FOSS gamedev and creative worlds

(I searched the forums but I haven’t found a thread about that, so I create one)

Minetest Classic is a fork of Minetest-c55, the 0.3 branch. Some people thought that the current Minetest. They want the “good old speedy” Minetest back. Rather than an engine for mods they want a single game.
They are backporting stuff from higher versions and add more features.
The homepage is on http://www.minetest-classic.com/.

I can confirm that Minetest Classic is very fast and it is faster than Minetest.

The 0.3 branch did not have mod support. It doesn’t look like they will be adding some form of modding support. Instead, they are hardcoding the blocks into the game.

I guess now they have above 200 blocks or so and there are already some interesting things in it. They have integrated crafting guide, they have roofs, already basic 3D mobs (sadly, they are rare atm) and 3D player models. They have added conifers and better apple trees. There is colored glass and glowglass. There is farming but I still haven’t understood how it works. There are books which you can actually place. There are a lot of nice small things in the game. Not much gameplay atm, it seems to be more tailored to creativity I guess. They basically copied a lot of mod ideas and added some of their own ideas.
The wood system is a bit different than in minetest_game. You have tree blocks, which you can make to wood, which you can make to planks (a craftitem), which you can make to sticks. This is quite interesting.
And the mese pick is the old overpowered pickaxe. Yes!

To give you an impression, I take you on a little tour on my small jungle wood hut:





(fog disabled on the 4th screenshot)

The documentation is outdated, so I give you some hints to help you getting started with Minetest Classic:
The most important crafting recipe:
Place 4 sticks in a crafting grid like this to get a crafting guide:

“S” = Stick; “.” = nothing

To eat food, you have to place it with right click on the ground, then right click on the food when you are pointing it. I find this even more confusing than the Minetest way. I hope they change this bahaviour to something more intuitive.


I am actually quite positively surprised by Minetest Classic, as it already feels quite different than Minetest. I think Minetest Classic is a legitimate fork and I wish the devs the best for the future. Minetest Classic can probably never replace Minetest and vice versa. I see Minetest Classic more as a complemantary game. Minetest Classic wants to be an ultrafast finished game, Minetest wants to be a fast finished moddable game engine. Both goals are legitimate to me.

Sadly, I am supposedly not allowed to join the forums. The forum software tells me my e-mail adress is banned. :-(

What do you think about Minetest Classic?

minetest classic is a good game.

i like to play it on very old computer.

3D Model Wieldhand??? I think that what we need for Minetest.
But yeah Minetest needs few good stuff though.

Edit: Found this: http://minetestm13.com/

I think, hardcoding nodes makes the gameplay boring. More diffrent things are needed in that game.

Krock wrote:I think, hardcoding nodes makes the gameplay boring. More diffrent things are needed in that game.

Eh, I think there is plenty of new content when compared to mt_game. Maybe twice as much or more.

Evergreen wrote:

Krock wrote:I think, hardcoding nodes makes the gameplay boring. More diffrent things are needed in that game.

Eh, I think there is plenty of new content when compared to mt_game. Maybe twice as much or more.

Yes sure but once you played through all nodes and want to add new things - there's nothing to add - bored.

The speed may make it worth while.

Krock wrote:I think, hardcoding nodes makes the gameplay boring. More diffrent things are needed in that game.

Did you play the game? I think you shouldn’t judge a game before you played it. If you don’t want to play Minetest Classic, that’s okay. But then it does not make sense to judge it.

But maybe Minetest Classic can use some more content … ;-)
And Minetest, too (More mods are good :-)).

After seeing this thread I thought I'd give Minetest Classic a try.

I've observed recent trends of "minimalism" and "sub-games" in Minetest. Minetest Classic seems to fit both of these trends well.

I found the key bindings to be a bit limited and the menu system awkward. I use left-hand mouse, right-hand keyboard. My usual Minetest key bindings are IJKL for movement, run = ; , sneak = '. The semicolon and apostrophe don't work well with Mineset Classic currently (v. 1405.1). So I moved my keybinding choices over a bit mroe to the left. It's confusing for awhile when switching between Minetest and Minetest Classic but workable.

As for the menu system being awkward, well that's just because I'm used to the way Minetest handles moving items beteween the inventory and crafting grid. Minetest Classic doesn't support drag-n-drop; much more clicking is required. The thing I have trouble with most is taking a crafted item out of the output box. Usually I click on it as soon as it is crafted and then it is replaced by the last recipe item I had selected. Then I have to click-click the recipe item out of the output box, click on an empty box, and then I can click-click the crafted item out of the out put box.

If I had not played the contemporary Minetest before, I would not know any difference so I take these issues in stride. Remember, Minetest Classic is a different game so it's not unreasonable for things to be handled differently.

In my opinion, players who get bored easily in Minetest aren't really playing Minetest. Adding more mods is only a temporary fix and then they get bored again. It's like the creative difference bewteen poor kids who build entire cities out of cardboard boxes, blanket-covered chairs and odds-and-ends while the rich kids with all the fancy toys complain that they are bored.

Playing Minetest requires creativity and imagination. I see lots of cobble shacks but rarely any sculptures. I don't mean boxy, avatar builds. I mean Michelangelo qualilty scupltures.

Another idea - build a city.

A full-sized city; not just three cobble shacks sitting next to each other. Build a shipyard and port, a warehouse district, a trade center, a city hall, a library, several churches, many businesses, roads and sewer systems.

None of these ideas require flashing, blinking, spinning, whirring, gizmo blocks.

Building sculptures and cities like what I described would be challenging, large, and epic. Three topics players like to talk about but seldom put forth the effort to accomplish themselves.

I don't see not being able to add more mods to MInetest Classic as a problem. If you want to add mods, use Minetest.

Minetest is much more customizable because mods can be added but that comes at the cost of being slow, bloated, and computer resource hungry.

Minetest Classic is faster, leaner, and requires less computing power at the cost of users not being able to add mods and customizing is limited basicly to what keys you want to use on your keyboard to control your movement in the game.

Minetest Classic provides a solid foundation and a good selection of game items all the while requiring less computer power than Minetest. With Minetest Classic you are only limited by your imagination. You can play offline in your own singleplayer world to become familiar with all the different items. Then when you are ready, there are several Minetest Classic servers to join and enjoy the social aspect of Minetest Classic as well as forums for more Minetest Classic related topics.