Minetest Forums

Hi, I loved the old Riventest modpack (http://forum.minetest.net/viewtopic.php?id=2399). Please read the original thread to learn something about the original.

Riventest is kinda dated for now but I have worked lot to improve it against the newer Minetest engine. So this is basically a revival effort.

The result of this is version 0.5 of Riventest.
You find it as Zip file in the attachment. I wanted to upload it as .tar.xz, but this is forbidden. -_-. Okay, if the forum operators wants to have a 50% larger file … ;-)

Overwiew
Name: Riventest
Purpose: Provides a basic set of blocks and catwalks and other decorational nodes, inspired by the game Riven. Basically a creativity sandbox subgame.
Version: 0.6
Dependencies: N/A (It’s a subgame)
Works on: Minetest 0.4.10, mapgen v6 or v7, but v7 is preferred.
License status: It’s complicated.

Screenshots
Sadly the screenshots of the original thread are gone, so I created new ones. They are taken from some of my experimental worlds where I also played around with WorldEdit occasionally; some screenshots are taken from a very old world.
Overview of all screenshots
Selected screenshots:






If you got an awesome creation, make a screenshot of it and post it in this thread! :-)

I made a lot of changes to the original Riventest. Mostly is is cleanup work and making Riventest work with newer Minetest versions again. I also added some crafts, stairs slabs and one new catwalk piece: dead end.

Here is the (complete?) list of changes I made so far (it's long!):

• Riventest is a completely standalone subgame with no dependencies
• changed the descriptions of most nodes to more memorable ones. (Example: “Riven Testnode 10” to “rusted metal block”)
• improved the node boxes
  • lampposts (node box has been shrinked to fit the lampposts)
  • doors (node box has been shrinked and doesn’t occupy a full 1×1×1 cube anymore)
• improved the selection boxes
  • decorational dagger (selection box has been shrinked to fit the dagger)
  • catwalks (selection box has been simplified to a single cuboid; this makes building a node to a catwalk much easier)
• Reworked the sounds
  • Sounds are now inside Riventest's folder, not in default's folder
  • Most sounds are simply copies of default sounds, but this may change in the future to make Riventest even more unique
  • Added sounds for metal nodes
  • Changed the sound for wooden nodes
• Added many crafts and some items
  • slabs and stairs for all nodes that don't have some kind of mosaic pattern
  • nodes can be crafted by putting two slabs above each other
  • Wooden stick out of wood
  • wooden stick door out of 6 wooden sticks
  • black metal bar out of black metal
  • user-locked door (riventest:door2) out of 6 black metal bars (this craft may change in the future, do not count on it!)
  • catwalk pieces and railings out of black metal slabs and black metal sticks (see craft screenshots in the mods/riventest/doc/crafts directory to get a rough idea)
  • you can easily change the direction of a catwalk turn by simply placing it into the crafting grid
  • All crafts are 100% Riventest-internal, absolutely no dependency
  • If you want a craft which would generate a dependency on another mod, I suggest that you don't write the code in Riventest itself, but rather on a new mod which depends on Riventest. This way Riventest itself keeps very flexible
  • You get now 6 instead of 3 slabs by crafting. (Reason: a slab is the half of a node. You need three nodes to craft slabs, so you get 6 slabs. This way you can losslessly convert nodes to slabs and vice versa)
• Lampposts can not be collected by hand anymore
• Removed riventest:flowing_water from creative inventory
• Changed the shape of stone-ish stairs to the old classic look
• You can't write a text on a decorational dagger anymore. (It is pointless in my opinion. ;-))
• Improved the groups of many nodes (eg. added "flammable" to stuff that should burn, etc.)
• some stuff added as fuel
  • all wood-like items and nodes are declared as fuel; bluewood burns a bit longer than wood
  • linking books, puzzle books and the arts can be burned as fuel too
  • however, Riventest itself provides no furnace. You'll need to load another mod which provides a furnace to use this stuff as fuel.
• Reworked the linking books
  • Linking Books now only teleport you if you punch them with the hand. Other tools may be used to remove the linking book
  • There is now a blank book which can is the base for private and public linking books
  • written linking books can not be edited anymore, they keep this way forever until they get destroyed
  • written linking books can not be collected; they just get destroyed if you try to “dig” them
  • you can only collect blank books—only those should ever appear in your inventory since now!
• Added a new catwalk: dead-end
• Added a simple menu header and icon
• Added a dummy mapgenerator full of graystone and brownstone. It is only there so at least something appears on the map so you don’t have to start with a completely empty map.

Following incompatibilities exist:

• staircase:rt4
• staircase:rt4_slab
• staircase:rt4_support (actually show the image of riventest_rt4.png, not riventest_rt10 anymore.)

Legacy aliases:

• Aliases to staircase:bluewood*:
  • staircase:gold
  • staircase:gold_slab
  • staircase:gold_support
  • Aliases to staircase:woodblue*:
  • staircase:bluewood
  • staircase:bluewood_slab
  • staircase:bluewood_support

Things to be done for the future:

• provide legacy names/functions etc. for compatibilty
• add unique sounds for wooden nodes (about 33.3% done)
• add unique sounds for stone nodes
• add a craft for the keycode-locked door
• Let linking books remember their name and their linking destination once they have been written, especially if they have been collected.
• Let the linking book's image appear black if the destination is a solid node; it won't teleport the player then until these nodes have been removed
• Add a functional Riven-style furnace
• Document all the crafting recipes
• Maybe implement a proper map generator. The current map generator is basically just a dummy for v7 and it looks buggy for v6 (Strange “holes” appear).
• Replace the “private (y/n)” field in the linking book formspec with a checkbox

Other ideas, not directly to Riventest related:

• Add functional pipes that transport water (possibly in another mod)
• Make a new mod which is a generalisation of the catwalks which does not register any node/craft/whatever and is standalone and provides only some very high level functions that other mods can use to add catwalks very easily. This way, we could see catwalks more often in Minetest.
• Add metal melting functionality
  • This can't be done directly because Riventest does not define any metal ingots.
  • Instead we could define one simple function to call for the other mods where one parameter is the name of the ingot which creates the other items out of it.
  • This should be done in another mod, as this implies a dependency

Wow O.o Really really intense. Nice work Wuzzy.

Hi, just a quick update to version 0.6. This update is basically just a maintenance and refactoring update for the new Minetest version 0.4.10.

Changelog:

• Fix broken player model (the subgame now uses the Player Model mod)
• Add a primitive creative inventory
• Mods have been refactored, so it is easier to release them as standalone mods later. The core mods are “riventest” and “staircase”, the rest is just boilerplate.

The download is in the attachment of the first post.

I have always wanted to say it: THANK YOU!
Linking books are so great that you should make them available as a mod, so that others might be able to simply add them to their maps, maybe from contentdb.
Again: thank you!

Oh, I almost forgot about this one! Well, this game is very very old, was never finished, and I don't intend to update it. I would be surprised if it still works at all, to be honest.
Yes, linking books are kinda cool, but they need improvement IMO, the interface isn't the prettiest. I don't want to turn it into a mod, honestly (other games have my attention, sorry). Someone else should pick this up. But yeah, this is a great idea for a standalone mod, but someone else has to do it. I think it's pretty straightforward to do.

I think this game should be moved to Old Games, actually, I haven't touched this one in years.