably small files So far, MineTest, at least in part, took the "big hairy ball of C++" approach. Good luck with future development!
- dcposch 10y ago
  Man, just a few days ago I was bummed that the top comment on most HN stories is critical or dismissive, and now I'm part of the problem. -- People have made some VERY COOL stuff using MineTest. Check out spheretest: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ztAg643gJBA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ztAg643gJBA
- morganvachon 10y ago
  I'm not a programmer so forgive my armchair ignorance, but as a player I've found Minetest to run exceptionally smoothly even on 10+ year old hardware with crappy integrated video. On the other hand, Minecraft on a modernish Haswell based PC with a GTX 960 requires Optifine to run as smoothly as Minetest does on that ancient machine. "(B)ig hairy ball of C++" or not, somehow it's optimized to the point that it feels more modern and advanced than Minecraft, if not as visually polished. My question is, is this purely a C++ vs Java thing? I've played some Java games that look and play awesome on older hardware so I have to wonder what the deal is with Minecraft.
ghostDancer 10y ago
There's also a fork Voxelands http://www.voxelands.com/about.html http://www.voxelands.com/about.html
gravypod 10y ago
Unfortunately this doesn't seem to expose nearly enough features to the programmer of mods. No way to do direct rendering of your own, add AIs, or many other much needed things. You can basically just define blocks and HUD items and that's it. Good work on writing the engine, just needs a little more work on the API side.
smnscu 10y ago
One of the best 'downloads' page I've seen http://www.minetest.net/downloads/ http://www.minetest.net/downloads/
TamHagmas 10y ago
A minetest developer just recently published a sphere-shaped planet version of minetest: https://forum.minetest.net/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=15643 https://forum.minetest.net/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=15643 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ztAg643gJBA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ztAg643gJBA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=joFWr3JzBOI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=joFWr3JzBOI That's just the thing I love about these smaller voxel games - they may not have a huge userbase, but there is innovation happening.

161 points by mynameislegion 10y ago

It's worth noting that Minetest is available on Ubuntu (and possibly Debian?) via apt (apt-get). Not sure how dated it may be, but it's still playable and useful.

mynameislegion 10y ago
The minetest packages are in Debian too. Also a number of mods are in Debian and Ubuntu.
Sylos 10y ago
Ubuntu 16.04 seems to ship with 0.4.13, Debian Jessie with 0.4.10. Current version is 0.4.14, which is also what Ubuntu 16.10 will then ship with.
- _JamesA_ 10y ago
  Debian has 0.4.14 available in jessie-backports[1]. [1]: https://packages.debian.org/jessie-backports/minetest https://packages.debian.org/jessie-backports/minetest

qznc 10y ago

I made a few mods a while ago. Pleasurable experience even though I was new to Lua.

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

qwertyuiop924 10y ago

As a longtime MC user, I have to say this is really cool. OTOH, it doesn't have MC's amazing mod ecosystem, which is a huge part of why that game is so great.

frik 10y ago
Last time I checked, it can be modded with Lua language. Easier than Minecraft which stills lacks an official API, but the community is smaller.
- qwertyuiop924 10y ago
  Exactly. Part of what makes MC so great is that there are a lot of high-quality, well designed mods, which all work together to create a really solid experience. MT doesn't have that yet, and the community's small enough that it perhaps never will.
dcposch 10y ago
Minecraft never got an open source release or official mod support. Mods are made using libraries reverse engineered from the official game, then installed by patching the game. (This is made a bit easier than it would otherwise be because Minecraft is written in Java, but Mojang runs it thru a code obfuscator so unzipping the .jar shows a huge codebase with class and method names like "Ijf8". It's pretty gross.) MineTest is open source and has modding support as a feature.
- qwertyuiop924 10y ago
  true, but with Forge and FML, the unofficial mod support is pretty slick. Besides, the problem isn't that modding is hard, it's the ecosystem.
- dangoor 10y ago
  The C++ Minecraft implementation (Minecraft Pocket Edition and Windows 10 edition) is getting a fully supported add-on system. They're angle for data-driven entity/item customization (simple JSON files) and C# code for implementing entirely new behaviors and components. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e2MNYIa411k https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e2MNYIa411k https://minecraft.net/en/addons/ https://minecraft.net/en/addons/
  - 10y ago

dcposch 10y ago

This is pretty cool. Props for doing a massive amount of work and creating something open and extensible. -- I just tried reading the code to learn how MineTest does voxel meshing, and it didn't go so well. (Voxel meshing is about turning blocks into triangles efficiently, and it's surprisingly tricky. Mikola Lysenko wrote a great exposition of the problem and several solutions way back in 2012: https://0fps.net/2012/06/30/meshing-in-a-minecraft-game/ https://0fps.net/2012/06/30/meshing-in-a-minecraft-game/ ) I was curious which approach MineTest chose, and I still don't know. I think I found the files where the meshing happens, mapblock_mesh.h/cpp. The code quality is... less than perfect. There are 200+ line C++ functions. There's commented out code and preprocessor "#if 0" ignored code. There's a struct that looks important, but it's called "MeshMakeData", and I don't know what it represents. The comment above just says "Mesh making stuff": https://github.com/minetest/minetest/blob/0a16e53b40d347db7dcd04cb694d0f8f2ed1a5a7/src/mapblock_mesh.h#L40 https://github.com/minetest/minetest/blob/0a16e53b40d347db7d... The file that seems to run everything, game.cpp, is almost 5000 lines long. -- For an example of really clean game code, check out Quake or Doom 3. Both have: * short and sweet main() methods * comments that guide the reader and explain what does what * clean decomposition * short, readable functions, and... * reasonably small files So far, MineTest, at least in part, took the "big hairy ball of C++" approach. Good luck with future development!

dcposch 10y ago
Man, just a few days ago I was bummed that the top comment on most HN stories is critical or dismissive, and now I'm part of the problem. -- People have made some VERY COOL stuff using MineTest. Check out spheretest: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ztAg643gJBA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ztAg643gJBA
morganvachon 10y ago
I'm not a programmer so forgive my armchair ignorance, but as a player I've found Minetest to run exceptionally smoothly even on 10+ year old hardware with crappy integrated video. On the other hand, Minecraft on a modernish Haswell based PC with a GTX 960 requires Optifine to run as smoothly as Minetest does on that ancient machine. "(B)ig hairy ball of C++" or not, somehow it's optimized to the point that it feels more modern and advanced than Minecraft, if not as visually polished. My question is, is this purely a C++ vs Java thing? I've played some Java games that look and play awesome on older hardware so I have to wonder what the deal is with Minecraft.

ghostDancer 10y ago

There's also a fork Voxelands http://www.voxelands.com/about.html http://www.voxelands.com/about.html

gravypod 10y ago

Unfortunately this doesn't seem to expose nearly enough features to the programmer of mods. No way to do direct rendering of your own, add AIs, or many other much needed things. You can basically just define blocks and HUD items and that's it. Good work on writing the engine, just needs a little more work on the API side.

smnscu 10y ago

One of the best 'downloads' page I've seen http://www.minetest.net/downloads/ http://www.minetest.net/downloads/

TamHagmas 10y ago

A minetest developer just recently published a sphere-shaped planet version of minetest: https://forum.minetest.net/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=15643 https://forum.minetest.net/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=15643 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ztAg643gJBA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ztAg643gJBA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=joFWr3JzBOI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=joFWr3JzBOI That's just the thing I love about these smaller voxel games - they may not have a huge userbase, but there is innovation happening.