Non-mining/non-ancient-combat games for minetest.

[thomasthespacefox]

So many of the games in minetest focus on mining. even the space sim 'minetest Saturn' has mining at its roots.

Many devs see minetest as a 'mining game engine' but, as i see it, even with its current flaws and limitations, its effectively a 3D equivalent of a 'tilemap' engine. and a powerful one at that.

Don't get me wrong, minetest can be fun with its current selection. and don't get me wrong, PvE/PvP, mining, and building are natural choices for using an engine like minetest.

But i think there's FAR more potential in minetest as an engine than people realize.

Some Ideas
- Multiplayer Car Racing. Don't get me wrong, I know minetest's current physics basically necessitate a lua mastermind to crank out custom car physics code, and the racing framework isn't going to be easy either. But minetest is no stranger to complex systems. From Advanced trains and its complex train system that can work beyond loaded chunks, to mesecons, digilines, technic and pipeworks.
- Golf While the landscape is blocky, i think that could add its own set of challenges to this age-old game. While this could be done as a mod, and i wouldn't mind seeing it as such, taking that a step further by pairing it with a procedural course system, and multiplayer action, would be pretty compelling.
- Flight Simulator This would be a wonderful game to do. particularly when paired with some custom mapgen and perhaps some multiplayer dogfight and checkpoint action.
- tricksport games you know, proper parkour, skateboarding, BMX, etc.
- 3D adventure-platformers . Minetest has already shown its capable of using predetermined terrain in a map. take the tutorial for example. oddly, its the closest example of adventure-platformer gameplay I've seen in minetest.

Feel free to share any similar ideas in the discussion below. :)

[v-rob]

To be honest, Minetest needs more of any type of game, but as you've pointed out, the creative ones are more fun. Most people make mining/fighting games because they're easier to make seeing as there's tons of stuff for it already.

My favorite example for a creatively different game that everyone likes to quote is Inside the Box. It really is, contrary to it's name, thinking outside the box for Minetest. The reason that it's a one-of-a-kind is that it took a lot of work and most people don't have the time, patience, or interest in such an endeavor. That's why I feel that people need to work together on something other than Minetest Game. Get a team together and make a wonderful game. When people work alone, it doesn't work as well.

-- 3D Platformers

Personally, I love the idea of 3d platformers. The only things we have are parkour maps, Inside the Box, and things that are sort of like that but not designed to be. For a simple 3d platformer (I'm thinking Mario simplicity: Just get to the end of each level), it would be amazingly simple: Find/make some nice textures, do a bit of programming, make some levels, and voila! You have a platformer game.

The problem with 3d platformers and all platformers in general is that once you've finished all the levels, it's not as fun to play. With retro games, it's different because there's the nostalgia value which contributes a great deal. There has to be replay value, and I don't mean randomly generated levels. Those get, in my opinion, extremely boring extremely fast.

Also, level design is important, so levels can take a long time to finish. This is why a group of people is essential. More people work faster, and the people working in the group have a sense of excitement to see what the others are working on, and it encourages everyone to continue working without losing interest.

-- Creative Building

But 3d platformers don't excite everyone. I love being able to build in Minetest and exercise my creativity. I think that Minetest Game has a nice array of building materials, but these aren't keyed toward anything, and everyone and their uncle has mods adding more nodes to the game.

Barely any games are all creative. But that's the only thing I play since I haven't found any diverse enough games executed well enough, and Minetest Game survival is no fun after you get 5 trillion steel ingots and a few million diamonds and Mese crystals.

Part of the problem with making all creative games is that texture making is hard to do well. This is another case of the essentiallity of having teams. Some people are good at programming (me and a lot of other people) but fairly bad at texturing (me and a lot of other people). Lets face it: Most Minetest games have mediocre textures, at best.

-- My Point

The quality of games is directly proportional to the quality of the game makers. If there is a single average person working on a game all alone with his/her own specialty, the game wouldn't be as good as a cooperative team of average people that all have their own specialties. If we want any good games at all, let alone different games like you've mentioned, we need to formulate teams.

[thomasthespacefox]

To be honest, Minetest needs more of any type of game, but as you've pointed out, the creative ones are more fun. Most people make mining/fighting games because they're easier to make seeing as there's tons of stuff for it already.

My favorite example for a creatively different game that everyone likes to quote is Inside the Box. It really is, contrary to it's name, thinking outside the box for Minetest. The reason that it's a one-of-a-kind is that it took a lot of work and most people don't have the time, patience, or interest in such an endeavor. That's why I feel that people need to work together on something other than Minetest Game. Get a team together and make a wonderful game. When people work alone, it doesn't work as well.

-- 3D Platformers

Personally, I love the idea of 3d platformers. The only things we have are parkour maps, Inside the Box, and things that are sort of like that but not designed to be. For a simple 3d platformer (I'm thinking Mario simplicity: Just get to the end of each level), it would be amazingly simple: Find/make some nice textures, do a bit of programming, make some levels, and voila! You have a platformer game.

The problem with 3d platformers and all platformers in general is that once you've finished all the levels, it's not as fun to play. With retro games, it's different because there's the nostalgia value which contributes a great deal. There has to be replay value, and I don't mean randomly generated levels. Those get, in my opinion, extremely boring extremely fast.

Also, level design is important, so levels can take a long time to finish. This is why a group of people is essential. More people work faster, and the people working in the group have a sense of excitement to see what the others are working on, and it encourages everyone to continue working without losing interest.

-- Creative Building

But 3d platformers don't excite everyone. I love being able to build in Minetest and exercise my creativity. I think that Minetest Game has a nice array of building materials, but these aren't keyed toward anything, and everyone and their uncle has mods adding more nodes to the game.

Barely any games are all creative. But that's the only thing I play since I haven't found any diverse enough games executed well enough, and Minetest Game survival is no fun after you get 5 trillion steel ingots and a few million diamonds and Mese crystals.

Part of the problem with making all creative games is that texture making is hard to do well. This is another case of the essentiallity of having teams. Some people are good at programming (me and a lot of other people) but fairly bad at texturing (me and a lot of other people). Lets face it: Most Minetest games have mediocre textures, at best.

-- My Point

The quality of games is directly proportional to the quality of the game makers. If there is a single average person working on a game all alone with his/her own specialty, the game wouldn't be as good as a cooperative team of average people that all have their own specialties. If we want any good games at all, let alone different games like you've mentioned, we need to formulate teams.

I agree! We need more teamwork! And hopefully having several team-driven games will avoid the mess of ideas minetest game has turned into. (All due respect to the minetest game team, but IMO, one-size-fits-all rarely fits anything right...)

[ShadMOrdre]

So yes, yes, and .... yes?

Group effort. How many of us are willing, have the time, and will actually work in tandem and on schedule?

Game variation. This is easier than we think. This is harder than we think. The coding, culling mods, putting it all together, and even spitting some polish on it isn't that difficult. *(I've done some work on this front, in depth. I know texmex has done some significant work towards some of this, and I don't even know what he's actually up to. There are others who've tried, others who've succeeded, and still others who may have just been lost to time. Can we pull them together, work together, and make it all worth our efforts. Not just in game play, but maybe even in a bigger picture. MT, if it is to survive, as any other project, will need to become an official organization. Even some of the other OS game makers have fallen by the wayside, because they cannot retain talent in the onslaught of paid work. This really will need to be monetized, someway, somehow, in spite of the virulent yet false assumption that MT should forever live, despite being a voluntary effort of a few, who are mortal.

[Red_King_Cyclops]

I agree with everything here. Minetest needs more games in general and more unique games. There should be a thread for discussing game ideas to assist game making.

Edit: a game ideas thread already exists.

[ShadMOrdre]

I had previously used Dokimis' War mod to create a generic 3D shooter. I'll get that posted in the game section sometime later today.

Shad