Please make more games!

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Gael de Sailly
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Re: Please make more games!

by Gael de Sailly » Post

rubenwardy wrote:What is preventing you from making a game with Minetest?
For my part it's the lack of ideas, and the lack of some skills like what's about graphics and entities. Making a game requires extremely versatile skills, and very few people have all at once. To make a good project, you have to be a team.
You also need to have a precise idea of the future game very early. Ideally should be a clear and detailed roadmap, covering everything, written by the team's leader before the very first line of code. Of course it could be open to suggestions from other contributors, but needs to remain clear at any moment.
As far as I know, the only time I've seen a good roadmap for a game was for A Tome with Trials by sofar, that unfortunately was abandoned very early, due to lack of time I guess.
Mineminer wrote:Indeed calling it a "sub game" just by making "mod salad" isn't good. Now if you do take the mods and customize them for THAT subgame then I could see it better off.
Yes but customizing mods for this subgame is a potentially huge work too. Not sure it's worth to do this. For now I'm thinking that we can't end up with a really good subgame based on minetest_game.
Thermal_Shock wrote:I know the Minimal Game hasn't been getting much love for years now. Why not re-purpose it as a base for Minecraft like games?
Deciding whether to start from minetest_game or minimal is missing the point, and not only because minimal is a dev test game (which i don't see as a problem). One day, someone needs to break the ice and start a game from scratch.
Hamlet wrote:PEOPLE WANT A MINECRAFT RIP-OFF
Yeah, true. Sadly true. Many games are intentionally complete Minecraft rip-offs. It's pathetic and shameful that so many skilled contributors/developers give all their time and energy to create something that already exists, with no other consequences than providing Minecraft/Microsoft with a good reason to cry foul for having been plagiarized. No matter if people want a perfect rip-off, this is not our goal to provide it, and the players that cannot play anything else could basically leave this community and play Minecraft. They wouldn't bring anything good here.
Just realize how bored we would be if the world was perfect.

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Re: Please make more games!

by TumeniNodes » Post

Gael de Sailly wrote:One day, someone needs to break the ice and start a game from scratch.[/b]
This has been done, Inside the Box.

It seems quite a few people love CTF, as a very fun PVP game

There is MineClone2 which others seem to enjoy as an MC-likeness.

I have been working on a strictly building version, for those who love the building aspect of MTG. Striping out all of the crafting related code. But it is more of a personal hobby, and not at a point I would even attempt to lure anyone else in, until there is a bit more to offer to work off.
Problem is, my HDD fired a short while back and I was unable to extract all the work I had done so now, I have been starting over with what little I was able to salvage.
Some might think there is no use for such a version but, you would be surprised how many people like to just build and do not bother with any of the survival or crafting features.

I even have a name "BUILDing" = Build (is no game)

Super slow going as far as development. Turns out removing features can be difficult as well.

I do have a couple of ideas for other games but are on the idea of adventure/quest which may involve "some" crafting but not completely set on it.
My head is constantly spinning with ideas, but at the same time lack of certain skills prevent me from bringing them to life.
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Re: Please make more games!

by azekill_DIABLO » Post

rubenwardy wrote: What is preventing you from making a game with Minetest?
What is preventing me to do any more games with minetest is the feeling that what you do is more like a modpack and not a real game. You can't take minetest to a whole new level (well, when you don't have extreme coding skills with Lua) because the way it is make it really tricky.

Some things are hardcoded, things that shouldn't be hardcoded at all... Subgames are only 'subgames' which is a stupid name because there is no game, only an engine... You can't compile your game and give a standalone download for it. A simple way to resume that is for example: When you install a game made with Unity, do you have to download Unity? no. When you download <insert any subgame name here> for minetest what do you do? You have to install the engine, to put the subgames in the right folder (which really looks like a DIY game).

And also, minetest doesn't feel like anything. Is it a game? No, it needs a subgame or a bunch of mods to run, but many game features are hardcoded... So then is it an engine? No because the fact it is moddable, make most people think it's a game.

For me Minetest has to decide: Game or Engine
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Re: Please make more games!

by rubenwardy » Post

You can package games with the engine as a single download, and this has been done plenty (well, at least 3 times). You should remake the mainmenu which is the tricky part, part of my to-do list is making this easier. Unity does a similar thing, it provides a copy of the engine as a single .exe and then a dir of resources.

Saying "really tricky" doesn't really help much as criticism. You also don't need to be good with Lua, Lua is very easy, you need to be good with the Minetest API.

Less and less things are being hard coded, especially with the advent of client-side modding.

There is no such thing as subgames any more, they're now called games.
Minetest is a game engine.
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Re: Please make more games!

by weqqr » Post

What's preventing me from making a game with Minetest is inability to go far beyond Minecraft rip-offs without hacking deep into the engine.

Because Minetest evolved (and still does evolve) as a minecraft-like game/game engine for a long time, the existing Lua API is nearly perfect for making your own Minecraft clone. But that's it. You can't do something that isn't present in a typical minecraftlike.

Here's a rather incomplete list of things that make my game impossible to implement in Minetest today:
- Graphics are outdated. While the world is actively switching to physically-based rendering pipelines, Minetest still doesn't have simplest things like shadows or colored lighting. I know that games are about gameplay, not graphics, but good visuals are important IMO.
- Physics system is very primitive and limited. Not everything is made of cuboids. Some games need a proper physics engine.
- Lack of visual map editing tools.
- All calculations are done on the server side. This approach works surprisingly well when you're making a block building game. Unfortunately, it makes fast-paced action games impossible. I hope server-provided CSMs are going to fix that.
- Minetest doesn't support multiple dimensions without slicing the world.
- No VAEs.
- Formspec sucks. You know why.

I would be happy to help fixing these issues, but I'm afraid these changes will never get upstreamed because some of them are kind of controversial.

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Re: Please make more games!

by rubenwardy » Post

Don't have enough time to devote to making a whole game? You can still help make it happen by helping with games.

Here are some that look promising to me but need contributors or adoption:
  • pixture - has a good beginning but lacking polish and depth.
  • Hades Revisited - nice idea with fertility, but needs more mechanics to be more interesting
  • rpgtest - needs a bit of everything, including a better name and less NIH. (You're welcome to use Voxel Legends, although I'm not convinced on that name).
  • Wasted land - similar to Hades, but post apocolyptic rather than alien. Mods could be shared between the two games
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Re: Please make more games!

by Wuzzy » Post

I believe a large part of the problem is a lack of time and a lack of motivated individuals to oversee a large creative project - you need to put a lot of effort into making sure the game design is consistent, and follows a vision. Everyone has a slightly different view on what a good game is, which ultimately makes it hard to gain contributors to create features.
Heh. Minetest Game does have project leaders, it still sucks. Leadership is not a predictor of success.
What I DO agree, however is that there must be a clearly stated vision and people do have to work together, not against each other.
The real problem is, Minetest Game devs simply have no clue what they're doing. There's no vision, no project goal, no design, absolutely nothing. It's absolutely no surprise why it's such a mess.
I also believe that a lack of sharing of basic features causes issues - MTG is a mess, and makes it hard to reuse stuff in a new game. This means that a lot of the initial effort is on defining initial boring nodes, which has been done before.
Yes, MTG sucks. Why is it still the default game?
Compared to modding, there isn't as much game help available. There are no bare basic games which provide you the bare minimum to start from - just nodes, player model, and inventory.
AHEM, AHEM!

Sorry. Did you say something? :D
There is a desperate lack of artists in this community.
More or less, yes. I think this is also a political problem, mostly. Many, many artists simply do not share our values of freedom and just insist on their copyrights like everyone else.
It's much easier nowadays to find a programmer for a free software project than to find artists, especially skilled artists.
Maybe this is also simply a “marketing fail” of free software, many people think this only affects programmers (which is of course completely false).

The idea of freedom simply is foreign to most artists. The problem is not that there are not good artists, the problem is to convince them to work with us. =)
A good game needs a team behind it.
No, this is completely false. I've seen many good games which were entirely or almost exclusively made by one person only.
The entire Touhou series is entirely made by just one person. There are tons of small freeware or free software games made by one person. A good game does not need to be large to be good.
Even if you use the work of other people, you do not need to work with them directly togehter.
Just adding more people to a project does not predict success, it's also how well they are coordinated.
Of course, for really big games, a team is obviously neccessary to finish it before you die of old age. :D
Yes, teams ARE a valid way to make a game, I just wanted to debunk your claim that a team is a neccessity.
But really, it depends. Do NOT underestimate the willpower of people with a lot of free time and no distractions.
pixture - has a good beginning but lacking polish and depth.
IMO it's pretty good and very enjoyable. Depth is really the main issue here (need MOAR ores!), but even although the game is extremely simple, it's well-made. I have spent many hours playing it. It is in some areas even simpler than Minetest Game but still managed to catch my attention for long.
My only issue is that I think the crafting system has been completely ruined, it takes forever to craft pretty much anything. It's worse than Minetest's default crafting system. This is partially my fault, because I suggested to change the crafting system. :-(
If crafting is fixed, I have no objections to ship Pixture with official Minetest.
As for other polishing issues: The scrollbars are still gray, but this is a limitation of Minetest. The map is a bit weird. Apart from that, I don't see major polishing issues.
You have to keep in mind this game is intended to be simple, I don't think there will be major gameplay changes in the future. IMO Pixture proofs that even a simple game can be enjoyable. Note that simplicity can be a good thing, I think it is a great game for complete newcomers.
Hades Revisited - nice idea with fertility, but needs more mechanics to be more interesting
Yes, I know! Just have patience. :D Not just more mechanics, but also more depth, very important. The whole concept of the game is still pretty bare bones, mind you.
Wasted land - similar to Hades, but post apocolyptic rather than alien. Mods could be shared between the two games
Both games are simply not advanced enough to share pretty much anything.

I think one of the greatest games we have WOULD be Inside The Box, but sadly, this is still just a server, so it doesn't count. I still don't get why a game which is 100% singleplayer forces you to play online. It's so stupid. I hope sofar releases it as a downloadable game before they disappear forever or their harddisks suddenly catch fire. It would be a major loss to our community.
What is preventing you from making a game with Minetest?
I think the answer for most people would be simply be: “Forced to work for a day job.”. This sucks out a lot of time and possibly willpower, too.

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Re: Please make more games!

by rubenwardy » Post

Wuzzy wrote:Heh. Minetest Game does have project leaders, it still sucks. Leadership is not a predictor of success.
What I DO agree, however is that there must be a clearly stated vision and people do have to work together, not against each other.The real problem is, Minetest Game devs simply have no clue what they're doing. There's no vision, no project goal, no design, absolutely nothing. It's absolutely no surprise why it's such a mess.
My point is you need a certain type of strong leader. Minetest Game does not have a good leader which wants it to be a good game, it has one which is stuck in maintenance/please everyone mode. The leader needs to have their own vision, and not be afraid to enact it even when people complain. My point is there needs to be people with vision and time to do this.
Wuzzy wrote: Yes, MTG sucks. Why is it still the default game?
Because there isn't much better
Wuzzy wrote:
Compared to modding, there isn't as much game help available. There are no bare basic games which provide you the bare minimum to start from - just nodes, player model, and inventory.
AHEM, AHEM!

Sorry. Did you say something? :D
Neither of those are relevant, they don't help much with creating your own game. The former a help system for players, the latter a game. If the game includes useful tools, I suggest releasing them independently (like I did with sfinv)
Wuzzy wrote:
There is a desperate lack of artists in this community.
More or less, yes. I think this is also a political problem, mostly. Many, many artists simply do not share our values of freedom and just insist on their copyrights like everyone else.
It's much easier nowadays to find a programmer for a free software project than to find artists, especially skilled artists.
Maybe this is also simply a “marketing fail” of free software, many people think this only affects programmers (which is of course completely false).

The idea of freedom simply is foreign to most artists. The problem is not that there are not good artists, the problem is to convince them to work with us. =)
I agree
Wuzzy wrote:
A good game needs a team behind it.
No, this is completely false. I've seen many good games which were entirely or almost exclusively made by one person only.
The entire Touhou series is entirely made by just one person. There are tons of small freeware or free software games made by one person. A good game does not need to be large to be good.
Even if you use the work of other people, you do not need to work with them directly togehter.
Just adding more people to a project does not predict success, it's also how well they are coordinated.
Of course, for really big games, a team is obviously neccessary to finish it before you die of old age. :D
Yes, teams ARE a valid way to make a game, I just wanted to debunk your claim that a team is a neccessity.
But really, it depends. Do NOT underestimate the willpower of people with a lot of free time and no distractions.
Sorry, this was bad phrasing on my part - it's very rare for a single person to be able to make a whole game by themself, and even if they can it would take a long amount of time. One man teams are the exception, not the rule. So whilst it's not required, having a small team (2-3 people) is more affective in most cases for getting a polished game.
Wuzzy wrote:
pixture - has a good beginning but lacking polish and depth.
IMO it's pretty good and very enjoyable. Depth is really the main issue here (need MOAR ores!), but even although the game is extremely simple, it's well-made. I have spent many hours playing it. It is in some areas even simpler than Minetest Game but still managed to catch my attention for long.
My only issue is that I think the crafting system has been completely ruined, it takes forever to craft pretty much anything. It's worse than Minetest's default crafting system. This is partially my fault, because I suggested to change the crafting system. :-(
If crafting is fixed, I have no objections to ship Pixture with official Minetest.
As for other polishing issues: The scrollbars are still gray, but this is a limitation of Minetest. The map is a bit weird. Apart from that, I don't see major polishing issues.
You have to keep in mind this game is intended to be simple, I don't think there will be major gameplay changes in the future. IMO Pixture proofs that even a simple game can be enjoyable. Note that simplicity can be a good thing, I think it is a great game for complete newcomers.
The crafting system was the main reason I disregard pixture as a good candidate currently - it's completely unusable. Maybe https://github.com/rubenwardy/crafting would be useful there.

Wuzzy wrote: I think one of the greatest games we have WOULD be Inside The Box, but sadly, this is still just a server, so it doesn't count. I still don't get why a game which is 100% singleplayer forces you to play online. It's so stupid. I hope sofar releases it as a downloadable game before they disappear forever or their harddisks suddenly catch fire. It would be a major loss to our community.
I totally agree. I wrote
Wuzzy wrote:
What is preventing you from making a game with Minetest?
I think the answer for most people would be simply be: “Forced to work for a day job.”. This sucks out a lot of time and possibly willpower, too.
This is unfortunately it. I'm hoping we can find ways to reduce the time requirement, either by providing useful tools or by people working together
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Re: Please make more games!

by pandaro » Post

Why do not we change approach?
all the people here ask the same thing: more quality games.
The solution, for many of us, is to work together.
Instead of finding the problem, let's create a solution.
What is the place to meet the developers?
github?
minetest forum?
what is the place where I can choose the project to work on?
eg
I tried to contribute to https://github.com/cdqwertz/rpgtest
after some commits accepted the following ones were rejected by the Leader.
I accept without controversy, but my commitment to this project ends, as the leader himself stops contributing, and therefore the project is stopped.
This would not have happened if the project had more than one leader.
I must add that I work a lot, so I do not want to be a leader, I only need to contribute, but I want to contribute only to a project that I like, because it looks like me.

So the problem is not the lack of leader but its excess.

People who want to work, stop your personal projects and create ideas on which to work together.

I love RPGs

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Re: Please make more games!

by Wuzzy » Post

Neither of those are relevant, they don't help much with creating your own game. The former a help system for players, the latter a game. If the game includes useful tools, I suggest releasing them independently (like I did with sfinv)
Oops. That must be a misunderstanding then.

I think we already have a couple of mods to kick off game development, probably not enough? Not well sorted yet?

First, I'd like to point to this wiki page with developer tools:
http://dev.minetest.net/Development_Tools

But I think this is not what you meant. This leads me to …

Game Construction Kit
A long time ago I had the idea for a collection of mods called the “Game Construction Kit”.
This would be a loose collection of mods with low or zero dependencies intended to be dropped in new games.
This would also help to reduce redundancy, and stops trying to solve the same problem over and over again. Ideally, those mods would be written so that it you could almost always just drop them into a game and they would work instantly. Interoperability (or at least not pissing on other mods) is important.

There are some tasks which you just need to solve over and over again in games:
- Player model
- Status effects
- Default node sounds
- Inventory
- Generic/lightweight GUI improvements
- Generic (!) mob APIs
- Help/tutorial
- Crafting guide
- Sound/music/ambience system
- Crafting system overhauls
- Recurring gameplay mechanics
- Any kind of framework or general stuff to make your like easier (seriously, there seem to be a lot of small useful mini mods out there which tend to get forgotten fast)
- Maybe useful allrounder chat commands which didn't make it into official Minetest
- Maybe some simple example mods to show off difficult but interesting engine feature, good for learning and hacking.
- … and and and. Seriously, basically any “recurring task” in games should be made into a more or less useful mod

Some of these tasks might already be completed in mods, the problem is simply that nobody knows all the mods, and it is extremely hard to have an overview right now, it's so chaotic. This needs better sorting. The idea for Game Construction Kit is to highlight mods which matter to developers and sort them.
It includes mostly API-heavy mods or mods with a very generic design that they could be used (almost) everywhere and would add value to a game in a simple manner. To be part of the Game Construction Kit, a mod would have to match some criteria (like low or zero dependencies), but I'm not sure which ones yet.
This excludes all mods depending on any specific game, e.g. Minetest Game.

In the simplest form, the Game Construction Kit might just be a commented list of mods. Note I myself have written some mods which might fit into this category, see here:
https://wiki.minetest.net/User:Wuzzy#Architecture_mods

In general, I think we should encourage modders to minimize dependencies (where possible), this would already help a ton. Also, ripping out useful stuff from games is another possible method.

I would love to hear your opinion on this idea of “Game Construction Kit”.


Group Name Standardization
Another simple idea I had would be standardization of group names. We should agree on and invent some groups for common tasks shared by many games and mods. I mean extremely wide-spread stuff like not_in_creative_inventory=1. Could open a new thread for that, if interested.

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Re: Please make more games!

by zing269 » Post

I want add my support for the idea of a Game Construction Kit. The challenge I see here is keeping it on sync with the engine. Assuming that it could be maintained similarly to the way the "minetest mods" are maintained then this would go a long ways to simplifying game development. Not to mention making it easier to keep games up to date. I remember the first time I tried using the "Carbone" game and all of the leaves falling off the trees as I approached them due to a change in the leaf decay code.

I also think that there is great potential in the group concept and an effort to standardize even a small number of group names would be beneficial. Unfortunately I have found that mod authors generally ignore groups unless they are directly used by their mod. I have even run into a case where a mod author had redefined a method from a game and didn't include the original method's groups in their redefinition.

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Re: Please make more games!

by Fixer » Post

Possible reasons why minetest failed so much with the games were 1) simply not enough creative people and developers to make a large selection of games 2) too much focus on engine itself, while default game was neglected for years with modders plugging the holes. Better bet will be to focus as much attention as possible on official game or make another one alongside with "Minetest Classic" with full backing of mod community and easy entry without that MTG bureaucracy. As a bonus, add more or less finished games into a distribution.

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Re: Please make more games!

by Sokomine » Post

First of: I'm quite happy with MT as a game where you can create architecture and art. That is IMHO where the game is really great at - it allows to modify almost the entire world. Creations can be shared with others. The player isn't pressed into doing this or that right now in order to make progress. There isn't even a goal. It's a sandbox. Free play. Or rather, a canvas in 3d.

My mods usually aim at making that creative process eaiser to handle by improving the game/interface with tools. And for that, there has to be some basis. Players have to be able to obtain the things a mod adds somehow. I'm not exactly pleased if you i.e. name an object that's some form of wood my_mod:wood in one "game", otherwood:something_wooden, creativename:this_is_still_basicly_something_that_is_like_wood etc. Default provides a standard, and standards make life easier by fascilitating interaction.

I've recently seen a player on a server write signs and place NPC mobs from mobs_redo next to them in order to tell a story. Other players use writable books or even signs to tell the story of their constructions. Why not base on that? The game already allows to modify the terrain through normal gameplay. Mods can be created to change gameplay. Why not allow players to create their own small stories, quests and adventures? It's a category of games that had existed for a long time before graphics became much more complex. The components could all be there: Form the terrain, place the interactive elements, add some more or less simple code if necessary. In a way inside the box does this.

Trouble is: With formspecs beeing like they are now, the common task of letting a mob "tell" you something (by showing text) and offering on average three possible replies for you to choose from - isn't really doable. It's either fixed to some pre-set texts or looks horrible.

Apart from that, AdventureTest and RealTest are something I found most impressive. There are others with a good start as well (i.e. LOTT). AdventureTest has a nice handling of mobs and experience points/progression. Sadly it's far from beeing finished. It could become a great survival game for singleplayer and the occasional server.

RealTest is based on a mod for MC. It has nice ideas for other ways of crafting things. You have to write a plan to a paper first and put that into the joiner table or anvil. The handling of ores is also much more complex.

My citybuilder mod aims at providing something along the lines of city building games in general (Sim City, Anno series etc.). For now, it has only the general placement of the houses and none of the real balanced data such games need in order to work convincingly. There's also no mob out there that'd be able to actually turn the scaffolding structures into real buildings.

Even if there would be a way to create quests/adventures, not all players might want to create one. Still, there *are* players around which definitely try to improvise something like that to a degree (just take a look at the map section). What it takes to make some progress there is better handling of text in formspecs.
A list of my mods can be found here.

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Re: Please make more games!

by BuckarooBanzay » Post

Sokomine wrote: I've recently seen a player on a server write signs and place NPC mobs from mobs_redo next to them in order to tell a story. Other players use writable books or even signs to tell the story of their constructions. Why not base on that? The game already allows to modify the terrain through normal gameplay. Mods can be created to change gameplay. Why not allow players to create their own small stories, quests and adventures? It's a category of games that had existed for a long time before graphics became much more complex. The components could all be there: Form the terrain, place the interactive elements, add some more or less simple code if necessary. In a way inside the box does this.
I'd like to promote my missions-mod for this purpose:
viewtopic.php?f=11&t=20125

It features in-game mission-creation, for example: creating a maze with riddles to solve or finding clues from a told story...
¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Not active here anymore, contact me on the minetest discord, irc, lemmy or github (for programming issues)

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Re: Please make more games!

by Mantar » Post

Hamlet wrote:
- LGPLv2.1 general policy; no, thank you. If there isn't the will to take the "hassle" to properly give credit to people for their ideas and/or code, why should one spend her/his time - which is her/his life - doing it? I've seen softwares having "about" pages listing hundreds of names, enough said.
What does the LGPL have to do with giving credit? It doesn't inherently grant someone the right to remove your copyright on your code, quite the opposite actually -- to do so without your permission they have to rewrite the code, removing your work.
Lead dev of Exile, git repo: https://codeberg.org/Mantar/Exile

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Linxx
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Re: Please make more games!

by Linxx » Post

I honestly think you can get a bit of a hint of what the community wants from looking at the mods people use.As for me I just wish I knew how to code stuff I've been wanting to add Dwarf Fortress style mechanics to this game for some time and I'm sure someone either tried it or sugested it but can't be too sure.

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texmex
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Re: Please make more games!

by texmex » Post

Linxx wrote:I honestly think you can get a bit of a hint of what the community wants from looking at the mods people use.As for me I just wish I knew how to code stuff I've been wanting to add Dwarf Fortress style mechanics to this game for some time and I'm sure someone either tried it or sugested it but can't be too sure.
You’re right, check out FaceDeer’s work.

As for the rest, I think it’s important to recognize a game’s need for coherence in order to be immersive at all. IF a game can be compiled out of the various mods out there by various authors, I haven’t seen one game yet doing it well-integrated enough.

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Re: Please make more games!

by TumeniNodes » Post

A more important concern is... the fact that none of these 'games', are even 'games'

It is just one game, which is to eat stuff to survive, and dig for ores and craft stuff. It's all just the same thing, repeated and beaten like a dead horse, just with a different mish-mash of existing mods.

There are only two games I have seen which are actual 'games'
CTF & Inside the Box. Each has a task/goal to win or solve.

Other than those, a 'game' has yet to be presented.

Minetest is a perfect name (as many topics have been made about changing it) because you basically mine stuff, craft stuff, build stuff... then get bored and start to mod, and test.

We need games!
Co-op games, where two or more players need to work together to accomplish tasks, which become more difficult as the game progresses.
Rewards, (and not just 'oh, you chopped 4 tree nodes, now you can build a shovel')
A story could go a long way... (just sayin)

But even games with some of those things can get boring after a bit, if nothing ever changes, or more is added to hold interest.
What is really needed, most of all... is creativity.

The best thing about Minetest, as of this moment... is the servers. Places where end users can go to escape and meet up with internet friends, and just hang out... or those who like to escape by building... (or vandalizing)

The only thing which will really move the community and MT/MTG along is, new creativity, new games which are actually a game.
It can be fairly disappointing to see a 'new game' announced, only to find out it is just another MTG, with various/existing mods added... nothing new, nothing exciting, with the same exact goal... 'don't starve, or get mugged or eaten by a 3rd party mob'

There was one game a while back, where come night, a horde of mobs came after you and, I have to admit, even as an adult, it could get nerve racking..., it was done pretty well, and was fun for that aspect... because they came in large numbers.

Best thing I can think to do... is to start asking for input from end users. Of course you have to weed through the masses of those who just enjoy trolling people and destroying stuff people make, because they get a kick out of it.
That is not 'gaming' or a 'hobby'... it's just annoying.
Search for ideas from the people who will actually use the end product, and enjoy it.
A Wonderful World

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Re: Please make more games!

by Chiantos » Post

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Linxx
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Re: Please make more games!

by Linxx » Post

texmex wrote:
Linxx wrote:I honestly think you can get a bit of a hint of what the community wants from looking at the mods people use.As for me I just wish I knew how to code stuff I've been wanting to add Dwarf Fortress style mechanics to this game for some time and I'm sure someone either tried it or sugested it but can't be too sure.
You’re right, check out FaceDeer’s work.

As for the rest, I think it’s important to recognize a game’s need for coherence in order to be immersive at all. IF a game can be compiled out of the various mods out there by various authors, I haven’t seen one game yet doing it well-integrated enough.
Yeah that's true coherence should be a priority.Well it would be nice if we could organise to make 1 community game but we would need some heavy discussion going before it happens.

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Re: Please make more games!

by paramat » Post

Wuzzy wrote:
> The real problem is, Minetest Game devs simply have no clue what they're doing. There's no vision, no project goal, no design, absolutely nothing.

> The idea of freedom simply is foreign to most artists.

So much nonsense.

Rubenwardy wrote:
> Minetest Game does not have a good leader which wants it to be a good game.

I see Ezhh and myself as the MTG leaders, we certainly want a good game.

> it has one which is stuck in maintenance/please everyone mode.

Nope, we have actually added a huge amount of new stuff to MTG, especially recently, and continue to do so. You can look at commit history to see. I have added more new stuff to MTG than anyone else, and Ezhh has been the force behind a large amount of new stuff recently.

You also know that i have strong opinions and say no to things a lot, i'm the core dev least likely to try to please everyone. Ezhh isn't someone to try to please everyone either.

Fixer wrote:
> easy entry without that MTG bureaucracy

The 'bureaucracy' is there for a reason, it's what creates and preserves the quality of the code. So although MTG may be rather boring, it does have high code quality.

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Re: Please make more games!

by Xudo » Post

rubenwardy wrote:

Problem 4: Lack of Artists

There is a desperate lack of artists in this community. This impacts on quality, and makes every game feel a bit like MTG. The look and feel of a game is very important. Not just the textures, but the UI, sounds, and game design. The last one intersects with problem 1: a good project leader needs a good eye for game design, as they will be the person that oversees the direction and feel of a game
I think you will be interested in this forum thread: Attracting and keeping artists on an OSS game project

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Re: Please make more games!

by paramat » Post

Although, i must admit MTGame has very little 'gameplay' by certain definitions fo the word, so it certainly can be described as being 'not a game'. Ezhh is very good with gameplay, but is very busy, and is directing much of her effort in what i consider a more worthwhile direction.

Also, although it is primarily a mod base, it's not structured well for that purpose. Unfortunately it's difficult to restructure due to how much depends on the current structure.

So indeed MTGame is not that good at either having gameplay or being a good mod base. I feel that, although it should be maintained and improved (there are many improvements intended), it's a good idea to increasingly divert more effort towards new games.

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Re: Please make more games!

by Xudo » Post

I want to express my thoughts from point of view of potential contributor. I don't feel capable to start and maintain whole new game. Though, I am competent developer who can spend few evenings to implement something I am interested in. In this post I'll write what matters for me to start contributing anywhere. If you want to know how to get my help, then it worth reading. I'm sure that there are more people that share same thoughts as me.

First of all, project repository should be open on some public git hosting platform. Preferrably github, but if it is very interesting, then I might register on gitlab or anywhere else. I will not do any contribution if one post files in forum thread in zip archive. I will not do any contribution if you don't show any code at all.

Rubenwardy in the first post said about game design, project vision and so on. But thats very vague terms. What exactly should be made to make sure everyone pushing project forward?

As a potential contributor, I want to do something, which will actually be used. Spending evening or weekends for implementing proof of concept, which will not be merged feels demoralizing. I think that correct way to do anything is to discuss it first. Every feature should be discussed before implementation. Best place for it is github Issues page. What do I expect from discussion?

Features should be discussed like someone is ready to implement it. There should not be abandoned discussions because of "I don't think anyone will do it, so it is not worth my attention anyway". Even if noone going to implement it now. Some new contributor might appear out of your players and look for something to do.

It should be clear when some feature should actually be implemented. Maybe by scoring certain amount of votes on the first message. Maybe votes from specific people. Maybe some label. Potential contributors should know what can be done and what is not.

In each discussion every participant gives his opinion and supports it with arguments. It should be clear, which arguments are important for project and which are not. For example argument "This feature should be implemented in separate mod because it is for utility, not for gameplay". Should some feature be denied or implemented because of this argument? Other example "This feature changes balance". Of course features will do change balance. Is it the valid reason to deny feature?

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runs
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Re: Please make more games!

by runs » Post

MTG is cool. It's just the base for the games. Although I would like a better API. For example, farming is very limited and not extendable.

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