Breaks fresh up-to-date Mineclone and Mineclonia worlds for me on 5.8
Whether I create a world in Mineclone or Mineclonia, as soon as I enable this modpack and try to load it, the world will crash with an error, says sounds do not exist anymore or something. Extremely weird, what's worse is that after I disable the modpack, the world won't load.
Difficult Inside the Box-like puzzle with time travel physics
This is a discovery/parkour puzzle, with time travel and time modification. This runs similar to a very difficult Inside the Box entry, for those who have played those - it even looks exactly like one! Finding and recovering artifacts is hard, and there aren't a lot of hints, so you've gotta think outside the box :) As a general hint, you need to try to toggle between past and present to get to locations and find objects, but also, modify the present to find some (a lot) of them. Plants grow over time, so they can help you climb nodes or break nodes as long as they don't get destroyed in the timeline. There aren't a lot of sounds, and the background music got a bit annoying, so I just muted the game.
You can't timetravel if a node is going to be at your position in the new time. But you can get around that (usually) by sneaking to the edge of a node and then time travelling - maybe a bug. It helped me to figure out what positions were going to be viable through the timeline though. Most of your time is going to be spent modifying the timeline with plants, because just time travelling won't get you very far.
For how much effort this puzzle was to solve, I was almost expecting a resolving ending, but the ending didn't make sense to me and didn't feel complete. After the end scene, I was teleported back to the castle to see the same entities, which confused me further. If this counts as unexpectedness, I guess the author gets points. I haven't found all the artifacts yet, they're just incredibly hard to locate and recover!
Despite some shortcomings, this is one of my favorites in the Game Jam, and I hope it continues to get development. It's a really tough puzzle with amazing logic and physics, and I like tough puzzles. :) Recommended - but don't give up easy or this game isn't for you!
I used this library for my entry to the Minetest Game Jam 2023, which I sadly didn't finish in time.
Its really nice honestly. APIs are powerful both for minigames and external stuff (see the stent mod MisterE made for my entry!), arena editor is really easy to use and can be customised by your minigames.
Documentation is really good too.
I will definitly use it next time 🙂
What I think could be improved:
Arena properties doesn't handle real vectors (vectors.new). When you define them with code it works but it doesn't from the arena settings editor; the property is handeled as a table with displayed keys order not matching the xyz order and converted as a regular table instead. There is the return (expression) syntax but it's run in an empty global env and would look ugly anyways. I think the mod should check if the initial setting in arena definition is a vector with vector.check and have a special GUI to edit those in arena editor settings.
I would also love having LuaLS typing annotations (or headers) since it greatly improve developer experience, but it would require this Minetest issue anyways.
Another incredible game by Wuzzy - The storyline is great, the assets and textures are great, and it has a unique feel that makes the game fascinating. The sounds are awesome. Although this doesn't compare with Glitch for me (which is my personal favorite Minetest mini-game at the time of writing), this is entirely different, focusing on defeating darkness with weapons, skills, and collectables.
The mechanics are pretty simple at first - find vases to get healing essence, and kill mobs to get shadow fragments, then upgrade at your local campfire. The strategy that works best seems to be running mad until you find a house with some amount of protection - then you can kill lots of mobs, gain shadow fragments, and upgrade at the nearby campfire. Unfortunately, I think this bypasses a lot of the fun of the game, which may have been geared more towards exploration, but it's often instead dodging mobs wildly and harvesting them in arbitrary ways. Light crystals are pretty rare, you've got to look for them hard! You need three of them to break the barrier which will eventually lead you to the boss. As the game progresses, it goes from a collecting game to a exploration game, looking for the answers and the boss, and exploring pretty amazing places (all the meanwhile dodging mobs). Once you've got most of the upgrades, you won't have so much trouble with the mobs, but you'll still have to run. The boss is super difficult, and it took me a few tries to defeat him. Keep yourself moving as much as possible and keep throwing light.
As for unexpectedness, I can't really say I was too surprised by anything in particular - Despite that, this is my personal pick for best game of the 2023 Game Jam, and I hope it wins, because it simply feels the most complete and polished of all the games, despite the mobs :-)
What if, instead of a mad scientist as the villain of a game, you had one as the developer?
Looking at the scope and design goals of this project, it feels like it really should have the "Joke / April Fools" tag. Looking at the actual execution, it becomes obvious that it really should not.
The Boom game, in particular, seems to be a complete software-rendered 3D game implemented in typescript, transpiled into Lua, and rendering to [png: texture modifiers; the fact that it actually runs at all on my laptop from 2012 is amazing. Bit's Battle demonstrates that it's not just pure tech demos that run in this environment, but games with actual gameplay and progression, albeit only a rudimentary amount as implemented so far.
To enjoy this "game" to the fullest, it helps for a player to understand the spectrum of games that have been created in Minetest, and understand how much this is abusing the game engine to make it possible. It feels like something in the same spirit as arbitrary code execution in NES games. Rather than being "immersed" in the experience, it sort of demands that you remember that this is all running inside Minetest. There's not a ton of depth and it won't keep you occupied for hours (especially if it crashes MT in a few minutes; I don't know where the "B" in "BOOM" comes from, but I know where the "OOM" does) but it's a spectacle worth witnessing.
Well-executed, with good variety, for a short game
This is a very balanced and well-executed game. It has a well-written story, variety of gameplay elements and areas, fits the theme, and seems to suffer from no major bugs or breakages.
The main annoyance I ran into, that made it hard to complete the game without resorting to cheating, is how unforgiving the parkour sections are, especially considering the level of movement jank in Minetest. It was hard to get my momentum correct client-side but lock in server-side, even with the short network path for singleplayer. Something like allowing you to set restart checkpoints by standing perfectly still for a few seconds would have been more fair, without sacrificing the challenge for people who want to speed through.
The projectile combat also felt a little sluggish, though this may just have been my bias coming from other games with faster-moving projectiles; given the movement speed of the enemies, it didn't feel unfair or anything. I didn't have enough health supplies for the boss fight, but apparently the only consequence for dying is injury to my pride, so you can still make it through even if you didn't plan well enough.
I didn't find the plot twist all that surprising, but the evolving gameplay supplied enough intrigue to keep me interested through it, and the story was at least not a distraction, and gave the gameplay a sense of structure and meaning.
Players should expect to need some patience for the parkour elements (especially with MT's imprecision) but the momentum-locking mechanic makes those still worth experiencing, and the game overall is enjoyable in a single sitting, and for replay value you can speed-run it.
Great concept, lots of potential, but questionable playability
I've been toying with the idea of a "video game without the video" for a while now, and it's great to see somebody actually attempt it. I love the ambition of the concept. It might just be a bit much to try to make it work as a sandbox game during a game jam timeframe.
Unfortunately, while a human has potentially dozens of senses (sight, sound, touch, smell, taste, balance, body position, temperature, passage of time, etc) on a computer you mostly just get sight and sound, and losing sight is harder to compensate. Without a sense of balance or body position, it's hard to tell when I'm looking at the horizon, or when I just fell down a hole, or about how far. Without touch, I can't tell if the crunchy-sounding stuff I'm touching is sand, gravel, or dirt. The use of "synesthesia particles" is a pretty good way to translate at least some of the missing senses into the unused visual medium, but it really needs to expand to cover more senses. In particular, when I'm working without a sense of sight (reaching deep into a machine to find a broken part) I rely on touch, not just to sense obstacles, but feeling textures, shapes, temperatures. More missing senses need to be recreated in some way to know what it means when I poke something and it sounds like a drum.
I'm not sure I can recommend this to a player yet. It was a bit intriguing wandering around and getting lost in a cave but now I think I'm stuck. It definitely feels like a project whose development I want to get involved in, suggesting, experimenting with, or contributing some ways to recreate the missing senses ... but for those not developerly inclined, it's one I'd watch for future updates rather than expecting much right now. I'm definitely looking forward to when it reaches the tipping point where I can change my neutral review to a positive one.
Also, the "no sense of sight" game being one of the few to actually feature a gameplay video was entertaining.
This game has literally nothing to do except pushing a lever. But then there's this chat simulation... and it was so amusing, the game suddenly seemed to be well worth the time. Somehow, despite no gameplay, this is actually pretty fun. And the textures are great, IMO. I debated with myself whether I should really recommend a game with absolutely no gameplay that doesn't even feel like Minetest material, but this is simply the most amusing game I've seen in the Game Jams. Recommended - it won't take you long to win (or even lose :-) ), it's worth a download.
I... don't know what to do. I "looked" around, clicked on some nodes (also, the HUD is broken) and I guess there are secret things to find in the dark (I've also read the description now). But I can't find them nor I felt intrigued, so after 5 minutes I quit the game.
Fairly complete parkour/maze game, with a plot twist at the end!
You need to recover a crystal and bring it back to it's origin to light up the world again. This is a parkour/maze/combat game in one, which is easily finished, but it's a lot of fun to play and feels mostly complete. The gameplay and characters are pretty good and the music fit well. The plot twist at the end was very unexpected and caught me totally offguard - I only barely survived because I hadn't farmed the health powder enough earlier on, I just jumped over the ants many times. The wand is completely intuitive: The "Orange" function of the wand makes you glide in the vector that you are travelling in for a limited time, the "Blue" function gives you the ability to throw blue damage balls at enemies, and the "Green" function shrinks you. Once you get the hang of it, you can solve the levels somewhat proficiently: it does take some time to get used to it though. My main complaint would be that it felt a bit short - I completed it in 30 minutes, but it felt like it could use a few more levels that explain the theme better. For a short playthrough, this game is fantastic - recommended.
I appreciate how the author wanted to experiment but at the same time I wouldn't feel like recommending it either. It's basically chess with unexpected things happening on the board (e.g. pieces swapping), so your skill doesn't really matter much. I also think that games like chess work better through an UI rather than having an in-world representation with the player floating around to move the pieces
Its too random, the concept didnt have enough time to mature
It looks so good, but there is this huge problem: dominating part of gameplay is combat, the least polished part of the game. Mobs are not dangerous, they are annoying at best, mostly boring. It does feel like mobs are in the way of exploring, because of how basic and useless they are in comparison to how good environment looks. Shooting and hitting a target is not fun at all, does not feel rewarding at all. I would rather have either less enemies and more platformer stuff, or I would absolutely make the most dominating part of the gameplay the most fun
It started nicely with the introduction (albeit a bit too long) but then it immediately becomes frustrating with the wand mechanic. It's not intuitive, and starting from the begininning of the parkour area every time you fail doesn't help. I wasn't encouraged to continue after a few tries. Also, I don't understand how it fits the jam theme "unexpected"
The beginning is so dark I can't even see the vent I'm supposed to break through
Like, I can't play. I had to do /grantme all and noclip myself out of it to actually understand what was happening. Turning on as much as I could the brightness of my screen didn't help. If I can't move the first step in the game, I can't play the game; which is a huge problem.
The author was able to pull off an entire barebone OS, with not one, not two, but three games in 21 days. And one of those is in 3D (!) allowing multiple instances to run together (!!!). The vibe of this "OS" is definitely nostalgic, helped by the old machinery sound effect and the launching sequence.
You probably won't believe it until you try it, so make yourself a favour: download it and be ready to be mindblown (beware: if you're a modder, the mindblown effect is doubled, as you want to know how in the world the author was able to do what they did)
P.S.: I'm definitely keeping this one installed, I want to see what could bring in the future (but please add a game icon :P)
The only thing you can do is break the map. You can't even die if you fall outside the map, remaining stuck.
I get that this is unfinished (the author put a huge disclaimer here on CDB now that I notice) but it's not an excuse to avoid being reviewed for the jam. It's literally a small map where you spawn with a couple custom models; nothing else.
The game started nicely, you can definitely tell the author tried polishing the experience as much as he could. However, once the "real" gameplay starts, things start not fitting together anymore. Infinite monsters preventing you to explore in depth, dialogues being displayed whilst fighting, a grind mechanic that it almost feels like a chore (too many collectibles): after the first death I didn't feel encouraged to continue and see what was coming next, which is a pity.
Also, I don't understand what's the "unexpected" part ("unexpected" is the theme of the jam this game is competing in)
Considering this was made for a jam where the theme is "unexpected", I think this little trolling game is pleasantly coherent . Contrary to other trolling games that made it for the jam (also previous jams to be fair), this is actually curated. It's fun, stupid, soothing (the keyboard sound is basically ASMR) and the author is well aware they're not making an AAA game with several features, turning that into their strength. They prove that you don't have to develop something gargantuan to actually deliver a good game and that small things matter. Personally I prefer something that makes me chuckle multiple times and that lasts 5 minutes rather than a game that lasts two hours and that doesn't communicate much
Very cool operating system, but not a lot to do with it
There's simply not enough 'gameplay' for this to be worthwhile yet - the mini-games included are cool, but are repetitive and aren't going to keep you interested for very long.
Ideally, the ability to create programs and coding IN the operating system would make this a very entertaining game for computer geeks. But as it is now, it's basically a rad-looking interface that doesn't actually serve any purposes (except the mini-games maybe).
Side note: Digiline touchscreens from the digilines and digilinesplus mods can create a real operating system that can actually be modified by the client, if you work hard enough at it!
I can't give a negative vote because, if we consider the author had 3 weeks to make a game, this is definitely a solid concept. The core idea of time travelling is well executed, there is a good attention to details (music, graphics, NPCs to talk with), yet I find it very frustrating gameplay-wise. The only instructions are given by opening the inventory, and it requires an important amount of patience. I think that with some tweaks here and there it could become way more enjoyable. Chapeau for the 4D exploration :)
True that the bot is alternatively gifted, but that's totally ok, it was still fun because of unexpected swaps and what not. Maybe you can't plan too much like this, but its like having a new puzzle setup every few turns.
Seriously didn't expect that these mechanics which are basically game-breaking for chess will make for refreshing fun gameplay
Classic Tomb Raider in 4.5D, incredible concept, tolerable jank
A mix of maze exploration, gentle parkour, and puzzle solving gameplay in a world with free travel across more dimensions than you thought you were getting when you opened the box. On top of the 3 spatial dimensions, not only do you need to travel across time to navigate the citadel, but you need to change the past and create alternate timelines.
The gameplay is well executed, given how ambitious the idea was and the tight timeline. It's rough around the edges and there are minor bugs galore, but the core seems to be intact, and the gameplay is well thought out and reasonably balanced. The setting, storytelling, and atmosphere all work together well, and the plot twist fits the jam's "unexpected" theme, as does the surprising depth of mechanics.
To navigate the extra depth and complexity of the game, players will need to bring a measure of patience and keen perception. The deceptively small size of the game world in 3 dimensions hides a surprisingly intricate maze of paths across time and possibility. Expect to spend a lot of time looking for subtly hidden treasures, and trying to fit an image of the citadel superimposed across a handful of different eras in your mind.
Things that aren't obvious bugs but I'd still like to see include reducing immersion breaks (diagetic guidance, and the entire inventory screen is unnecessary), a bit richer in-world sound (footsteps! maybe voice acting...?) and some accessibility improvements (fixes for HUD/GUI and font scaling settings, translations).
I'm excited to hopefully see more developer attention on this game in the future, to clear away annoyances and distractions and add the shine and polish it deserves, and hopefully the community will rise to the occasion with play testing, bug reports, and pull requests.
This is not a game, and doesn't have any gameplay - but this could be a very interesting mod in the future if properly assembled!
Effectively, this is a proof of concept for dynamic mapgens, but there are only two choices for what is to happen to the mapgen, and a block modifier actively changes the world based on your choice. It's cool, but it's very useless.
If you're looking for a way to customize your world's biomes (among other things), try Josselin's mod Unilib. It's powerful, easy to modify, and supports (by containing) over 200 minetest mods.
As mentioned in Zughy's review, this is effectively a 3-step tutorial with some funny credits, and the textures aren't exactly glamorous either. As it is currently, it's not worth your time, other games will check wisdom better!
Didn't expect to see a Chess game in this year's Game Jam, that's for sure! This is the most polished chess implementation I've seen yet in minetest and proved to be a lot of fun. Normal chess rules are all here, unlike the other minetest implementations: en passant logic, three-fold repetition, and correct castling! Only one thing I didn't notice was the 50-move rule, but that's not really necessary in a minetest subgame. I would absolutely love to see a Fischer Chess implementation in this game (with proper castling) someday :) Multiplayer chess is pretty cool, but it really needs timers to be at it's full potential, since your opponent can just stall forever. I think it would improve the game a lot if that was added.
The bot itself is OK and interesting to play with, but it's not very smart and could use a lot of work: it is extremely materialistic, and simply can't see most checkmating attacks and pin attacks. It makes decent, solid moves in the opening, but if you set up a decent attack against it, you've basically won the game (Also, it always picks the same opening, which is a little dissapointing). It will usually always take material over a decent defense, which means that if you find tricks in the position, you're going to have a very high success rate. The bot also, most of the time, can't convert winning positions: even if the bot has many pawns and pieces and all you've got is a king, it still somehow manages to find a way to repeat moves and end in a draw. It can definitely win though - if there's a checkmate in immediate sight, it can usually find it.
The unexpected changes to the board were pretty awesome to play a game with, although they could use some highlighting, as I had to search the board for what happened many times. Maybe a 3 second highlighting of the affected pieces would improve the gameplay.
Overall, I really enjoyed this, and I think it's currently the best minetest has to offer in terms of chess.
Saving the world doesn't require solving the puzzles, sadly
I can't bring myself to give this a positive recommendation, despite how much I like the assets and storyline. It's vaguely backrooms-y and the darkness combined with the textures and robots is mildly terrifying. Every time you exit the game and reload, you save your progress but you have to go through the same intro again and lose your old position. Not a big deal though. The problem is that there is simply not much gameplay - the robot control panels are awesome, and solving the robot puzzles was quite entertaining, but they don't actually unlock anything or serve any purpose at all. Your job is simply to get a "robot_2" in a short amount of time, which looks like a black tank, and to find the exit door and right-click on it. This can be done in less than 2 minutes if you're into speedruns, and I know because I tried :) There's also certain places that if you fall into, you won't be able to get out. All the puzzles work, you just need to use the NE/NW/SW/SE direction indicators.
Some more sounds are needed, as there appears to be only one sound during the course of the game (when you finish the game), and making the puzzles actually unlock sectors or switches would be satisfying and justify solving the puzzles! I see there are also some empty rooms on the map, which may have been part of the story, but weren't completed in time(?) - this game is probably still a WIP, so I'm excited to see what will become of it.
Nice experiment, but I wouldn't define it a "game"
I understand it's a proof of concept, and it actually creates a very nice effect - I mean walking around whilst the world around you changes - but there's nothing else to do. It seems more like a mapgen mod showcase than a game, hence the negative vote
I looked in the code to see if I missed something, I tried not following the instructions seeing if something different was happening but it doesn't look like so. The main menu music created some expectations but what I found in the end was a click and walk tutorial with funny credits. Too bad
There is literally nothing to do nor to see. The author just wanted to troll a bit for the 2023 jam. It was kind of fun and unexpected (which is the theme of the jam) but... c'mon :D
It's hard to balance content and mechanics for a short minimalist game. But this game does not feel unfinished, it feels exactly minimalist, and its made with very simple tools into fun platformer, and it does not seem that something is missing or this game has to be much more to be enjoyable. This game nails it.
I like this demonstration of just how much Minetest can be abused, but there isn't really anything to do; all the "games" become pretty boring pretty fast.
Usefull
its nice for a server or you can use it as hime
Nice
nice for a server with rolles
Nice mod
it is usefull for new players.
Breaks fresh up-to-date Mineclone and Mineclonia worlds for me on 5.8
Whether I create a world in Mineclone or Mineclonia, as soon as I enable this modpack and try to load it, the world will crash with an error, says sounds do not exist anymore or something. Extremely weird, what's worse is that after I disable the modpack, the world won't load.
Difficult Inside the Box-like puzzle with time travel physics
This is a discovery/parkour puzzle, with time travel and time modification. This runs similar to a very difficult Inside the Box entry, for those who have played those - it even looks exactly like one! Finding and recovering artifacts is hard, and there aren't a lot of hints, so you've gotta think outside the box :) As a general hint, you need to try to toggle between past and present to get to locations and find objects, but also, modify the present to find some (a lot) of them. Plants grow over time, so they can help you climb nodes or break nodes as long as they don't get destroyed in the timeline. There aren't a lot of sounds, and the background music got a bit annoying, so I just muted the game.
You can't timetravel if a node is going to be at your position in the new time. But you can get around that (usually) by sneaking to the edge of a node and then time travelling - maybe a bug. It helped me to figure out what positions were going to be viable through the timeline though. Most of your time is going to be spent modifying the timeline with plants, because just time travelling won't get you very far.
For how much effort this puzzle was to solve, I was almost expecting a resolving ending, but the ending didn't make sense to me and didn't feel complete. After the end scene, I was teleported back to the castle to see the same entities, which confused me further. If this counts as unexpectedness, I guess the author gets points. I haven't found all the artifacts yet, they're just incredibly hard to locate and recover!
Despite some shortcomings, this is one of my favorites in the Game Jam, and I hope it continues to get development. It's a really tough puzzle with amazing logic and physics, and I like tough puzzles. :) Recommended - but don't give up easy or this game isn't for you!
Good Mod!
I used this library for my entry to the Minetest Game Jam 2023, which I sadly didn't finish in time.
Its really nice honestly. APIs are powerful both for minigames and external stuff (see the stent mod MisterE made for my entry!), arena editor is really easy to use and can be customised by your minigames. Documentation is really good too.
I will definitly use it next time 🙂
What I think could be improved:
Arena properties doesn't handle real vectors (
vectors.new). When you define them with code it works but it doesn't from the arena settings editor; the property is handeled as a table with displayed keys order not matching the xyz order and converted as a regular table instead. There is thereturn (expression)syntax but it's run in an empty global env and would look ugly anyways. I think the mod should check if the initial setting in arena definition is a vector withvector.checkand have a special GUI to edit those in arena editor settings.I would also love having LuaLS typing annotations (or headers) since it greatly improve developer experience, but it would require this Minetest issue anyways.
Good tp mod
you can set a tp and any players ccn tp to this tp
Nice mod
i can send anyonom mod
Nice prefix mod
With this mod I can make a command that allows me to have my name for example admin or owner and so on and you can determine the color
By far, the best rick roll implementation in minetest
Inspired by the finest of memes, stays true to original. Same spirit, same effect. It's like getting rick rolled for first time in your life again
Takes spunk and stamina to beat the Shadow
Another incredible game by Wuzzy - The storyline is great, the assets and textures are great, and it has a unique feel that makes the game fascinating. The sounds are awesome. Although this doesn't compare with Glitch for me (which is my personal favorite Minetest mini-game at the time of writing), this is entirely different, focusing on defeating darkness with weapons, skills, and collectables.
The mechanics are pretty simple at first - find vases to get healing essence, and kill mobs to get shadow fragments, then upgrade at your local campfire. The strategy that works best seems to be running mad until you find a house with some amount of protection - then you can kill lots of mobs, gain shadow fragments, and upgrade at the nearby campfire. Unfortunately, I think this bypasses a lot of the fun of the game, which may have been geared more towards exploration, but it's often instead dodging mobs wildly and harvesting them in arbitrary ways. Light crystals are pretty rare, you've got to look for them hard! You need three of them to break the barrier which will eventually lead you to the boss. As the game progresses, it goes from a collecting game to a exploration game, looking for the answers and the boss, and exploring pretty amazing places (all the meanwhile dodging mobs). Once you've got most of the upgrades, you won't have so much trouble with the mobs, but you'll still have to run. The boss is super difficult, and it took me a few tries to defeat him. Keep yourself moving as much as possible and keep throwing light.
As for unexpectedness, I can't really say I was too surprised by anything in particular - Despite that, this is my personal pick for best game of the 2023 Game Jam, and I hope it wins, because it simply feels the most complete and polished of all the games, despite the mobs :-)
Blursed Engine Abuse
What if, instead of a mad scientist as the villain of a game, you had one as the developer?
Looking at the scope and design goals of this project, it feels like it really should have the "Joke / April Fools" tag. Looking at the actual execution, it becomes obvious that it really should not.
The Boom game, in particular, seems to be a complete software-rendered 3D game implemented in typescript, transpiled into Lua, and rendering to
[png:texture modifiers; the fact that it actually runs at all on my laptop from 2012 is amazing. Bit's Battle demonstrates that it's not just pure tech demos that run in this environment, but games with actual gameplay and progression, albeit only a rudimentary amount as implemented so far.To enjoy this "game" to the fullest, it helps for a player to understand the spectrum of games that have been created in Minetest, and understand how much this is abusing the game engine to make it possible. It feels like something in the same spirit as arbitrary code execution in NES games. Rather than being "immersed" in the experience, it sort of demands that you remember that this is all running inside Minetest. There's not a ton of depth and it won't keep you occupied for hours (especially if it crashes MT in a few minutes; I don't know where the "B" in "BOOM" comes from, but I know where the "OOM" does) but it's a spectacle worth witnessing.
Well-executed, with good variety, for a short game
This is a very balanced and well-executed game. It has a well-written story, variety of gameplay elements and areas, fits the theme, and seems to suffer from no major bugs or breakages.
The main annoyance I ran into, that made it hard to complete the game without resorting to cheating, is how unforgiving the parkour sections are, especially considering the level of movement jank in Minetest. It was hard to get my momentum correct client-side but lock in server-side, even with the short network path for singleplayer. Something like allowing you to set restart checkpoints by standing perfectly still for a few seconds would have been more fair, without sacrificing the challenge for people who want to speed through.
The projectile combat also felt a little sluggish, though this may just have been my bias coming from other games with faster-moving projectiles; given the movement speed of the enemies, it didn't feel unfair or anything. I didn't have enough health supplies for the boss fight, but apparently the only consequence for dying is injury to my pride, so you can still make it through even if you didn't plan well enough.
I didn't find the plot twist all that surprising, but the evolving gameplay supplied enough intrigue to keep me interested through it, and the story was at least not a distraction, and gave the gameplay a sense of structure and meaning.
Players should expect to need some patience for the parkour elements (especially with MT's imprecision) but the momentum-locking mechanic makes those still worth experiencing, and the game overall is enjoyable in a single sitting, and for replay value you can speed-run it.
Great concept, lots of potential, but questionable playability
I've been toying with the idea of a "video game without the video" for a while now, and it's great to see somebody actually attempt it. I love the ambition of the concept. It might just be a bit much to try to make it work as a sandbox game during a game jam timeframe.
Unfortunately, while a human has potentially dozens of senses (sight, sound, touch, smell, taste, balance, body position, temperature, passage of time, etc) on a computer you mostly just get sight and sound, and losing sight is harder to compensate. Without a sense of balance or body position, it's hard to tell when I'm looking at the horizon, or when I just fell down a hole, or about how far. Without touch, I can't tell if the crunchy-sounding stuff I'm touching is sand, gravel, or dirt. The use of "synesthesia particles" is a pretty good way to translate at least some of the missing senses into the unused visual medium, but it really needs to expand to cover more senses. In particular, when I'm working without a sense of sight (reaching deep into a machine to find a broken part) I rely on touch, not just to sense obstacles, but feeling textures, shapes, temperatures. More missing senses need to be recreated in some way to know what it means when I poke something and it sounds like a drum.
I'm not sure I can recommend this to a player yet. It was a bit intriguing wandering around and getting lost in a cave but now I think I'm stuck. It definitely feels like a project whose development I want to get involved in, suggesting, experimenting with, or contributing some ways to recreate the missing senses ... but for those not developerly inclined, it's one I'd watch for future updates rather than expecting much right now. I'm definitely looking forward to when it reaches the tipping point where I can change my neutral review to a positive one.
Also, the "no sense of sight" game being one of the few to actually feature a gameplay video was entertaining.
I wasn't expecting this for sure
This game has literally nothing to do except pushing a lever. But then there's this chat simulation... and it was so amusing, the game suddenly seemed to be well worth the time. Somehow, despite no gameplay, this is actually pretty fun. And the textures are great, IMO. I debated with myself whether I should really recommend a game with absolutely no gameplay that doesn't even feel like Minetest material, but this is simply the most amusing game I've seen in the Game Jams. Recommended - it won't take you long to win (or even lose :-) ), it's worth a download.
I'm highly confused
I... don't know what to do. I "looked" around, clicked on some nodes (also, the HUD is broken) and I guess there are secret things to find in the dark (I've also read the description now). But I can't find them nor I felt intrigued, so after 5 minutes I quit the game.
Fairly complete parkour/maze game, with a plot twist at the end!
You need to recover a crystal and bring it back to it's origin to light up the world again. This is a parkour/maze/combat game in one, which is easily finished, but it's a lot of fun to play and feels mostly complete. The gameplay and characters are pretty good and the music fit well. The plot twist at the end was very unexpected and caught me totally offguard - I only barely survived because I hadn't farmed the health powder enough earlier on, I just jumped over the ants many times. The wand is completely intuitive: The "Orange" function of the wand makes you glide in the vector that you are travelling in for a limited time, the "Blue" function gives you the ability to throw blue damage balls at enemies, and the "Green" function shrinks you. Once you get the hang of it, you can solve the levels somewhat proficiently: it does take some time to get used to it though. My main complaint would be that it felt a bit short - I completed it in 30 minutes, but it felt like it could use a few more levels that explain the theme better. For a short playthrough, this game is fantastic - recommended.
Chess but confusing
I appreciate how the author wanted to experiment but at the same time I wouldn't feel like recommending it either. It's basically chess with unexpected things happening on the board (e.g. pieces swapping), so your skill doesn't really matter much. I also think that games like chess work better through an UI rather than having an in-world representation with the player floating around to move the pieces
Its too random, the concept didnt have enough time to mature
It looks so good, but there is this huge problem: dominating part of gameplay is combat, the least polished part of the game. Mobs are not dangerous, they are annoying at best, mostly boring. It does feel like mobs are in the way of exploring, because of how basic and useless they are in comparison to how good environment looks. Shooting and hitting a target is not fun at all, does not feel rewarding at all. I would rather have either less enemies and more platformer stuff, or I would absolutely make the most dominating part of the gameplay the most fun
Highly frustrating, dropped it after a little bit
It started nicely with the introduction (albeit a bit too long) but then it immediately becomes frustrating with the wand mechanic. It's not intuitive, and starting from the begininning of the parkour area every time you fail doesn't help. I wasn't encouraged to continue after a few tries. Also, I don't understand how it fits the jam theme "unexpected"
The beginning is so dark I can't even see the vent I'm supposed to break through
Like, I can't play. I had to do
/grantme alland noclip myself out of it to actually understand what was happening. Turning on as much as I could the brightness of my screen didn't help. If I can't move the first step in the game, I can't play the game; which is a huge problem.Author is insane, and I love it
The author was able to pull off an entire barebone OS, with not one, not two, but three games in 21 days. And one of those is in 3D (!) allowing multiple instances to run together (!!!). The vibe of this "OS" is definitely nostalgic, helped by the old machinery sound effect and the launching sequence.
You probably won't believe it until you try it, so make yourself a favour: download it and be ready to be mindblown (beware: if you're a modder, the mindblown effect is doubled, as you want to know how in the world the author was able to do what they did)
P.S.: I'm definitely keeping this one installed, I want to see what could bring in the future (but please add a game icon :P)
Unfinished, no gameplay
The only thing you can do is break the map. You can't even die if you fall outside the map, remaining stuck.
I get that this is unfinished (the author put a huge disclaimer here on CDB now that I notice) but it's not an excuse to avoid being reviewed for the jam. It's literally a small map where you spawn with a couple custom models; nothing else.
good , but could you add support for some of the currency mods
, while i enjoy using this mod , i would like to be able to use it outside of mineclone a good potential solution would be to allow it to integrate with some currency mod like https://content.minetest.net/packages/mt-mods/currency/, https://content.minetest.net/packages/CodeMiner/atm/, or https://forum.minetest.net/viewtopic.php?t=7821
(also thank you for including a link to differences between free software and opensource software since some people tend to get confused around here)
Run and pick up simulator
The game started nicely, you can definitely tell the author tried polishing the experience as much as he could. However, once the "real" gameplay starts, things start not fitting together anymore. Infinite monsters preventing you to explore in depth, dialogues being displayed whilst fighting, a grind mechanic that it almost feels like a chore (too many collectibles): after the first death I didn't feel encouraged to continue and see what was coming next, which is a pity.
Also, I don't understand what's the "unexpected" part ("unexpected" is the theme of the jam this game is competing in)
Made me chuckle (jam 2023)
Considering this was made for a jam where the theme is "unexpected", I think this little trolling game is pleasantly coherent . Contrary to other trolling games that made it for the jam (also previous jams to be fair), this is actually curated. It's fun, stupid, soothing (the keyboard sound is basically ASMR) and the author is well aware they're not making an AAA game with several features, turning that into their strength. They prove that you don't have to develop something gargantuan to actually deliver a good game and that small things matter. Personally I prefer something that makes me chuckle multiple times and that lasts 5 minutes rather than a game that lasts two hours and that doesn't communicate much
Very cool operating system, but not a lot to do with it
There's simply not enough 'gameplay' for this to be worthwhile yet - the mini-games included are cool, but are repetitive and aren't going to keep you interested for very long.
Ideally, the ability to create programs and coding IN the operating system would make this a very entertaining game for computer geeks. But as it is now, it's basically a rad-looking interface that doesn't actually serve any purposes (except the mini-games maybe).
Side note: Digiline touchscreens from the digilines and digilinesplus mods can create a real operating system that can actually be modified by the client, if you work hard enough at it!
Nice concept but highly frustrating
I can't give a negative vote because, if we consider the author had 3 weeks to make a game, this is definitely a solid concept. The core idea of time travelling is well executed, there is a good attention to details (music, graphics, NPCs to talk with), yet I find it very frustrating gameplay-wise. The only instructions are given by opening the inventory, and it requires an important amount of patience. I think that with some tweaks here and there it could become way more enjoyable. Chapeau for the 4D exploration :)
Unexpected!
True that the bot is alternatively gifted, but that's totally ok, it was still fun because of unexpected swaps and what not. Maybe you can't plan too much like this, but its like having a new puzzle setup every few turns. Seriously didn't expect that these mechanics which are basically game-breaking for chess will make for refreshing fun gameplay
Classic Tomb Raider in 4.5D, incredible concept, tolerable jank
A mix of maze exploration, gentle parkour, and puzzle solving gameplay in a world with free travel across more dimensions than you thought you were getting when you opened the box. On top of the 3 spatial dimensions, not only do you need to travel across time to navigate the citadel, but you need to change the past and create alternate timelines.
The gameplay is well executed, given how ambitious the idea was and the tight timeline. It's rough around the edges and there are minor bugs galore, but the core seems to be intact, and the gameplay is well thought out and reasonably balanced. The setting, storytelling, and atmosphere all work together well, and the plot twist fits the jam's "unexpected" theme, as does the surprising depth of mechanics.
To navigate the extra depth and complexity of the game, players will need to bring a measure of patience and keen perception. The deceptively small size of the game world in 3 dimensions hides a surprisingly intricate maze of paths across time and possibility. Expect to spend a lot of time looking for subtly hidden treasures, and trying to fit an image of the citadel superimposed across a handful of different eras in your mind.
Things that aren't obvious bugs but I'd still like to see include reducing immersion breaks (diagetic guidance, and the entire inventory screen is unnecessary), a bit richer in-world sound (footsteps! maybe voice acting...?) and some accessibility improvements (fixes for HUD/GUI and font scaling settings, translations).
I'm excited to hopefully see more developer attention on this game in the future, to clear away annoyances and distractions and add the shine and polish it deserves, and hopefully the community will rise to the occasion with play testing, bug reports, and pull requests.
Proof of concept, but that's it
This is not a game, and doesn't have any gameplay - but this could be a very interesting mod in the future if properly assembled!
Effectively, this is a proof of concept for dynamic mapgens, but there are only two choices for what is to happen to the mapgen, and a block modifier actively changes the world based on your choice. It's cool, but it's very useless.
If you're looking for a way to customize your world's biomes (among other things), try Josselin's mod Unilib. It's powerful, easy to modify, and supports (by containing) over 200 minetest mods.
Wisdom was checked, but not found, in Part 1!
As mentioned in Zughy's review, this is effectively a 3-step tutorial with some funny credits, and the textures aren't exactly glamorous either. As it is currently, it's not worth your time, other games will check wisdom better!
Best chess implementation in minetest to date
Didn't expect to see a Chess game in this year's Game Jam, that's for sure! This is the most polished chess implementation I've seen yet in minetest and proved to be a lot of fun. Normal chess rules are all here, unlike the other minetest implementations: en passant logic, three-fold repetition, and correct castling! Only one thing I didn't notice was the 50-move rule, but that's not really necessary in a minetest subgame. I would absolutely love to see a Fischer Chess implementation in this game (with proper castling) someday :) Multiplayer chess is pretty cool, but it really needs timers to be at it's full potential, since your opponent can just stall forever. I think it would improve the game a lot if that was added.
The bot itself is OK and interesting to play with, but it's not very smart and could use a lot of work: it is extremely materialistic, and simply can't see most checkmating attacks and pin attacks. It makes decent, solid moves in the opening, but if you set up a decent attack against it, you've basically won the game (Also, it always picks the same opening, which is a little dissapointing). It will usually always take material over a decent defense, which means that if you find tricks in the position, you're going to have a very high success rate. The bot also, most of the time, can't convert winning positions: even if the bot has many pawns and pieces and all you've got is a king, it still somehow manages to find a way to repeat moves and end in a draw. It can definitely win though - if there's a checkmate in immediate sight, it can usually find it.
The unexpected changes to the board were pretty awesome to play a game with, although they could use some highlighting, as I had to search the board for what happened many times. Maybe a 3 second highlighting of the affected pieces would improve the gameplay.
Overall, I really enjoyed this, and I think it's currently the best minetest has to offer in terms of chess.
Saving the world doesn't require solving the puzzles, sadly
I can't bring myself to give this a positive recommendation, despite how much I like the assets and storyline. It's vaguely backrooms-y and the darkness combined with the textures and robots is mildly terrifying. Every time you exit the game and reload, you save your progress but you have to go through the same intro again and lose your old position. Not a big deal though. The problem is that there is simply not much gameplay - the robot control panels are awesome, and solving the robot puzzles was quite entertaining, but they don't actually unlock anything or serve any purpose at all. Your job is simply to get a "robot_2" in a short amount of time, which looks like a black tank, and to find the exit door and right-click on it. This can be done in less than 2 minutes if you're into speedruns, and I know because I tried :) There's also certain places that if you fall into, you won't be able to get out. All the puzzles work, you just need to use the NE/NW/SW/SE direction indicators.
Some more sounds are needed, as there appears to be only one sound during the course of the game (when you finish the game), and making the puzzles actually unlock sectors or switches would be satisfying and justify solving the puzzles! I see there are also some empty rooms on the map, which may have been part of the story, but weren't completed in time(?) - this game is probably still a WIP, so I'm excited to see what will become of it.
(READ COMMENTS for more info)
Really fun parkour puzzle game
Maybe too hard for the most to appreciate though. I'd say difficulty is not a flaw. It's actually maybe my favorite
Nice experiment, but I wouldn't define it a "game"
I understand it's a proof of concept, and it actually creates a very nice effect - I mean walking around whilst the world around you changes - but there's nothing else to do. It seems more like a mapgen mod showcase than a game, hence the negative vote
3 step tutorial?
I looked in the code to see if I missed something, I tried not following the instructions seeing if something different was happening but it doesn't look like so. The main menu music created some expectations but what I found in the end was a click and walk tutorial with funny credits. Too bad
2023 jam troll
There is literally nothing to do nor to see. The author just wanted to troll a bit for the 2023 jam. It was kind of fun and unexpected (which is the theme of the jam) but... c'mon :D
Probably the best for this jam
It's hard to balance content and mechanics for a short minimalist game. But this game does not feel unfinished, it feels exactly minimalist, and its made with very simple tools into fun platformer, and it does not seem that something is missing or this game has to be much more to be enjoyable. This game nails it.
Cool tech demo, but not exactly anything to play
I like this demonstration of just how much Minetest can be abused, but there isn't really anything to do; all the "games" become pretty boring pretty fast.