This is the old website. See minetest.net.

Minetest 0.4

TL;DR: Minetest 0.4 is awesome; see blog for easily usable packages and go on the forums to download mods. If you know how to compile stuff, go to github.

Started during late 2011, Minetest 0.4 is an ongoing (as of 2012-03) effort to bring Minetest to the next level. It transforms the game into an engine, capable of supporting much more distributed work effort, many different game projects and enabling users to customize their copies.

This is being done because Minetest 0.3 is largely a monolithic system - it cannot be modified easily, users cannot plug in their own functionality, people can't reasonably build their own projects on it; it just plain doesn't scale like we would want to. Everybody deserves better!

For the most part, Minetest 0.4 is being designed and made by celeron55 and kahrl. The first stable version is likely to be launched during 2012-04. Currently kahrl is busy doing other things, and 0.4 cannot be released before his work on the node metadata system and API is finished.

History and future of 0.4

  1. Insert Lua interpreter in 0.3
  2. Create scripting API and convert existing content to use it
  3. Upload on internet
  4. See amount of user-created content explode overnight
  5. Continue making more awesomeness.
  6. ???

What changes?

Technically, Minetest 0.4 is split into an engine and a game. Development of the Minetest game continues with more freedom, because it does not have to carry so much of the burden of the engine on itself.

In the not-so-close future, you might see more games built on the engine - time will tell!

This allows many kinds of distribution schemes, but you will always find celeron55's creations on this website. Particularly, you will be able to download new versions of Minetest just like before.

The modding API

Content for Minetest 0.4 is made mainly by writing Lua scripts. The scripts can be combined with textures and sounds to create things called mods. Ultimately you can either insert them as addons to an existing game or create a completely new game by combining them.

There is a very important speciality about the Minetest Lua modding API: All mods are run server-side. This means players can connect using the same client to any server and see whole new worlds, without worrying about downloading malicious or incompatible mods.

It also makes a simple modding API, because the modder doesn’t need to handle both sides of the networked system. It is not as flexible, but it is robust and easy. This makes it unique. More info.

Things that still need to be done

Minetest 0.4 is not complete. And Minetest 0.4 will not be complete when the first stable version is released. The stable version merely means the existing modding API will stay largely unchanged.

See roadmap and development proposals.

So what? I just want to play!

As a gamer, you can expect to have a better game at your disposal in the future. However, currently the development focus is more on the underlying engine. If the current content of the game doesn't satisfy your needs, you may want to install mods by yourself. Some documentation is available.

How do I get this thing?

There are occasional development builds on the blog. When there aren't, you need to go and download and compile the game yourself from one of the various branches on github. There are some instructions in the readme. It isn't that hard on Linux at least, but feel free to not try. :-)