Difference between revisions of "Games"

Latest revision as of 12:28, 27 December 2023

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Minetest itself is not a game but an engine or platform for other voxel games to be built on top of. Minetest can run and play games, which are complete playable interactive experiences. This is considered to be one of the core features of Minetest; without it, Minetest would fall.

Introduction

Description

The general definition of “game” in Minetest is “what you put into the ‘games directory and launch from the main menu”. As such, what is called a “game” in Minetest can, in practice, be all sorts of things: It could be a game with goals, or a sandbox, a puzzle, a mix of those or something completely different. Games can be selected and launched from the main menu directly and stand on their own. Minetest further allows all such games to be extended and modified by the use of mods.

A game is extremely simple from a technical level: Internally, a game itself a collection of (pre-packaged) mods and a few extra files (mostly for the main menu images), but packaged together to provide a complete interactive experience. which can be used out-of-the-box. When a player starts a game, all the mods packaged with that game will be used.

Screenshots

To give you an impression about the variety of possible games in Minetest, here's a screenshot gallery of many games:

This is not all, though. There are many different games for Minetest, which you can browse between on ContentDB.

User manual

Using a game

If you already have a game installed, here's how to use it:

Start Minetest
On the gamebar at the bottom of the "Start game" tab, click on the game you want to play
Create a new world by clicking on “New”
Enter a world name, select a Map generator and hit “Create”
Click “Play Game”

Finding games

Minetest comes with no games by default, so you have to install some first.

The main place to find and install games is ContentDB, which can be accessed in the main menu by pressing the 'Plus' icon in the main menu gamebar. Installing games from the Content tab is as easy as:

1. Searching for the game on the search bar.
2. Clicking/tapping the install button in front of it.

Another place to find games is in the Minetest forums.

Installing games

Games installed using the Content tab are automatically set up and installed.

However when installing games manually, they usually are distributed in Zip archives (other archive formats such as .tar.gz are of course possible, too). Follow these steps to install a game from an archive:

Get the archive which contains the game
Extract (or unzip) the archive into the the games sub-directory of Minetest. The location of this directory depends on your operating system:
- GNU/Linux: $HOME/.minetest/games, where “$HOME” refers to your home directory.
- Mac OS: $HOME/.minetest/games, where “$HOME” refers to your home directory.
- Windows: into the games directory found in the main program folder in which you have installed Minetest. It is the directory containing the directories like bin (which in turn contains minetest.exe), builtin, client, doc, fonts, games, locale, mods, textures, etc.

The game should now be installed, and will be shown up the next time the main menu gamebar refreshes.

Playing on servers

You can also “find” games by just joining a highly customized server. While many servers host Minetest Game or (most likely) a modded variant of it, some servers host other games as well. Because of the nature of Minetest, every server can be unique. Joining a server is a good way to quickly explore the possibilities of Minetest without needing for a manual game installation.

Making a game

Technically speaking a game is essentially a collection of mods developed to work well with eachother, that is accessible from the main menu. The mods are put in a mods/ folder inside the root of the game's directory. For more information about what can go into a game see the Minetest API documentation.

Technical info

You also can use the environment variable MINETEST_SUBGAME_PATH to define additional search paths for games, if you would like to store games in another directory.

@@ Line 1: / Line 1: @@
 {{Languages}}
-With [[Minetest]] you can run and play '''games''', which are complete playable interactive experiences. This is considered to be one of '''the''' core features of Minetest.
+Minetest itself is not a game but an engine or platform for other voxel games to be built on top of. [[Minetest]] can run and play '''games''', which are complete playable interactive experiences. This is considered to be one of '''the''' core features of Minetest; without it, Minetest would fall.
-The default game is [[Games/Minetest Game|Minetest Game]], but there are many more.
 === Introduction ===
 ==== Description ====
-What we call a “game” in Minetest can, in practice, be all sorts of things: It could be a game with goals, or a sandbox, a puzzle, a mix of those or something completely different. Games can be selected and launched from the main menu directly and stand on their own. Minetest further allows all such games to be extended and modified by the use of [[mods]]. The general definition of “game” in Minetest is “what you put into the ‘<code>games</code> directory and launch from the main menu”.
+The general definition of “game” in Minetest is “what you put into the ‘<code>games</code> directory and launch from the main menu”. As such, what is called a “game” in Minetest can, in practice, be all sorts of things: It could be a game with goals, or a sandbox, a puzzle, a mix of those or something completely different. Games can be selected and launched from the main menu directly and stand on their own. Minetest further allows all such games to be extended and modified by the use of [[mods]].
-Technically, a game is really simple: Internally, a game itself a collection of (pre-packaged) [[mods]] and a few extra files (mostly for the main menu images), but packaged together to provide a complete interactive experience. which can be used out-of-the-box. When a player starts a game, all the mods packaged with that game will be used.
+A game is extremely simple from a technical level: Internally, a game itself a collection of (pre-packaged) [[mods]] and a few extra files (mostly for the main menu images), but packaged together to provide a complete interactive experience. which can be used out-of-the-box. When a player starts a game, all the mods packaged with that game will be used.
 ==== Screenshots ====
 To give you an impression about the variety of possible games in Minetest, here's a screenshot gallery of many games:
 {{Game gallery}}
+This is not all, though. There are many different games for Minetest, which you can browse between on [https://content.minetest.net/packages/?type=game ContentDB].
 == User manual ==
 === Using a game ===
-If you already have some game installed, here's how to use them:
+If you already have a game installed, here's how to use it:
 # Start Minetest
-# On the game icon bar (4), click on the game you want to play. (On the first start, Minetest Game is pre-selected)
+# On the gamebar at the bottom of the "Start game" tab, click on the game you want to play
 # Create a new [[Worlds|world]] by clicking on “New”
 # Enter a world name, select a [[Map generator]] and hit “Create”
 # Click “Play Game”
-Here's the annotated singleplayer menu of Minetest, in this example the user has installed tons of games:
-[[File:Minetest_main_menu_annotated.png|Main menu]]
-* 1: '''Game banner''': Usually this shows a text logo for the current game. It's “Minetest Game” in this case
-* 2: '''Icon of Minetest Game''': This is the icon of Minetest Game, the default game
-* 3: '''Game name''': Name of the current active game
-* 4: '''Game icon bar''': Each icon represents a game, click on an icon to select a new game, click on the arrows to scroll
-* 5: '''List of worlds''': Valid for the currently selected game only
-* 6: '''Basic settings'''
 === Finding games ===
-The first game you probably already have is Minetest Game. Finding it is trivial. ;-)
+Minetest comes with no games by default, so you have to install some first.
-The main place to find and install games is the [[ContentDB]] (Content tab of Minetest). Installing games from the Content tab is as easy as :
-* 1. Searching for the game on the search bar or selecting 'games' in the filter beside the search bar
-* 2. Clicking/tapping the Install button in front of it.
-Another place to find other games is in the Minetest Forums. Almost everyone who creates games posts it in the forums:
-* [https://forum.minetest.net/viewforum.php?f=15 Minetest Forums: Game Releases]
+The main place to find and install games is [https://content.minetest.net/packages/?type=game ContentDB], which can be accessed in the main menu by pressing the 'Plus' icon in the main menu gamebar. Installing games from the Content tab is as easy as:
-* [https://forum.minetest.net/viewforum.php?f=50 Minetest Forums: WIP Games]
+* 1. Searching for the game on the search bar.
+* 2. Clicking/tapping the install button in front of it.
-On other webpages you can find a different look on games if you find navigating the forums hard. Those pages are usually incomplete.
+Another place to find games is in the [https://forum.minetest.net Minetest forums].
-* [[List of Games]]
-* [https://lgdb.org/engine/minetest Linux Game Database: Game engine entry for “Minetest”] (very incomplete)
 === Installing games ===
 Games installed using the Content tab are automatically set up and installed.
-Usually games are distributed in Zip archives (other archive formats such as <code>.tar.gz</code> are of course possible, too). Follow these steps to install a game from an archive:
+However when installing games manually, they usually are distributed in Zip archives (other archive formats such as <code>.tar.gz</code> are of course possible, too). Follow these steps to install a game from an archive:
 * Get the archive which contains the game
@@ Line 64: / Line 45: @@
 ** '''Windows''': into the <code>games</code> directory found in the main program folder in which you have installed Minetest. It is the directory containing the directories like <code>bin</code> (which in turn contains <code>minetest.exe</code>), <code>builtin</code>, <code>client</code>, <code>doc</code>, <code>fonts</code>, <code>games</code>, <code>locale</code>, <code>mods</code>, <code>textures</code>, etc.
-The game should now be installed and be found at the next Minetest start.
+The game should now be installed, and will be shown up the next time the main menu gamebar refreshes.
-Now you can start Minetest and the game should have been found by Minetest. You can select the new game in singleplayer mode by clicking one of the icons at the bottom. To start playing, just create a new world and hit “Play Game”.
 === Playing on servers ===
@@ Line 74: / Line 53: @@
 Technically speaking a game is essentially a collection of mods developed to work well with eachother, that is accessible from the main menu. The mods are put in a ''mods/'' folder inside the root of the game's directory. For more information about what can go into a game see the [https://minetest.gitlab.io/minetest/games/ Minetest API documentation].
-== Troubleshooting ==
+== Technical info ==
-To help you finding the correct location, here is an example directory listing to help you make sure that the game was installed into the correct directory. In this diagram, the game directory is located at “<code><GAME></code>”. After installation, the directory tree should look more or less like this (note that some files or directories are optional, but all directories must be, if present, in the corrent position of the tree):
+You also can use the environment variable <code>MINETEST_SUBGAME_PATH</code> to define additional search paths for games, if you would like to store games in another directory.
-<pre>
-minetest/
-├── bin/
-├── builtin/
-├── (other uninteresting directories)
-├── games/
-│   ├── <GAME>
-│   │   ├── mods/
-│   │   │   └── (usually a lot of mod directories)
-│   │   ├── menu/
-│   │   │   └── (some PNG files)
-│   │   └── game.conf
-│   └── <ANOTHER GAME>
-        └── (same directories as for the game above)
-</pre>
-Note that the directory name of the game does not matter; you can even change it after initial installation. But renaming the game directory afterwards is not recommended because Minetest won't find the existing worlds for the game anymore.
-You also can use the environment variable <code>MINETEST_GAME_PATH</code> to define the location of the <code>games</code> directory, but this is usually not required.
 [[Category:Games]]