Good to have you here.
Minetest is described by the original creator (celeron55) as being inspired by Minecraft alpha.
These two excellent posts by celeron55 explain what Minetest is, is not, and what needs doing:
http://c55.me/blog/?p=1491https://forum.minetest.net/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=9177Minetest is a game engine, Minetest Game is the default subgame, a subgame is a collection of Lua mods, all subgame content is in Lua so it is easy to derive new subgames for the engine (and alternative subgames are indeed wanted to be bundled alongside Minetest Game).
Perhaps you would like to chat to us in the IRC #minetest-dev channel on the 'FreeNode' network (a dedicated IRC client is needed to speak in that channel). That channel is for Minetest Engine and Minetest Game development, mod chat goes elsewhere.