Please make more games!

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Please make more games!

by rubenwardy » Post

Introduction

In my view, Minetest is a powerful (game) engine which allows you to make your own gaming experiences. There are, however, very few games of good quality available. The majority of games I've seen are either MTG with mods or games which are unfinished, unpolished, and buggy but with interesting elements. I'd like to see more games which stray from the classic Minecraft ripoff, and have interesting gameplay mechanics and direction. Note: I'm not against crafter builder miners, just unoriginal games.

I'd also love to see games made with this engine which are then distributed separately, like you'd do with games made with Unity or Godot.

Problem 1: Lack of Project Leaders

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.

Problem 2: Reinventing the Wheel

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.

Problem 3: Game Help

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.

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

Problem 5: Lack of Team Work

A good game needs a team behind it. It's very rare to find someone with both the skills and the time to make a game all by themselves. You'll need programmers and artists, each working on different sections. Some programmers may be good at inventories and UIs but terrible at mapgen. Some artists may be good at drawing man-made objects, but terrible at natural ones.

<Meta>

The aim of this topic is to start a discussion to identity issues that stop loadsa games, and also hopefully motivate some people to make games.

Note that in this post, I avoid the use of the term "subgame". I think this term sucks - you should make games, not things that are less than a game.

What is preventing you from making a game with Minetest?
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Re: Please make more games!

by Mineminer » Post

I agree but I wouldn't "discount" spin offs as long as they bring SOME interesting game play into it. Yes a "rip off" of "Minecraft" is crap but why say something that may alike of "Minecraft" or some other game that actually provide interesting factors and such into it?

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Re: Please make more games!

by v-rob » Post

I totally agree with this. Many times, I've played Minetest and thought "I wish there was something more fun then MT Game." Then I'd go and check the Subgames section on the forums for a better game. But there simply aren't any that fit me. Time after time I've attempted to make a game, but they die before I can post them because I can't make everything properly, and I don't feel like I could get people to help me work on it. I wish that we could organize a few good games, and people could help contribute to whichever game they like according to the main game plan.

First, we need people to propose some ideas for games, then we need to form a team that's ready to work on it.
Last edited by v-rob on Wed Mar 07, 2018 00:55, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Please make more games!

by rubenwardy » Post

I'm perfectly fine with crafting survival games, but they should have their own vision and direction. Just being MTG with mods isn't good
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Re: Please make more games!

by Mineminer » Post

rubenwardy wrote:I'm perfectly fine with crafting survival games, but they should have their own vision and direction. Just being MTG with mods isn't good


I see that make more sense to me now. 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. Just like how quality "mod packs" are made in Minecraft.

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Re: Please make more games!

by Hamlet » Post

rubenwardy wrote:What is preventing you from making a game with Minetest?
- 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.

- Internationalization-resilient engine; e.g. Italian localization file submitted months ago on Weblate, but people are still downloading one year old (?) outdated locales (treated as "cc0-who-cares-if-you-spent-hours", but that's another matter) from git. When 0.5 will come out, it will be even worse 'cause until now releases have been released before translations. [sarcasm]But, hey, who cares?[/sarcasm] Not to mention ".tr" files instead of ".po" (LGPLv2.1 Vs GPLv3 issue?).

- Each and every module has been made for Minetest Game, it is already a royal pain to handle and tweak them for a MTG based subgame, go figure for a non MTG one. Sidenote, I do not think that Hamlet's Quest is just Minetest Game with mods, if so then tell me.

- Last but not least:
PEOPLE WANT A MINECRAFT RIP-OFF
Aka: "dad installed GNU+Linux, can I have it look like Windows XP?"
Have you noted those mods/texturepacks?

There should be a badge stating "Go spend those 20 bucks and buy Minecraft, now get outta here."
Last edited by Hamlet on Wed Mar 07, 2018 16:02, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Please make more games!

by mnh48 » Post

Hamlet wrote:Not to mention ".tr" files instead of ".po" (LGPLv2.1 Vs GPLv3 issue?).
I see a PO file though, where did you see TR files?
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Re: Please make more games!

by Hamlet » Post

muhdnurhidayat wrote:
Hamlet wrote:Not to mention ".tr" files instead of ".po" (LGPLv2.1 Vs GPLv3 issue?).
I see a PO file though, where did you see TR files?
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I was referring to the choice that has been made concerning i18n.
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Re: Please make more games!

by rubenwardy » Post

Quite a few MTG mods are MIT. I wrote sfinv and made it MIT for the exact reason of allowing it to be used in other games. I've finally got around to posting it here: viewtopic.php?t=19765
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Re: Please make more games!

by Thermal_Shock » Post

I think the primary issue is that it will always be easier to just throw together a pile of your favourite mods for Minetest Game in order to get the experience the subgame creators want. I don't blame folks for going about it that way. Why put in the extra effort of designing your own block building game when the pre-assembled parts are ready to go?

The only solution I can figure would be to make an effort to separate the modpacks from the more original games. Either by tagging the games in the topic title such as [Modpack], [Game], or something to that effect. The more drastic solution could be to create separate subforums for modpacks and games. There may be a bit of hairsplitting that will have to be done in order determine what's different enough to make a game. I'm thinking of games like Hades, Sudoku, or even a skyblock game.
rubenwardy wrote: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.
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? It would beat trying to work around or stripping out some of Minetest Games more oddball features.
Hamlet wrote:- Last but not least:
PEOPLE WANT A MINECRAFT RIP-OFF
Aka: "dad installed GNU+Linux, can I have it look like Windows XP?"
Have you noted those mods/texturepacks?
Honestly this is entirely correct. There's a reason Wuzzy's MineClone 2 gets as much attention as it does. People want what's familiar and already works for them.

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Re: Please make more games!

by rubenwardy » Post

What you call the minimal game is the minimal development test game. Using it as a base for other games isn't what it's intend for and doesn't make sense
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Re: Please make more games!

by Thermal_Shock » Post

Yeah I've never really seen the usefulness of "minimal development test game".

Anyway it seemed like you were leaning towards a common core subgame that potential devs could use as a stepping off point towards whatever their own goals are. The core subgame of course providing all the boilerplate nodes needed for any basic game.

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Re: Please make more games!

by Skulls » Post

rubenwardy wrote: In my view, Minetest is a powerful (game) engine which allows you to make your own gaming experiences.
Yes. Every time I spin Minecraft up again I feel cheated. And I'm not saying that lightly, because I love the Minecraft game. But it doesn't give the same options as Minetest.
rubenwardy wrote: I'd also love to see games made with this engine which are then distributed separately, like you'd do with games made with Unity or Godot.


Minetest will need better graphics or onboarding / documentation to compete with Godot.
rubenwardy wrote: 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.
This is very common in every open source / collaborative effort I've been a part of. Same kind of thing as trying to build a progression guild in an MMO. 99% of the work is done by one or two people and the rest just show up for the goodies.

In the context of a high grade Minetest based game, everyone wants to play but few will find it enjoyable to build or have the time to do it.

rubenwardy wrote: 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.
When you start getting into it, even developing a game for a very polished and feature rich platform like Minetest is a daunting task. You have to learn the APIs, build the code structures, do the design, do the art, develop the features, do the testing, and the balancing. I believe that there are so many "new node" mods out there because a lot of modders start with dreams and passion but get swamped. At least if I can crank out a new node or two I can hold onto hope.
rubenwardy 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.
This, * 1000. You mentioned Godot. I'm sure you know (but I'll mention it anyway) that Godot has really good tutorials and examples compared to Minetest. And Godot's documentation is always being criticized as being insufficient. With Minetest you can't start developing a new game without piggy backing on existing mods. There is no generic gameplay infrastructure to build on. Sure, you've got this fantastic mod and this fantastic mod, all good work, but there are incompatibilities, different approaches, too many features here, not nearly enough over there, etc. Each major mod has built up the infrastructure itself to solve that mod's problems. I'm not putting the mod developers own, you folks do amazing work. But for someone coming to do a new thing it basically means they have to build the game infrastructure from scratch.

New Minetest projects need help with documentation, tutorials, and WORKING CODE.
rubenwardy wrote: 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 disagree with you on two points. The project leader should lean on someone to oversee the overall game design and focus on overall game progress. "Mostly okay but could use some work" art in a released game is way better than "amazing art!" in an unfinished game.

Sounds and animation, absolutely. These things take time and are really hard to do "right". Oh, you increased the run speed for balance? Better fix the animations! But for regular pixel graphics, writing, design, and shear creativity I think the Minetest community is amazing. Just my observation.
rubenwardy wrote: A good game needs a team behind it.
I think this relates to the collaborative project human nature issues.
rubenwardy wrote: What is preventing you from making a game with Minetest?
Lack of working core game framework code. Seriously. The platform itself is really good but it is a struggle to get up and running. As an example I'm trying to add some mobs in which use a more utility / behavior based mechanic. Gotta write code to scan for stuff to see if the mob should pay attention to it. Okay, now I know what is around me but I've got to see if the mob cares. Could use item groups but those groups are hard coded in and inconsistent between mods. Okay, so gotta write something which fixes that. Now I've got to tell the mob to move. Whelp, the existing mod movement code is okay but an absolute jumbled mess as the mod authors had to tack on this or that over the years. So gotta clean that up but it is so intermixed you have to start from scratch. It goes on and on. If you want to get started and do something even slightly different you either start from scratch and build on the core APIs or you twist yourself in a knot and shoehorn you game onto an existing mod, there is no middle ground.

Couple the lack of starting code with the graphics, the really limited scripting language (seriously, Lua sucks at frameworks and is a major time sink for no other reason than Lua), the issues with display updates being hard linked to server ticks (CSM please save me!) and you just start to wonder if it is worth it.

I think some good, well maintained tutorials and docs would help a lot. A working generic game framework would help even more. The game engine has a good foundation, the gameplay needs one as well.

BTW I'm more than willing to help out if needed. Otherwise I'll just keep plugging away at my own thing and I'll end up writing "framework" code that meets my needs but no one else, thus continuing the chain of abuse :)

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Re: Please make more games!

by SonosFuer » Post

I have only spent about a week trying to make a mod pack but the bane of my work has been default in Minetest game. Most mods depend on it for something which makes it hard to include mods in your game unless you rewrite them or include default . . . which if you include default it kinda spirals into "just modded Minetest game". The alternative route is developing all the content by yourself which if you have a team or endless free time to blow could be doable but still not desirable. Furthermore developing the content from scratch means users can not add popular mods to the game as default is not there killing some of the popularity of the game.
Thermal_Shock wrote:Anyway it seemed like you were leaning towards a common core subgame that potential devs could use as a stepping off point towards whatever their own goals are. The core subgame of course providing all the boilerplate nodes needed for any basic game.
rubenwardy wrote:What you call the minimal game is the minimal development test game. Using it as a base for other games isn't what it's intend for and doesn't make sense
Skulls wrote:I think some good, well maintained tutorials and docs would help a lot. A working generic game framework would help even more. The game engine has a good foundation, the gameplay needs one as well.
BTW I'm more than willing to help out if needed. Otherwise I'll just keep plugging away at my own thing and I'll end up writing "framework" code that meets my needs but no one else, thus continuing the chain of abuse :)
rubenwardy wrote:Problem 1: Lack of Project Leaders
rubenwardy wrote:Problem 5: Lack of Team Work
I think I see the main problem, there needs to be something solid to develop on. Both for mod developers and for game makers. A core game that is easy to build onto encourage more people to make a game and a collection of frameworks that make the development easier. I think it should be done, a team needs put together and this needs to happen. I am not a strong coder yet but I can help, It seems like Skulls is on board.
Skulls wrote: BTW I'm more than willing to help out if needed.
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Re: Please make more games!

by pandaro » Post

just a quick opinion on this subject that is very important to me.
I follow minetest since 2012 (minetest c55).
I can write code in Lua.
I love to invent games (box games, cards, and pc-games).

I think the most important point here is:
TEAMWORK.
I collaborated on some projects (balanced annihilation above all), it worked until we were a team.
Briefly list the most relevant roles for the development of a small game:

Creator - game mechanics - supervisor;
Coders;
Artist 2d;
3d artist;
Writer of stories;
debugger (s);
server testing admin and hosting;
Translators;
public relations;
Music and sounds;
landscape designer (biome, mapgen, decoration);

I saw much projects born and perish because someone hoped to cover every role, they all failed.

Each role can be covered by more than a people, but coordinated.

The only project I consider winning so far is: https://github.com/minetest-mods. Many different people contribute to projects that do not belong to them. THIS IS COMMUNITY!

TIPS:
create a subforum for games developper.
create a system within which a user can make his skills available for complex projects, but can choose the project he likes best.
EXAMPLE:

ongoing projects:
carbon: survival, pvp, etc
hamletquest: rpg, coop, etc

Developper available
pandaro: coder lua;
dude: 2d artist;
peter: music and sound;

each project leader can contact a dev and each dev can contact a leader, if demand and supply meet then the efforts come together. It is open source

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Re: Please make more games!

by SonosFuer » Post

I really feel you on the teamwork, If I had a team helping me with my projects they would probably all be very functional but alas there is one scatterbrained person working on them which results in minimal progress and eventually abandonment due to frustration.
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It's time to start making a game RIGHT NOW.

by v-rob » Post

So, this is all very good, but talking about what we need without doing anything will accomplish nothing. So I'll say it here, right now:

Who wants to make a game starting now?

This is an invitation for anyone who has tried to make a game and failed, to those who got close but never close enough, to those who couldn't do everything in a game, to those who wanted to but never did. Please, come out and work with others to make a wonderful game that everyone will love. If you want to make a game, speak out now, here, and we can all make a game together.
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Re: Please make more games!

by SonosFuer » Post

I am more than interested, I still have much to learn and working on a project with more experienced developers would be the best way for me to do it. What is your idea for a game and lets move further discussion to another location (to not fill up this thread with discussion of a single game idea)
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Re: Please make more games!

by TheReaperKing » Post

I've been interested in making a game on Minetest for some time. I have thought about putting Minetest on Steam as well since I have two projects greenlit on there, though I'm not sure Steam is even worth it or necessary.

The roles I'm mostly interested in are: Project Management, Marketing, Website Design, Level Design, Game Design

I was the Project Lead for my previous two projects:
https://www.doom3coop.com/Coop-Doom-3-Mod.php - Doom 3 Mod Last Man Standing
https://www.sandboxgamemaker.com/ - Platinum Arts Sandbox Free 3D Game Maker

I think an interesting thing about Minetest is that so many different games can be created inside of it. Subgames I'm interested in are:
1) Relaxing gamemode with eyecandy, peaceful music and a living world with NPCs and Animals
2) Farming Living World gamemode kind of like a combo of MC, Stardew Valley, and perhaps Proteus
3) Super Hero Mode
4) Educational version - I used Minetest when I was a Computer Science Teacher and it was a great tool to help them in a lot of subjects

In addition to fun elements, I want to sneak in elements from my research, including stuff on my site at http://MikesHappyPlace.com to help people be happier and learn life coping skills.

Let me know if any of you would be interested :) I should probably start a separate thread.
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Re: It's time to start making a game RIGHT NOW.

by Skulls » Post

SonosFuer wrote:I am more than interested, I still have much to learn and working on a project with more experienced developers would be the best way for me to do it. What is your idea for a game and lets move further discussion to another location (to not fill up this thread with discussion of a single game idea)
v-rob wrote:So, this is all very good, but talking about what we need without doing anything will accomplish nothing. So I'll say it here, right now:

Who wants to make a game starting now?

This is an invitation for anyone who has tried to make a game and failed
The thingy I'm working on is trying to refine the automation in Technic, farming, building, resource gathering, and toss in some "enchantment" style enhancements and really capitalize on the grind style gameplay. One major draw to me for builder games like Minetest is the mutability of the world (you can build ANYTHING, anywhere) and I wanted to include that in entity behaviors. So, while you can go fight the beasties in the woods you should also be able to farm them or use them as a behavioral building "block" (scaring the villagers so they keep renting your from your NPC guard patrol service). Random but stochastic behaviors so that NPCs have traits and are predictable as a group. And ride-able dragons and unicorns (demanded by my kids).

An overall design philosophy I've been following is that everything has a use and most everything has multiple uses. Currently I'm trying to catalog, balance, and prune the features of existing mods to try and make a game as well as write an entity behavior framework that gives richer behavior.

My plan was to get a core bit of functionality working then share and update the wiki with a complete example. But if there is a group project going on I would love to tag along and help out. My suggestion would be to start with the goal of a working and fun to play game then refactor mercilessly into examples and a pseudo framework.

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Re: Please make more games!

by SonosFuer » Post

Skulls wrote:My plan was to get a core bit of functionality working then share and update the wiki with a complete example. But if there is a group project going on I would love to tag along and help out. My suggestion would be to start with the goal of a working and fun to play game then refactor mercilessly into examples and a pseudo framework.
If you are interested in developing a code sub game you should check out what I have done over here https://github.com/apachano/core It is still a mess but the concept is there. Maybe we could work together to put it together (Bringing that teamwork comment that was made into play). As far as projects I encourage everyone to visit the games forum, there is a thread for project suggestions if you guys have any. If you want to start a project then create a post in the wip section and add a [help wanted] tag to your post title. Be detailed in your post about what you do and don't have covered as far as development so it is easy to find projects to join that need ones skill set. For everyone who isn't interested in leading the project you know what your skill set is, go browse projects to find one you like and contribute. If you cant find a project then pm me and I am more than willing to help you get started.

Moving on

Now that we have all called to action (Sorry that was my fault) Lets look at the barriers to game development from a what do the devs / morderators need to do point of view. As a summary of what I have read,
Teamwork and Leadership Is the number one issue, we need to promote getting the community together to create content. Currently there are too many projects both in modding and game making that start and die because there is one person working on them. There needs to be a better system in place for getting people to work together to make more content as a team.
Lack of core building code, this is an interesting issue. Everything is based off minetest_game which is almost trying to be its own version of mine craft vanilla more than a base for building. There are a lack of lua-written frameworks for building content mods on.
Lack of artists. Ruben mentioned this, why is there a lack of artists? Are they not present in the community or is there something preventing them from contributing?
DocumentationWhat documentation needs added to make game development easier? What standards are not being followed that need explained better? What standards don't exists but should?
Translations I speak english and very broken Spanish so translations have never been my forte, but lets not forget this topic. It seems like there are some issues with standards and methods
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Re: Please make more games!

by Skulls » Post

SonosFuer wrote: Teamwork and Leadership Is the number one issue, we need to promote getting the community together to create content. Currently there are too many projects both in modding and game making that start and die because there is one person working on them. There needs to be a better system in place for getting people to work together to make more content as a team.
A system won't help with this. To work on a project you must share the same vision and is up to the individual. The one vision that probably will be shared is a framework for some features (mobs, abilities, whatevez) because it will be useful for many. Unfortunately to scale a framework to be used in a game you will need to ensure that you have cross feature compatibility, low duplication, etc etc. So maybe a generic game framework? But will still need to get folks to share the same overall vision of what a "game" is. That's going to be tough without money.
SonosFuer wrote: Lack of core building code, this is an interesting issue. Everything is based off minetest_game which is almost trying to be its own version of mine craft vanilla more than a base for building. There are a lack of lua-written frameworks for building content mods on.
And to call it a game you have to make sure all your mods work together.
SonosFuer wrote: DocumentationWhat documentation needs added to make game development easier? What standards are not being followed that need explained better? What standards don't exists but should?
Current, working, and complete example code.

We could start a list such as entity movement, entity path finding and movement, flying movement, detection and situational awareness, modifying blocks around a point, player ability with particle effects, player ability to enable a HUD overlay, projectiles, custom inventory, custom HUD example, player rag-doll example, area of effect example, auto-tree cutter example.

Unfortunately some of these would be pretty simple with some helper functions or a generic framework but otherwise will be very confusing to a beginner.

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Re: Please make more games!

by SonosFuer » Post

rubenwardy wrote:I'd also love to see games made with this engine which are then distributed separately, like you'd do with games made with Unity or Godot.
Ruben if you can comment I would like to ask something about this statement. How do we distribute a separate game using the engine? As far as I have seen you would need to edit the engine to do that which goes beyond releasing a game made in lua.
Working on a content database for minetest mods, servers, and etc Check it out and give me feedback at viewtopic.php?f=14&t=18137

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Re: Please make more games!

by Fixer » Post

PEOPLE WANT A MINECRAFT RIP-OFF
Yes, maybe not 1:1 exact rip-off ;)

TODO in my opinion:
a) MTG should became Minetest Classic (with paramat as its Opposing Force (λ) leader)
b) New game is created, based or not on above one, called Minetest Survival, much more open in nature, that largely incorporates "Minecraft Beta" principles. If you go back in time to 2011 and look around on servers, you will see striking similarities between both games in how people use it, it is just Minecraft had huge progress, while MTG stagnated in this MC alpha/beta mix of ideas. It will never be a 1.12, yet it can became the "Glorious Modernized Minecraft Beta alike" from those golden days.
c) based on both, simple tutorial game is included by Wuzzy
d) future/present radically different games included

How exactly Minetest Survival will look?
a) Large portion of work is already done in MTG
b) crafting mechanic, inventory mechanic, water pushing flow, boat elevators like in MCB
c) armour, visible tools in hands, tools trimmed, rebalanced, removal of redundant ones
d) hangar/sprinting - debatable
e) farming, farmable mobs with balanced infrequent drops
f) weather (infrequent rain/snow depending on biome), snowfall, ice formation
g) carts (done)
h) automation (plates, buttons, switches, wires, hoppers, basics that yet can create complex stuff)
i) instead of nether - cave/space biomes, general biomes are already there and improving in their look, floatlands are there (skylands analogue *cough*)

Purpose of the game: same as in Minecraft Beta, open ended game without end goal, no silly dragons, potions, enchanting, just blocks, mining, building, crafting, killing mobs, farming, creativity.

This is minetest server in 2011. Coincidence? ;)
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Re: Please make more games!

by texmex » Post

Thank you rubenwardy for catalyzing this discussion. The questions posed are all essential for the future of any game engine. I agree with much that has been said in regards to leadership, vision, and reinventing the wheel.

What I've been struggling with so far when poking at Minetest game making is the constant negotiation I have to have with Minetest Game.

I've tried minimal_game as base as well and I've tried MineClone2, but minimal_game includes far to little work for me to ever be able to get to implement my essential game mechanics and MineClone2 isn't built for extendability or reducibility at all.

This has left me with Minetest Game as the most viable starting point and contrary to some opinions spoken in this thread, MTG is well extendable in some parts (where my desired game features coincides with what MTG API offers). Apart from some nice extendability in MTG the project is really built like a monoith and thus its reducibility is low.

So, what is is preventing me from making a game with Minetest is that I'm still trying to make my own base by modularly unregistering, overriding, reducing Minetest Game while at the same time trying to add useful framework-like API mods extending the game engine features and APIs.

All abovementioned activities is taking energy from developing the actual game mechanics.

---

In general an issue in the Minetest community is that not many people currently drawn to it make actual game designs. That might have to do with some of the same problems I have, or it might just be that they want a solid voxel game (which Minetest Game is not) plus some mods on top of it.

Currently we have a Minecraft-like community to a large extent, a community revolving around a finished product. Since the reality of Minetest is not that we should encourage, nurture and build community around actual game design, not encourage more (as Mineminer brilliantly put it) "mod salads".

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