Minetest Game
| Minetest Game | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Genre | Sandbox |
| Latest release | (rolling release) |
| Code license | LGPLv2.1+ [1] |
| Media license | CC BY-SA 3.0 [1] |
| Engine | Luanti |
| P. language | Lua |
| Homepage | http://luanti.org/ |
| Contribute | |
| Minetest Game is a free game. This means that the source code is available to be studied, modified, and distributed. Most projects look for help with testing, documentation, graphics, etc., as well. | |
Minetest Game is a simple and peaceful sandbox game based on Luanti. There are no goals. The player is thrown into a world made of cubes and can attempt to explore the surface and hitchhike through grasslands, forests, deserts, jungles, snowy and arctic regions, explore the seas with a boat or swim and dive, and collect various materials and craft tools from them.
Using a pickaxe, the player can dig into the depths and collect precious minerals, but a careless player can also be cooked by lava. Or the player could become a farmer or forester and plant trees and crops. Almost every block can be removed with the correct tool and with the collected blocks almost every building can be erected—only the imagination is the limit. Minetest Game has a focus on creativity, building and exploring worlds, rather than being a challenge, so the gameplay naturally is sandbox-style. There are no animals, monsters or other creatures except the players themselves.
Like most games for Luanti, this game supports online multiplayer and mods.
Mods[edit]
The Luanti community has created over 1,000 mods for Minetest Game over the years. They can be found in Luanti’s ContentDB (please note: ContentDB includes mods for other Luanti-based games).
Many Luanti servers that host a Minetest Game game tend to be heavily modded as well, to make it more interesting for players.
The developers actually recommend playing this game with mods.[2]
History[edit]
Minetest Game is the oldest Luanti game. Minetest Game was introduced together with Minetest/Luanti 5.0.0, released in 2019, the first version that introduced modding support. Back then, both this game and Luanti engine were called “Minetest”. Minetest Game was pre-installed by default in Luanti originally. Before Minetest 5.0.0, Minetest was a standalone game (not just an engine), and the first Minetest Game version is a direct continuation of historic Minetest versions.
With the release of Luanti 5.8.0, Minetest Game lost the status of the “default game” in Luanti and is no longer shipped with Luanti by default.
Development[edit]
Minetest Game is being maintained by the core Luanti developers. It takes a conservative approach when it comes to development. Rather than being feature-rich, development is more focused on simple features, compatibility and stability. Its features its own modding API to make it easy for modders to extend this game.
Minetest Game is in “maintenance mode”. This means there are no feature updates planned, only bugfixes and general maintenance work to ensure stability.
Since January 2024, Minetest Game follows a “rolling release” model. There are no versioned releases anymore. Instead, updates to the game will be automatically pushed to the game’s ContentDB page, allowing players to update the game within Luanti.[3]