Minetest

November, 11th 2024 - 15.4 MB - Open Source

Latest Version

Minetest 5.10.0 LATEST
Review by

Jack Taylor
Operating System

Windows 8 (64-bit) / Windows 10 (64-bit) / Windows 11
User Rating

Click to vote
Author / Product

The Minetest Team / External Link
Filename

luanti-5.10.0-win64.zip

Minetest is a free and open-source alternative to the popular multiplayer sandbox simulation title Minecraft, offering users access to creative gameplay features such as exploration, resource gathering, crafting, the building of structures, and an untold amount of emerging gameplay options that can appear during free flow online gameplay.

The game mimics a wide variety of features present in the original Minecraft title, only here, players are able to enjoy the world of Minetest for free, without the restrictions placed by distant dev teams.

Like the original title, Minetest can be played in multiple gameplay modes, and can be experienced in both offline solo and online play.

Main features

It was built from the ground up by the open-source focused Minetest Team of developers who have strived to provide a robust alternative to Minecraft without compromising on any gameplay element this influential game was introduced to the market in now distant 2011.

The voxel game includes both free-flowing exploration mode, survival mode, online cooperative game, and support for truly enormous maps that are 62,000 × 62,000 × 62,000 blocks in size. The functionality and visual presentation of the game can easily be enhanced with a wide array of community-created mods (such as high-quality texture packs).

As of early 2024, Minetest features an online library of over 2000 community source mods that are focused on game elements such as UI, combat, inventory management, game economy, sounds and music, online play, weapons, armors, the introduction of new minigames, and much more.

The open-source development approach has enabled players to take direct control over all aspects of this title, with built-in support for LUA API, several map generators, and access to the full open-source database.

PROS

Multiplayer functionality
Stunning game graphics
Lively and vivid color palettes
Soothing and calming gameplay experience

CONS

Multiplayer interactions may result in glitches
Absence of animals in the game
Repetitive gameplay mechanics
Limited interactions with in-game elements

Overall

Minetest is 100% FREE and can be played on all modern versions of Windows OS. Due to its simple visual style and optimized rendering, it can easily be enjoyed even on PCs with aging components, including old laptops.

Download Minetest Latest Version

What's new in this version:

Deprecations and compatibility notes:
- Minetest is now called Luanti
- The game executable name has changed, thus custom links and scripts might need maintenance
- Any minetest.conf files remain compatible (naming yet not changed)
- For Unix: $HOME/.minetest/ remains used for system-wide installations (naming yet not changed)
- Mods may use the core table instead of the equivalent minetest. (see lua_api.md)
- OpenGL ES 1.0 (ancient) is no longer supported. OpenGL ES 2.0 will be used instead
- (basic) shaders will eventually become a requirement. A warning is shown if they are disabled

Client / Audiovisuals:
- Added a workaround to fix shader errors on buggy Intel iGPU drivers on Windows 8.1 and older
- Fixed Post Processing with the ogles2 driver
- The main menu server filter / search box now filters more intuitively
- Touch controls are now enabled/disabled based on the used input device
- Main menu: redesigned ContentDB tab
- Improved texture pack compatibility when using the [mask modifier
- More fancy shaders
- Server-controlled bloom shader API
- Follow-up fixes
- Fixed sound mute on macOS
- Improved formspec scaling
- The minimap is again scaled proportional to the screen size
- Improved distinction of touch-related settings
- UI scaling settings and touch input are no longer tightly tied together
- Transparency sorting now works more reliably
- Can be disabled entirely with transparency_sorting_distance = 0
- Setting for debugging purposes: show_block_bounds_radius_near
- Windows touch controls are no longer enabled because they exist
- Setting smooth_scrolling to disable smooth scrolling
- Touchscreens/Android: Button bar replaced with a grid menu for easier access
- (IME candidate list in Windows) - inactive: requires a USE_SDL=1 build

World / Server / Environment:
- More fine-grained control over anticheat by settings
- "Access denied" strings may now be translated
- Setting server_announce_send_players to hide the player names from the public server list

Script API / Modding:
- Gettext and plural support for client-side translations
- Option to calculate the scroll container size automatically
- Player controls API now supports joystick inputs
- 6 textures support for drawtype = "allfaces*" nodes
- ABM without_neighbors field
- Death formspec can now be customized
- Bulk LBM support
- Players can now be requested to rejoin on kick
- Static glTF models and animated models are now supported
- The hotbar is now mod-customizable
- core.get_server_status and core.privs_to_string are now sorted
- Overridable HP and breath logic, see ObjectRef:get_flags
- Fix animations not being restartable
- core.close_formspec (and equivalent) no longer throw incorrect deprecation warnings
- Object observers API
- This allows mods to selectively show entities to certain players

New functions:
- core.ipc_(cas|poll) for async communication
- core.bulk_swap_node
- core.colorspec_to_table, core.time_to_day_night_ratio
- vector utils
- core.is_valid_player_name
- vector.random_direction
- table.keyof
- Fixes related to ObjectRef lifecycles and crashes caused by attachments
- Various script API documentation improvements

Misc / Maintenance:
- Lots of renaming work
- Server + client build targets will now build faster
- Tracy profiler support
- Many cleanups and performance improvements
- Network improvements
- Compiling/build improvements and fixes
- devtest game improvements
- Various crash/sanity fixes