[Game]/[World] Tutorial [1.8.2]/[2.2.0]

[Wuzzy]

Dieser Thread auf Deutsch (“This thread in German”)

----------------------

This is a basic tutorial for Minetest.
The ultimate goal is to help Minetest newbies to understand Minetest basics without consulting external documentation all the time. For the tutorial to be effective, I wish this subgame (+ world) to be bundled with Minetest. Simply because you can’t expect newbies to search the forums for that. ;-)


Download: tutorial1.8.2.zip (for Minetest 0.4.13 and later)
How to install and run: See Subgames/Tutorial in the Community Wiki

Download development version (experimental, for testing only): tutorial2.2.0.zip (for Minetest 0.4.15)

The tutorial consists of two intertwined parts: A subgame and a world.

The world looks like this:

https://i.imgur.com/vGawidn.jpg

Here is a screenshot tour through the stations with 15 screenshots (version 1.0.0)

+ Older screenshot

Version 0.1.0 looked like this:

https://i.imgur.com/j8VuzIS.jpg

The subgame, called “Tutorial” [tutorial] involves writing a lot of texts and few special tutorial nodes. The texts are implemented in the form of special read-only signs. It is currently based on a modified minetest_game. Minetest_game is basically extremely stripped down and many mods are just removed. I also added labels to all those furnace/chest/inventory formspecs. :)

The world, called “Tutorial World” involves a parcours, but the paths branch early so it is not too boring. The tutorial is built into several sections, and there are signs which do the explanation. As a little help, a couple of gold bars help the player keep track of the tutorial and a message pops up when the first, and when all gold bars have been collected. Having collected all gold bars implies the player went through all stations. This is completely optional and only a guide.


The following topics are covered by the tutorial:

• Walking, jumping, looking around, using the camera
• Swimming and diving
• Climbing ladders
• Pointing
• Using blocks
• Sneaking
• Health and damage
• Death and respawning
• Items, item stacks, collecting and dropping
• Using the inventory and hotbar
• Tools
• Mining and block drops
• Special nodes: falling nodes, attached nodes, jump-denying nodes and damaging nodes
• Liquids (source vs flowing, viscosity)
• Building
• Crafting (includes group crafts)
• Smelting
• Tool repairing
• Misc. information about Minetest (optional supplemental information)

I consider this tutorial to be finished, but if you think I missed an important and basic topic, please complain here! :)

Principles of this tutorial:

• Be a generic tutorial, teach stuff which applies to pretty much all subgames/mods/etc.
• Try to avoid teaching mod and subgame-specific stuff as much as possible unless it is done as an example only (this means I will usually reject very mod-specific suggestions)

The tutorial has been fully translated to German. Other partial translations are available, with Dutch and Greek being mostly finished.
If you want to provide translations, read this.

Why didn’t I write a tutorial for a specific subgame, like minetest_game? Because 1) this may change in the future and the tutorial may get easily outdated, 2) the basic stuff like mining is the same for every subgame, so it would have to be explained at one point anyways.
Also, it eases maintenance. It basically only really needs to be updated when new prominent engine features appear.

There is a Git repository, but only for the subgame. Here is the subgame’s project page:
http://repo.or.cz/w/minetest_tutorial_subgame.git

+ Mod list of the subgame

• default: from minetest_game, stripped and modified for this tutorial.
• creative: creative inventory from minetest_game. Only used for development purposes.
• tutorial: Tutorial signs and indestructable blocks. Developed by me for the tutorial.
• supplemental: A lot of example nodes and items, and some special switches, in order to “supplement” the default mod. Developed by me for the tutorial.
• arrow_signs (by addi): Signs that point into a direction. It has been modified for the tutorial.
• castle is a tiny fork of Castles+.
• darkage is a smaller fork of DarkAge
• cottages is a smaller fork of Cottages
• areas: Stripped down version of this mod: viewtopic.php?f=11&t=7239

+ Licenses

The mods “default” and “creative” fall under the same license as minetest_game.
The mods “tutorial” and “supplemental” are done by me and fall under the WTFPL.
The mod “arrow_signs” falls under the CC-BY-SA 3.0.
The world is made by me and falls under the WTFPL.
The subgame “artwork” and other config files fall under the WTFPL.
The mod “darkage” falls under the WTFPL.
The mod “cottages” falls under the GPLv2 (the author allowed me an exception).
The mod “castle” falls under the WTFPL (the author allowed me an exception).
The mod “areas” falls under the LGPLv2.1+.

Edit: I updated the entire post for version 1.0.0, to summarize the Tutorial properly.

[Topywo]

For the tutorial to be effective, I wish this subgame (+ world) to be bundled with Minetest. Simply because you can’t expect newbies to search the forums for that. ;-)

+ 1

[Minetestforfun]

Very good idea for new players of Minetest ! :)

[Krock]

Finally!

+1 Thank you for this work!

[twoelk]

Just tried the map. Nice idea. Had to go full screen though and still some text was cut of. Make sure the text can be read at 800*600 or whatever the default is at startup. You might also mention that navigation on a mobile device might differ from a pc.

Was looking for the sneak elevator or a nice waterfall to swim up.

Maybe something like "follow the sand line" might be usefull for navigation.

[Wuzzy]

Hi! The work on the tutorial continues. You can download version 0.2.0 in the attachment of this post.

Current state of Tutorial World:

https://i.imgur.com/zUDXp6H.jpg
(Note that most blocks are unbreakable)

Now all sections I mentioned in the first post now have a more or less proper representation in the world.

New/reworked in-world sections are:

• Viscosity
• Spikes (Blocks that damage you)
• Mining
• Building (very simple for now)
• Smelting
• Crafting (stuff is now in boxes)
• Some sort of primitive “Outro”. Currently just more text in a room. Needs work.

The tutorial also handles death. You can die, but that is planned in and you get more explanation about death and spawning. :)
I guess the player still loses stuff, I need to fix that.



Remaining quirks: It is currently possible to “break out” by placing blocks cleverly. With the introduction of the Mining and Building section, I give the student blocks. Sadly this allows the student to place the blocks in a way that basically allows to get almost everywhere on the map. That alone would not be a problem, but the student could fall off the map. I somehow have to think of a solution.


Another quirk: I want to place items intentionally by dropping them. But it seems they just disappear after a while! :(
Minetest never did that before. I think dropped items are normally ought to last forever. I will write about this problem in a different subforum, too.
This is bad, I actually wanted to place an “apple snatcher” (an example tool with increased range).


Reply to twoelk:

“Sneak elevator”: Hmmmm, nope. I guess you refer to the sneak glitch, right? Well, a glitch is a glitch. I don’t want to explain a bug and especially not how to abuse it in the tutorial. Will the sneak glich ever be fixed, by the way? I think the sneak glitch is just dumb.
Feel free to write an article for the community wiki. ;-P

Waterfall: I might consider that. More importantly I also should explain liquids more throughly, because they behave rather strange. Especially the difference between source liquids and flowing liquids. The tricky part is how to prevent the student from messing up the tutorial accidentally.

Maybe something like "follow the sand line" might be usefull for navigation.

I guess I’ll add some arrow signs. There is an useful mod with such signs somewhere. I intentionally chose not to make a 100% linear tutorial. Luckily, not everything depends on everything.

You might also mention that navigation on a mobile device might differ from a pc.

Damn it! This is something important. Mentioning it would not suffice, the best solution would be that the tutorial adapts itself to that, with inserting the correct keys. For now, I just focus on PC. Mobile comes later, but I might need some friendly pointers to useful webpages. I don’t use the mobile version.

Had to go full screen though and still some text was cut of. Make sure the text can be read at 800*600 or whatever the default is at startup. You might also mention that navigation on a mobile device might differ from a pc.

Oh crap. This is really bad. It apparently happens because Minetest quite aggressively scales everything down when the height is reduced. The actual solution would be a formspec element for a non-editable multi-line text which makes automatic line breaks. Minetest does not have this yet, so all line breaks have to be manual. This is quite a pain in the ass. The formspec is extremely small in that resoultion. Let’s see if I can fix this with some formspec magic. xD

[twoelk]

It's not a bug! It's a feature!

I think sneak elevator is so established on several servers by now, that it can be considered a "pro-tip" just as swimming up vertical waterfalls may not be realistic but extremely usefull in our little blocky game.

Just as you could consider "falling of the map" not a problem but an oppertunity to explain how to get out of a "I'm stuck" situation with the /spawn command.

I'm going to try this map on my MC-fan nephew <evil-grin/>

(I wonder if you could detect if somebody is falling and pop up a message for the player in distress describing the /spawn command)

[Wuzzy]

I don’t know if that sneak slitch is really that established. I also don’t know if it is generally agreed upon developers to keep that sneak glitch.

The spawn command is definitely not going to be in the tutorial. It is not part of builtin. Also: A command just for respawning? That’s just silly. This could be done in many better ways: Adding a formspec element, adding it as an activatable item, etc.
I think the normal game should be playable without any commands. Imagine you would have to say “/jump” to jump. xD IMO commands should be only neccessary if you want to manage the server, change settings, test stuff, cheat, etc.

Also: This tutorial is specific to singleplayer. And if I start teaching commands, I also have to start teaching privileges, which would go way too far for a singleplayer tutorial. And Tutorial World is already large enough IMO. ;-)

But I can understand that there may be some interest in Minetest’s weirdnesses. Maybe that weird stuff can go into a second tutorial.

Tutorial World for the non-glitchy non-cheaty singleplayer stuff (don’t worry, waterfalls are planned).
Tutorial World 2 for all the weird unexpected glichy or cheaty stuff. I could also introduce fly mode etc. Tutorial World 2 also could be far more open than Tutorial World.

But I don’t want to think more about Tutorial World 2 until Tutorial World is finished.

[Wuzzy]

Version 0.3.0 is out!

https://i.imgur.com/1BvbFT7.png

Changelog:

• Texts are now readable at a resoultion of 800×600 as well.
• New section: Waterfall. Nothing really special at the moment.
• Items are now placed properly and don’t get deleted. This was important for the Pointing section
• New and improved texts in the “outro” room.
• New sign roughly explaining Minetest itself and a friendly reminder that it is not a finished game engine. :)
• You get automatically teleported back to the starting point when you are too low (i.e. when you fell of the castle).

I fixed the 800×600 resoultion bug by doubling the formspec width. This may be overkill and half of the formspec is empty. But better this way than having text cut off. As soon as Minetest gets a proper multi-line formspec element, I should include it.


My current TODO list (green text means “finished”):

• Section about liquid sources and flowing liquids. Maybe also about placing liquids.
• Change texts for the mobile version of Minetest. I need help here, I have no clue how the mobile version works.
• Arrow signs or something like that for better orientation
• Better craft examples which do not involve placable items.
• Show warning when world is started in multiplayer
• Add possibility to manually return to the starting point.

[twoelk]

...
Add possibility to manually return to the starting point
...

like the command /spawn present on many servers? The one that just teleports you back to the original spawn point? ;-P

[i1abnrk]

I like that you assume I have never played a block miner game before.

[Wuzzy]

Version 0.4.0 is there! The download is as always attached to this post.



Changelog:

• I changed the crafting examples.
• Arrow signs from the mod [arrow_signs] (modified) throughout the tutorial to help navigation (most sections can be visited quite independently, that’s why I’m not enforcing a fixed route)
• The using section now has an actual example block to use. It is a small surprise. :-)
• Warning message is shown when a player joins when it is not a singleplayer game (the tutorial would work poorly in multiplayer)
• You can manually teleport back to the starting point at every time by clicking a button in the inventory menu. This is a safety measure in case a player somehow manages to get stuck.

Now I am about to get out of ideas what to add next to the tutorial. Which probably means the tutorial will hopefully be finished.

If you have a basic topic for which you think it should go into the tutorial, please post here.
Now I think the tutorial is now complete enough for some testruns. I have made a testrun for 0.3.0 and fixed some falsehoods. I would appreciate other testers, of course.

If you find any bugs in the tutorial, please post here. Bugs also include falsehoods in the sign texts. If a sign would say “It is safe to fall 300 nodes deep.”, that would be a bug. ;-)


Replies!

I like that you assume I have never played a block miner game before.

If I would not assume that, the tutorial would be besides the point, because a lot of potential players could not understand it.

...
Add possibility to manually return to the starting point
...

like the command /spawn present on many servers? The one that just teleports you back to the original spawn point? ;-P

Not exactly. It’s not a command, it’s a button in the inventory menu.

[philipbenr]

@Wuzzy:

There is a way to disable cheat-jumping or sneak elevator or whatever it is. I'm pretty sure I saw it a while ago as something you could change in minetest.conf.

[Minetestforfun]

I tried your subgame, it's awesome for new players ! Good work again :)
it tooks me between 30minutes and 1 hour for read/do everything ! :)

[Napiophelios]

I havent had a chance to test this yet,
but that screen capture of the map just keeps looking better and better!

For signs and messages cant you customize/manipulate the Achievements Modby rubenwardy for the tutorials purposes?

@Wuzzy:

There is a way to disable cheat-jumping or sneak elevator or whatever it is. I'm pretty sure I saw it a while ago as something you could change in minetest.conf.

The Carbon game has the sneakglitch prevention tweak by Casimir,
somewhere in the mods/default/init.lua .

[Wuzzy]

@Napiophelios: Oh, you mean that set_physics_override. It turns out that sneak_glitch=false does not work when sneak==true. But I need to have sneaking activated, I have an entire tutorial section for that.

https://github.com/minetest/minetest/issues/1692

But I am not realy sure what you are trying to suggest here. For what exactly should I use Achievements?

@Minetestforfun: 30 min is already pretty long, whew. Yeah, there is a lot of theory in the tutorial, but actually Minetest is also quite complex and, admittedly, unintuitive. I think I add up to two more short sections: One about liquid types and short one about blocks in general.
After that, I think I won’t add more sections, the tutorial would be way too long then; Other stuff should go into Tutorial World 2, if I actually ever start this one. I will probably also rework some sections here and there.
The Mining section needs better examples. There are currently only the default blocks; what is missing are more examples on dropping stuff. Also more than just pickaxe. I think the mining section is very important.

I am still not very happy about the fact that the student can place blocks anywhere and therefore mess it up and get stuck. I really wish nodes had the property to prevent building next to them. But that’s probably not fixable at the moment, so it is not going to be a release blocker (for 1.0.0).

And if all that stuff is done, I think I will decorate the tutorial a bit and use some different nodes, maybe also some other textures. All that grayness is rather boring. But nothing too fancy, to avoid destroying performance. I know there are some nice medieval mods around there.

And after that: Cleanup: Delete dead code, delete unused nodes and textures, etc. And finally doing a last testrun.

I think that should be a comprehenshive TODO list needed for 1.0.0. :-)

[Napiophelios]

@Napiophelios: Oh, you mean that set_physics_override. It turns out that sneak_glitch=false does not work when sneak==true. But I need to have sneaking activated, I have an entire tutorial section for that.

I dont really know anything about it, I just seen a mention of it in Casimir's Carbon game.

Code: Select all

    minetest.register_on_joinplayer(function(player)
      player:set_physics_override({
    sneak_glitch = false,
 })

But I am not realy sure what you are trying to suggest here. For what exactly should I use Achievements?

I thought you needed a way to avoid hanging signs everywhere;
You can alter/edit the Achievements mod to relate messages to your players when they do specific things;
It could get complicated but you could avoid the monotonous clutter of signs at every turn.
just a thought.

[Wuzzy]

@Napiophelios: I understand. Using achievements for that seems a bit awkward. I rather use my own scripting, tailored to Tutorial World.


Now for release of version 0.5.0.



UPDATES:

• Added a new short section “Special Blocks” (shown in screenshot). Demonstates falling nodes, attached nodes and jump disablers. Feel free to suggest another special node, if it is common, part of basic Minetest and worth the effort.
• Updated section “Waterfall”. It now explains flowing liquids and liquid sources. There is also a nice switch to toggle the waterfall on and off. :-)
• New glass texture
• Deleted unused textures, sounds and nodes

I think from now on, I will not add more sections to the tutorial. I feel like now the tutorial is pretty complete.
Anything new should either update an existing section or go into Tutorial World 2, if that one will be ever made.

(Hopefully) final TODO:

• Fix Android texts, I don’t know how. If I still don’t find anything out here about Android, I just release the tutorial as PC version and change the texts for Android later. Or I let others do the work. >:-D
• Improve Mining section.
• Add dialog when collecting first and last gold ingot. (last ingot: “You’re finished with the tutorial!”)
• Do final testruns, cleanup and bughunting

[deasanta]

For the tutorial to be effective, I wish this subgame (+ world) to be bundled with Minetest. Simply because you can’t expect newbies to search the forums for that. ;-)

+ 1

+1

[Wuzzy]

My fellow Minetesters, I release Version 1.0.0.
That means it’s finished and I think it is far enough to be bundled with Minetest.

The download link is in the attachment.


I will soon announce this subgame (+world) in this thread.
If you opine that the Tutorial should be bundled with Minetest, please vote for it here:
viewtopic.php?pid=138487


https://i.imgur.com/pTf3bvA.jpg

Because this is a milestone release, I give you a guided toor through Tutorial World (15 screenshots).


Updates:

• Reworked Mining section.
• Collecting first and last gold ingots pops up a dialog. The last one allows you to stay, leave or to teleport to the “Good-Bye room”, a room with additional but optional, non-gameplay relevant information.
• Introduction dialog is now only shown automatically on the first start
• Removed some data trash.
• Fixed a lot of spelling and factual mistakes in some signs.

The mining section now has some example cubes of different materials and different drop types to test. Drop types are: itself, other block, probability-based and nothing. I think this little list is already comprehensive.
And the mining shaft from earlier versions is still there, but it has been moved and it now there just for fun and optional.
The dialogs for the gold bars are possible by writing a file into the world path. This file is created on the first start and remembers wheather you have seen these special dialogs already.



A minor bug:

• Minetest writes this in console when starting the map:
  

  Irrlicht log: Could not load texture:
  Irrlicht log: Could not load texture:
  Irrlicht log: Could not load texture:
  Irrlicht log: Could not load texture:

This does not appear on other worlds. Any idea what’s going on? Why does the log not mention a texture name? On the other hand, I could not find any node without a texture in the game.
However, this bug is so unimportant, it does not break the tutorial at all and it is by no means a release blocker.

Technical caveats:
Due to Minetest’s nature, it is not possible to easily “reset” the tutorial, that means, to return it back to the state the world was shipped. If you change something in the world, the change is probably permanent, no matter what. To truly reset the tutorial, you would have to delete the world and reinstall the fresh world file again. But I don’t plan to do anything about this by myself, I think this is an issue with Minetest core to handle with worlds.


I will soon update the initial post for this release.

[deasanta]

Looks good :) Good luck with getting it included as an option which is not a bad idea. Need a bit of help with that the level. I'm stuck. I've collected all the ladders and signs, now what?

[Wuzzy]

Collecting ladders and signs is not part of the tutorial, you are doing it wrong!
How did you even do that, they are all unminable, I thought.

You have to read the signs. If you read and did and understood everything what they said, you are done. The signs in the good-bye room are optional.
You can collect 13 gold ingots on your way, one of them is a lump which has to be smelted (also mentioned on the furnace sign). The location of the gold ingots is listed on the first sign in the good-bye room. This is optional and only a reminder to help you keep track. The gold ingots are not intended to be hidden. If you collected all gold ingots, a special dialog pops up.
Maybe I can come up with a better way to keep track of your tutorial progress. But I didn’t have any good ideas yet. :-/

You have to play with creative mode disabled, by the way. If it is on, a warning pops up.


Please explain further what exactly you did. If there is some confusion about the tutorial, I obviously should fix it.
In case you overlooked a gold ingot, please tell me which one. (Or: which gold ingots you’ve already collected [I just need the name of the station]).

[MaxPower]

I don't know how easy that would be but you should generate the world from your mod so if the world is modified you can easily restart from scratch.

I did play it a bit yesterday, very nicely done.

[twoelk]

I don't know how easy that would be but you should generate the world from your mod so if the world is modified you can easily restart from scratch....

Hm...loading the parcour as schematic into an empty world at startup? Maybe using "Dummy" as backend?

[Calinou]

Very well done, there could be more decoration and variation in the blocks used though. Also, “Right-click” looks better than ”Rightclick” to me.

Diving sign typo: “But don't stay to long in the water” → “But don't stay too long in the water”. The same typo can be seen on many other signs like Health and Damage.

Crafting Faster sign typo, missing space after a comma: “Doing so will attempt to do the same craft up to 10 times,instead of just once.”

Move the fallout teleport as high as possible, -12 is enough right now, but disable it when you're editing (in creative mode).