FOSS gamedev and creative worlds

I've looked around but can't seem to find my answer in the forums or Wiki.

What do the different game modes do/mean? For example survival/build/basic etc. Are these only useful/valid for server games or do they also impact single player games?

Answers to the above question/s may or may not explain how "creative mode" and "take damage" fit into the picture, although those are pretty self-explanatory (perhaps the above modes are too and I just can't see the wooden block for the block tree forest).

Thanks in advance for your help.

they all have different "mods" which are really parts of the game. hence, they have different features. sometimes they include different texture pack and even sound pack. check out my game or realtest game. and compare them to minetest_game included with the build. that should be suffiecient to see the difference.

"Game modes" as we call them are simply collections of mods.
The "survival" and "build" games were a failed attempt at separating the game into survival-oriented and creative-oriented modes.

Thanks for the responses. After I posted, I noticed a forum section dedicated to custom user game modes, so I was kinda able to piece it together from there. Although, that didn't really spell out what "Build" and "Survival" modes meant. Anyway, it would seem that I'm best off playing the "Minetest" game mode. I'm sure the developers have their reasons but from a new user perspective, to alleviate confusion it seems like it would be a good idea to eliminate the redundant game modes.


Thanks again.

Do you have the latest release? As far as I know build and survival are no more included in 0.4.7.

p.s. I need testers for the gamemode in my signature ;)

Casimir wrote:Do you have the latest release? As far as I know build and survival are no more included in 0.4.7.

p.s. I need testers for the gamemode in my signature ;)

That begs the question of how one should go about performing an "official" upgrade. Up to now, I'd simply been extracting the zip over the top of an existing install. I didn't consider that files no longer needed would not be deleted. I'm inferring from your post that the more correct method would be to extract the newer version to a completely new folder and the copy across the worlds, mods etc as needed?

Darkbee wrote:

Casimir wrote:Do you have the latest release? As far as I know build and survival are no more included in 0.4.7.

p.s. I need testers for the gamemode in my signature ;)

That begs the question of how one should go about performing an "official" upgrade. Up to now, I'd simply been extracting the zip over the top of an existing install. I didn't consider that files no longer needed would not be deleted. I'm inferring from your post that the more correct method would be to extract the newer version to a completely new folder and the copy across the worlds, mods etc as needed?

i do update that, second way. because i need fonts and i use my own game.

So I did a "clean" install and sure enough two of the game modes disappeared. I'm now left with I think it's default (Minetest) and minimal. I even had a world that was setup up under survival and edited the world file to change it.

What are the possible files/folders I'm likely to need to move on every update?
minetest.conf
worlds
mods
fonts (If I use custom ones)

Anything else?

textures, if you have some custom ones. games, if you use some different from default ones.

Mito551 wrote:textures, if you have some custom ones. games, if you use some different from default ones.

Noted. Thanks! And thanks to everyone for your help/responses.

kaeza wrote:The "survival" and "build" games were a failed attempt at separating the game into survival-oriented and creative-oriented modes.

If those are failures it's only because everyone still insists on personalizing minetest_game (pulling it in every direction).

The idea of common components for all games was not a bad one. The problem was that it was too short-lived to be adopted by the community.

The common system didn't make much sense to me, nor do i think checklists are any better. I still use the old game folder structure, and if I really need to use the exact same mod for two games, symbolic links are a lot easier to set up than checking a bunch of boxes (and having to repeat that for every bloody game lol).