Just like overhead wires, cable troughs (the name in the mod is 'wirebox' but this is the real world term) should be available in more shapes and with junctions. The author could copy ideas from mesecons wire or even advtrains track.
The ballast is conceptually good, as is ballastless trackbed, but I would like to see the standard ballast texture used as a basis for the other types, which currently look like a blend of gravel and stone instead. However the defnitions of ballast are clearly wrong as they don't fall like gravel or sound like gravel. If the author intends for the ballast not to fall, which is a good anti-griefer measure, there should be nodes provided similar to the LinuxForks 'gravel on stonebrick' set of nodes.
There a number of 'useless' nodes present: The mast truss and the cylinder mast. I would expect these to be useful perhaps for future semaphores or colour light signals, and not just for the current set of signs. If the intent is for Overhead Line Equipment poles to have signs placed on them, it would also look better if the signs would not float. It's possible to cheat a bit and use what display_modpack does where it registers a separate 'sign on a fence' node where placing a sign onto a fence will create a new special node to avoid the floating problem.
The inclusion of a 'ghost trains' sign also gives it a personalised touch to advtrains (advbugs)
I hope to see a fuller set of active semaphore and colour light signals in future, within the limitations of advtrains of course such as lack of distant signalling support; and for the author to work out the rough edges mentioned above. Then I could definitely recommend the mod.
The standard ballast texture, if it could be made to tile better
The idea of grades of ballast and the stained ballast node
An attempt at modular overhead line equipment
The mast truss
The idea of cable troughs
However I find the art a bit inconsistent and there are a few assets for signs that may have been copywronged from railsigns.uk, despite being attributed (the author should recall that in the absence of a licence statement, copyright remains all rights reserved). I also think the author missed a big opportunity to use display_modpack for the plethora of 'Stop \<color> of \<x> cars' signs - simply allow writing two numbers in a formspec attached to the sign. Then only one sign node definition is needed per colour. A consistent font or small set of fonts and texture resolutions should also be used instead of a mix of pixel and smooth fonts. Some signs also have a very tiny size in the world, which makes them illegible from more than about half a metre away, yet they still have the same size selection box. Others have a very high resolution which causes a big framerate drop whenever they are wielded in-hand; a separate in-inventory image can address this.
The overhead line equipment, or as it's referred to in-game "OLE" without explanation: I like the idea of modularity in height and flexibility of track spacing. However, the lack of any wire at 30 and 45 degrees to match the track is a bit dissapointing, even if it would take a lot more to implement. Also, this is not actually the first attempt at OLE for Advtrains - MBB actually made a more basic system back in 2017. Although the britsignals OLE is more complicated and a bit thinner on the wires (which is usaully more desirable), the MBB mod actually manages to get a better colour contrast including darker cables and has a separate messenger/return wire .
While still obviously a work in progress, this game suffices as a demonstration of how to apply digital logic principles with mesecons and a demonstration of several digistuff components. It does not introduce digital logic principles to someone without that background, but is good as a kind of recipe book for people with some experience already. Perhaps in future it can also introduce the basics.
The text is sparse, or sometimes missing, and you will only get out as much as you put into interacting with each exhibit. I was able to understand the interface to some of the latches, for example, without understanding their internals, but further study and interaction would lead to a better understanding.
Better care should be taken to guide the flow and mark prerequisites in some places. I did not understand the I/O expander when I visited the magnetic swipe card exhibit, so marking a prerequisite of I/O expanders for the swipe card, or removing the use of I/O expanders from the swipe card exhibit would be more helpful.
In terms of performance, the exhibits are mostly tolerant to quick switch flipping and the use of clocks that are off by default helps performance too. I was able to get the I/O expander direct connect exhibit stuck with one pin on though.
I was a bit confused to see the use of 1's complement representation in the display decoders. Perhaps it is easier to build than 2's complement for a display decoder, but 2's complement is vastly superior for arithmetic. Also the sign bit would usually go on the left of all the place value bits in my mind.
The exercises are still also definitely a work in progress, with the second one having several 'wrong' ways to solve it. A good series of exercises can be hard to put together but a well-put-together one would certainly add a lot of value.
Advtrains is the kind of mod that has twofold appeal: From the perspective of people who will never learn its ins-and-outs, and from those who will learn all about the mod and enjoy its richness. It's the definitive method of public transport for Minetest - even the boats and buses of linetrack are based on this core, and teleports can't compare. The way all trains are always operating, even through unloaded areas, is just the beginning of its rich features.
The track system is first class among railway mods for block games, with 30 degree increments, slopes, 45 degree slopes, diamond crossings. No limitations on placement. It's still not 'realistic' but it leaves minecart tracks looking janky.
The signalling and interlocking system has profound depth, though at cost of complexity and being notoriously hard to learn. If you're a lover of signals, this goes beyond OpenTTD or Factorio. Save yourself some trouble and ask other players for help learning.
The trains can also carry your cargo. Moving stuff by train is great fun, better than any other way I can think of. Challenge yourself to build a realistic freight railway, and then sit back and enjoy automatic operation.
Don't like driving? Need to run a timetable? Want something even more elaborate? Start with basic ATC tracks and station/stop rails, and later discover how automation and full control is always available through Advtrains' Lua environment "LuaATC" for anything the train can do.
I have to admit Advtrains' faults: It's hard to learn, it can lag your server badly (the more trains the merrier.. er.. laggier) and one misstep with LuaATC can crash the server. The selection of trains is growing but still not that broad across people/goods, city/country, nationality. It's not super survival friendly. Waiting around at a station for a train to come is probably even less fun in a video game than real life. But I just can't name anything that gives you this much control of computer game trains!
I'd tread very carefully before adding representations of Aboriginal Australian people to Minetest, that could just end in all kinds of cultural insensitivity.
This mod offers the option of a single-use teleport potion or an infinite-use pad. 4 diamonds (+some other materials) are used to craft teleport potions and 4 of those + some other materials makes the pad. Honestly haven't used single teleport potions before; you could contrive such a scenario though: perhaps you're making a minigame and want to require a diamond target to reach before entering another area? The destination coordinates can be set freely. The cost of 2 teleport pads for two-way travel isn't cheap enough to be available in the early game but you will eventually unlock pretty much free travel.
Recommended for teleport hubs on servers at spawn locations to create a hub-and-spoke teleport network. Also recommended if you want to play survival and unlock teleportation eventually, while also keeping a cost to convenience of keeping multiple pads in your network at once.
Not recommended if using multiple dimensions/planets as that might make it too easy to bypass the proper methods for travelling to other locations. If you think teleportation should always have a cost, you could also remove the pads and have only teleport potions in the mod.
I've never liked travelnet. It's way overpowered and the recipe is way too easy for the utility it provides. Despite this, it is widely used on 'survival' servers. It really only belongs on creative mode or 'survival-lite' type servers i.e. where while resources are technically limited, they become abundant very quickly. This mod fork is associated strongly with the Pandorabox server, which falls into the survival-lite category because of the amount of public teleports and the ease of setting up a teleporting quarry ship and mining dense ore veins on the moon. If that kind of context doesn't appeal to you then I don't believe this mod falls in line with your true survival philosophy either.
The texture is awful, even in a variety of colours. You may have nostalgia for it, but I don't. There are better options in the pack fancy_travelnet.
This fork prevents an old bug where you can fall if there's nothing below the travelnet.
The setup of a public travelnet is easy - there's still some confusion though. The setup formspec will tell you 'don't change the network name if you don't know what it does', then never proceed to explain it to anyone. How do you set up a private one? It's done by prefixing the name of the station with a (P). This is not explained. I only know it because I asked other players. The README should tell you. The README's incomplete and the only other doc is the API spec. Clearly the devs care more about other devs than end users.
This mod is ancient (2013) and we deserve better. For survival I would much rather recommend teleport potion, which is somewhat more expensive and is only one-way single-destination. For running a server, I would rather recommend warps or funnily enough, another mod used on Pandorabox, telemosaic.
Moretrains is some of the best work for AdvTrains, second only to Marnack's DlxTrains. It preceded that mod and was definitely the best at the time, and it is continuing strong.
Moretrains is a mixed bag with many individual mods with different themes. Pick and choose which ones you want; there's a good variety of eras, lightweight carts or mainline stock, and a mix of freight and passengers. It isn't a modpack for metro/subway trains though.
Unlike some other train mods, moretrains is survival-friendly. It uses some of the standard components like basic trains like wheels and driver's cabins. However, it is also strongly tied to Minetest Game at the moment (but most stuff for advtrains is :()
This particular package is a fork of rubberduck's original work (forum thread) maintained by people over at LinuxForks server, where I should disclose for integrity I do often play and know the people well. It hasn't been on the ContentDB until now because we wanted to make sure we weren't stepping on rubberduck's toes by moving too quickly to publish this fork.
What's new in this fork?
Marnack has done a great job with the addition of the Nightline sleeper & compartment wagons.
The logging wagons will display different types of logs depending on what you put in them
The gondolas will display the top face texture of whatever block goes in them.
So definitely download here or through the source link rather than the forums. Enjoy!
I don't know enough about DAWs to comment on REAPER. My experience is limited to Musescore and Audacity :) I capitalised REAPER because that's how it appears on the product page, maybe I gave the wrong impression that it was an exclamation. Well, if it can make something that sounds great in about an hour, either it's really good or you're really good at making synth tracks despite it :)
The control scheme is about as intuitive as it can be in 3D space, just takes some learning. The gameplay requires intense spatial reasoning which I think is fine. Even if some people are better than others at it, that's just how it goes, much like how not everyone has the aptitude to be a l33t FPS 360 no-scope sniper with impeccable reflexes. As far as gameplay is concerned, you can't go wrong.
However, Snake 3D suffers from problems present in other mods like advtrains and digtron, where the camera rotation will be lost while attached to a moving entity. Add to this the way it moves in discrete increments and the attached segments of the snake is jarring and the net result is it is just not good for people like myself who are prone to motion sickness. Others have also pointed out how limiting the camera to within the rectangular prism of gameplay is unhelpful.
Conclusion: Play it if you don't get motion sick easily, avoid otherwise.
It took me a while to understand what was happening but I came to grips with it eventually. It's technically impressive and I enjoyed exploring it. It doens't look like its ready for you to create your own adventure, but the one included is enjoyable for sure. It seems it might also be possible to softlock yourself out of going back to certain rooms due to the 2-portal-max limit; I think I did this with some of them.
Lack of sound was a bit dissapointing, could have easily re-used Minetest Game sounds and yes some quiet peaceful music or ambience might have helped. SFX for entering newly discovered rooms would push it into a real exploration experience.
The portal barrier states need a bit of a further explanation and even though I think I finished the game by making it to the mine, I'm only guessing. Red = invalid configuration; blue = more than 2 portals in this configuration; pink = sides completed so far are valid, but the portal is incomplete.
I'd love to see an easy way for you to build your own puzzle worlds in it as well. Using the portals at the top and bottom might also be an interesting addition.
It's worth playing for the experience of figuring it out and progressing through the game, but I hope the author continues to improve it because it was a bit hard to start and there's no included documentation in-game or in the game files.
This game clearly needs a lot more love and development to succeed. It could be a fun game where you try to get a high score in rounds of increasing difficulty, or even a competitive multiplayer game, much like Frank Costanza vs the other guy fighting over the last doll in the store (Seinfeld :)
The arena should only be spawned once. You can mark it as spawned in a persistent mod storage and check upon world load if it needs to be done.
Same goes for the special presents, they should only be spawned once. Currently the best speedrun strategy is to quickly reload the game half a dozen times so that the presents are super easy to find.
Please write better git commit messages. Learning git is a long process but it will serve you well.
Choose better nodes for the walls, floor, ceiling and lights. Copper was definitely a poor choice. Since you're allowed texture re-use in the game jam, you could have used just about anything.
Let the player only carry one present at a time, and spawn more presents as they are returned to the score point.
A success sound jingle (get one from freesound) each time you capture. Doesn't matter if it's corny, it's much better than not having one.
Eventually try to have original mobs as well. In the mean time, you could at least increase the mob difficulty according to score.
That's about the minimum I would recommend to make this game fun. Persevere and have fun.
From the moment I launched it this game had my CPU running flat out on one core for no apparent reason. We'll get to the bottom of that and other technical problem issues. For now, gameplay: It told me presents were in a few different aisles but there are no signs on the aisles to tell me what number they are. Actually, it turns out this is the z-coordinate of each present. Also, I didn't have damage turned on when I started it, so I was actually cheating without knowing it. Games can override this if they know what they're doing.
So you eventually find at least one present, congrats, it wasn't on the shelves like the others and it was green. At least it doesn't matter if you have colourblindness when the special presents are in a different spot. You run back, place it down, easy enough. Then it tells me I can leave. Leave how? and do what? There's no door, the wall is impenetrable and the world outside is flat and featureless.
At this point you begin to ask what's original in the assets here. Mobs - from an old mod by PilzAdam. Walls - copper blocks from minetest game. For some reason all of MTG default was included. Shelves - from infinite IKEA. I guess the present texture is original? The git history is a mess and there's no licence file in the game's (1) original mod.
Now why does it 100% my CPU? All of the code runs in a globalstep and while the author, mercifully, added most things in a conditional in that globalstep, the entire warehouse of copper blocks, shelves and presents is replaced every single globalstep. Look, clearly the author is new to coding and probably overlooked or didn't fully understand this, but I just find this inexcusable.
I was missing the soundtrack when I first launched it due to having Minetest muted. Woops! It's a bit less boring with the soundtrack going, although at a grand total runtime of 73 seconds it will wear thin pretty quick. I thought it must be a professional/semi-amateur track originally composed elsewhere, but a look at the licence file and OGG metadata will reveal it's an original composition by ExeVirus in REAPER. I have to say the soundtrack does build the mood, but a good soundtrack doens't automatically make it a good game.
It's also the same schematic map with the same spawn point every time, and I really don't think the map layout made any real sense, it's more of a race track than a sensible road layout.
I didn't quite get why bicycle mod was chosen as a vehicle base instead of driftcar. I had some actual fun playing driftgame and one thing I think this game should aspire to become in the future is more like that, with procedurally generated streets. Other elements can be incorporated later as well, but good driving is always what one expects in a 'grand theft' type game.
I can see this project going some place like a drive-by shooting PvP game in a randomly generated arena and ending up being pretty fun. But for now I would hold off from playing it except if you want to do a few laps in the box while listening to the epic soundtrack, and then quit.
I don't know what your plans are for the game but here's some of my ideas mostly for more variety.
A variety of wall, floor and ceiling texture varieties to break monotony.
More than just corridors. Prisoner cells, guards' breakrooms, gymnasiums.
Curated singleplayer campaign with human-designed levels and some kind of plot involving a goal like breaking a prisoner out of maximum security in another wing and then escaping, or maybe defeating the big bad superintendent.
Guns maybe? I certainly get some Wolfenstein/Doom vibes walking around all these corridors.
Finally something that feels like its own game with SFX, MSX and custom texturing & HUD. It gets a little repetitive with the same grey brick walls and music, but it's worth exploring several times. The bugs that it does suffer are bearable and there are no huge UX blunders either. I see a great future for it if the author improves it.
The music and a slick looking UI will get you going and ready to play. When you land into the world, you may find it pretty monotonous pretty quick. However, since some of the other reviews I read revealed things I hadn't seen, and I myself discovered more on successive playthroughs/attempts, there's variety out there, it's just a bit sparse at first. I don't know what to say about the inconsistency of props and guards that I found throughout the jail, whether it's good or bad. Finishing your game can be a little anticlimactic and I didn't realise the air in front of me was indeed my escape.
There are two stats to manage: Health and sprint. There is a variety of food, beverages, enemies and weapons to be found. Play it multiple times to discover more. Be aware some enemies are plain-clothed.
The bugs have to be acknowledged: Health sometimes won't show, there are randomly dark areas, dynamite blowing up the light, you can cheese it by digging the walls (why are they diggable??), guards that deliberately try to avoid eye contact and pretend they don't see you or who like to stare at the wall for long periods.
The inability to save a game in progress is a little frustrating. The main menu should only show if no level is in progress.
Conclusion: Play it blind for the joy of discovery, bear with the monotony and bugs for a little bit. If not, be hopeful that the author will improve the game later enough for you to enjoy it.
Room for improvement: The minimap should be enabled by default, corridors should not be 2 nodes wide, because the pills end up on one side and not the other. The game should detect when a level is finished. The ghost AI needs to be much, much better and eating ghosts needs to work (punch or collide, I don't care).
Recommedations: Since the game has high walls, the minimap should be toggled on by default; that way you can see what pills have been eaten. I wish the ghosts would also show there, but that's not possible in Minetest (yet?). Also a way to make teleporting sections in the level editor.
Pac-Man itself is a good basis however Arcade3D fails to be fun, intuitive or automate the right parts. It's derivative to the point of probably being copyright infringing (I am not a lawyer; this is not legal advice), but it's not worth the rightsholders of Pac-Man suing over. It's also not the first Pac-Man game for Minetest.
However, with a bit of a clean-up, the game could be good. Work has clearly been put into the visual art, I chuckled at the player model in a good way and the use of spheres for pills seems sensible, including not having too many polygons.
The idea of making your own arena is defeated when you realise the game has no way to spawn ghosts and pills for you. A good level editing experience is possible within the Minetest engine, so I exhort the developer to make better tools, which would be marking spots for the ghosts and pills to spawn, being able to start/stop a game intuitively, and of course not leaving the player inside the arena wall when placed.
Pacmine, part of myArcade, has the game starting feature down pat: right-click a starter node. The pink gates in Arcade3D make no sense, something myArcade handles better by having you right-click a node to start a game. However, Pacmine also suffers the issue of poor pill collision detection with server lag, so having the pills as nodes is better for that. Some comparisons to Pacmine wouldn't be helpful; Arcade3D being its own game is fine.
Conclusion: The promise of being able to make your own arenas is enticing, but as-is the game fails to deliver a good Pac-Man clone or level editing experience.
I wanted to enjoy some good movement mechanics and a well-guided experience. Instead I landed on the floor and had no idea how to get back up. There was no mention that it has to be done through a command, not on the ContentDB page, not in the game's root directory README ; instead I just granted myself fly and flew up to the start point again.
The lack of inclusion of a sprint mod lets it down; I don't see why it wasn't included, it's an important part of other block game parkours, and there is no issue with server lag if it's just as singleplayer game. I won't blame this game's developer for the changes to bouncy blocks, where they used to be much more fun but were changed to limit the jump height somewhere in the Minetest 5.x series.
The fact that some of the diggable blocks drop themselves and others don't was arbitrary and shouldn't have been done, especially when they look the same.
Lack of sound also lets the game down. With footstep sounds and a sprint sound it could have been better. Including (toggleable) music could have also help and wouldn't have broken competition rules to include minetest_game footstep sounds and a Creative Commons music track as far as I know.
Overall: A known-good idea for a game, but not implemented well enough as it is to recommend.
This mod is really useful for taking pictures of a small scene like a few nodes in a specific arrangement, an advtrains train or a mob. Just enclose it in a green screen (or one of several other colours) and take a screenshot of it. Then in your favourite editor e.g. GIMP, select that colour and turn it into transparency. Instantly isolated! Note: For best results isolating, disable anti-aliasing,
First let me say this is a well-put-together modpack. Highlights include:
Containers come with locked variants
Good variety of areas of in the house & home
Balanced crafting recipes
Dynamic features like animations, basic interactivity where appropriate
However, homedecor doesn't gel with me, and maybe it won't with you. I'm not intimately familiar with the modpack's history, but it seems to aggregate several mods or parts of other mods, like cottages roofing. This does result in a 'kitchen sink'*, but it's alright as you you're downloading a modpack and can disable bits that don't suit you.
Many models have some combination of curves, noticeable polygon count, and higher resolution texture that doesn't fit into a 16px block type aesthetic. I find that which items have had a high-polygon treatment and which haven't seems a bit random, and each mod has some of these spread through the pack. If all the models had more polygons, the whole thing would be cohesive and the net effect would be better. I'm particularly confused why the couches from lrfurn had curves added that actually seem to make the whole thing look worse. If all models were consistently block or highpoly it would be better.
I think the '3D extras' mod should be a config option.
Homedecor locks you into the Basic Materials system for crafting. Sure, there have to be concessions to add intermediate crafting materials and so that available recipes aren't exhausted. The problems caused might be better explained in a review on Basic Materials. Suffice to say if your server has a forked technic or other mods that haven't commited to Basic Materials it can create minor problems. Given the size of this modpack, nobody wants to be making their own set of dozens and dozens of crafting recipes.
In conclusion, only play with homedecor if you're willing to sacrifice visual consistency to get a large collection of stuff. Otherwise, use a few different decor mods for similar effect.
No, you have to craft them out of 9 of the crop that you have gathered.
Just like overhead wires, cable troughs (the name in the mod is 'wirebox' but this is the real world term) should be available in more shapes and with junctions. The author could copy ideas from mesecons wire or even advtrains track.
The ballast is conceptually good, as is ballastless trackbed, but I would like to see the standard ballast texture used as a basis for the other types, which currently look like a blend of gravel and stone instead. However the defnitions of ballast are clearly wrong as they don't fall like gravel or sound like gravel. If the author intends for the ballast not to fall, which is a good anti-griefer measure, there should be nodes provided similar to the LinuxForks 'gravel on stonebrick' set of nodes.
There a number of 'useless' nodes present: The mast truss and the cylinder mast. I would expect these to be useful perhaps for future semaphores or colour light signals, and not just for the current set of signs. If the intent is for Overhead Line Equipment poles to have signs placed on them, it would also look better if the signs would not float. It's possible to cheat a bit and use what display_modpack does where it registers a separate 'sign on a fence' node where placing a sign onto a fence will create a new special node to avoid the floating problem.
The inclusion of a 'ghost trains' sign also gives it a personalised touch to advtrains (advbugs)
I hope to see a fuller set of active semaphore and colour light signals in future, within the limitations of advtrains of course such as lack of distant signalling support; and for the author to work out the rough edges mentioned above. Then I could definitely recommend the mod.
First a list of things I quite appreciate:
However I find the art a bit inconsistent and there are a few assets for signs that may have been copywronged from railsigns.uk, despite being attributed (the author should recall that in the absence of a licence statement, copyright remains all rights reserved). I also think the author missed a big opportunity to use display_modpack for the plethora of 'Stop \<color> of \<x> cars' signs - simply allow writing two numbers in a formspec attached to the sign. Then only one sign node definition is needed per colour. A consistent font or small set of fonts and texture resolutions should also be used instead of a mix of pixel and smooth fonts. Some signs also have a very tiny size in the world, which makes them illegible from more than about half a metre away, yet they still have the same size selection box. Others have a very high resolution which causes a big framerate drop whenever they are wielded in-hand; a separate in-inventory image can address this.
The overhead line equipment, or as it's referred to in-game "OLE" without explanation: I like the idea of modularity in height and flexibility of track spacing. However, the lack of any wire at 30 and 45 degrees to match the track is a bit dissapointing, even if it would take a lot more to implement. Also, this is not actually the first attempt at OLE for Advtrains - MBB actually made a more basic system back in 2017. Although the britsignals OLE is more complicated and a bit thinner on the wires (which is usaully more desirable), the MBB mod actually manages to get a better colour contrast including darker cables and has a separate messenger/return wire .
Continues in a comment
While still obviously a work in progress, this game suffices as a demonstration of how to apply digital logic principles with mesecons and a demonstration of several digistuff components. It does not introduce digital logic principles to someone without that background, but is good as a kind of recipe book for people with some experience already. Perhaps in future it can also introduce the basics.
The text is sparse, or sometimes missing, and you will only get out as much as you put into interacting with each exhibit. I was able to understand the interface to some of the latches, for example, without understanding their internals, but further study and interaction would lead to a better understanding.
Better care should be taken to guide the flow and mark prerequisites in some places. I did not understand the I/O expander when I visited the magnetic swipe card exhibit, so marking a prerequisite of I/O expanders for the swipe card, or removing the use of I/O expanders from the swipe card exhibit would be more helpful.
In terms of performance, the exhibits are mostly tolerant to quick switch flipping and the use of clocks that are off by default helps performance too. I was able to get the I/O expander direct connect exhibit stuck with one pin on though.
I was a bit confused to see the use of 1's complement representation in the display decoders. Perhaps it is easier to build than 2's complement for a display decoder, but 2's complement is vastly superior for arithmetic. Also the sign bit would usually go on the left of all the place value bits in my mind.
The exercises are still also definitely a work in progress, with the second one having several 'wrong' ways to solve it. A good series of exercises can be hard to put together but a well-put-together one would certainly add a lot of value.
Advtrains is the kind of mod that has twofold appeal: From the perspective of people who will never learn its ins-and-outs, and from those who will learn all about the mod and enjoy its richness. It's the definitive method of public transport for Minetest - even the boats and buses of linetrack are based on this core, and teleports can't compare. The way all trains are always operating, even through unloaded areas, is just the beginning of its rich features.
The track system is first class among railway mods for block games, with 30 degree increments, slopes, 45 degree slopes, diamond crossings. No limitations on placement. It's still not 'realistic' but it leaves minecart tracks looking janky.
The signalling and interlocking system has profound depth, though at cost of complexity and being notoriously hard to learn. If you're a lover of signals, this goes beyond OpenTTD or Factorio. Save yourself some trouble and ask other players for help learning.
The trains can also carry your cargo. Moving stuff by train is great fun, better than any other way I can think of. Challenge yourself to build a realistic freight railway, and then sit back and enjoy automatic operation.
Don't like driving? Need to run a timetable? Want something even more elaborate? Start with basic ATC tracks and station/stop rails, and later discover how automation and full control is always available through Advtrains' Lua environment "LuaATC" for anything the train can do.
I have to admit Advtrains' faults: It's hard to learn, it can lag your server badly (the more trains the merrier.. er.. laggier) and one misstep with LuaATC can crash the server. The selection of trains is growing but still not that broad across people/goods, city/country, nationality. It's not super survival friendly. Waiting around at a station for a train to come is probably even less fun in a video game than real life. But I just can't name anything that gives you this much control of computer game trains!
I'd tread very carefully before adding representations of Aboriginal Australian people to Minetest, that could just end in all kinds of cultural insensitivity.
This mod offers the option of a single-use teleport potion or an infinite-use pad. 4 diamonds (+some other materials) are used to craft teleport potions and 4 of those + some other materials makes the pad. Honestly haven't used single teleport potions before; you could contrive such a scenario though: perhaps you're making a minigame and want to require a diamond target to reach before entering another area? The destination coordinates can be set freely. The cost of 2 teleport pads for two-way travel isn't cheap enough to be available in the early game but you will eventually unlock pretty much free travel.
Recommended for teleport hubs on servers at spawn locations to create a hub-and-spoke teleport network. Also recommended if you want to play survival and unlock teleportation eventually, while also keeping a cost to convenience of keeping multiple pads in your network at once.
Not recommended if using multiple dimensions/planets as that might make it too easy to bypass the proper methods for travelling to other locations. If you think teleportation should always have a cost, you could also remove the pads and have only teleport potions in the mod.
Marked unhelpful because it doesn't explain why I would want this mod or give examples of its usefulness.
I've never liked travelnet. It's way overpowered and the recipe is way too easy for the utility it provides. Despite this, it is widely used on 'survival' servers. It really only belongs on creative mode or 'survival-lite' type servers i.e. where while resources are technically limited, they become abundant very quickly. This mod fork is associated strongly with the Pandorabox server, which falls into the survival-lite category because of the amount of public teleports and the ease of setting up a teleporting quarry ship and mining dense ore veins on the moon. If that kind of context doesn't appeal to you then I don't believe this mod falls in line with your true survival philosophy either.
The texture is awful, even in a variety of colours. You may have nostalgia for it, but I don't. There are better options in the pack fancy_travelnet.
This fork prevents an old bug where you can fall if there's nothing below the travelnet.
The setup of a public travelnet is easy - there's still some confusion though. The setup formspec will tell you 'don't change the network name if you don't know what it does', then never proceed to explain it to anyone. How do you set up a private one? It's done by prefixing the name of the station with a (P). This is not explained. I only know it because I asked other players. The README should tell you. The README's incomplete and the only other doc is the API spec. Clearly the devs care more about other devs than end users.
This mod is ancient (2013) and we deserve better. For survival I would much rather recommend teleport potion, which is somewhat more expensive and is only one-way single-destination. For running a server, I would rather recommend warps or funnily enough, another mod used on Pandorabox, telemosaic.
Moretrains is some of the best work for AdvTrains, second only to Marnack's DlxTrains. It preceded that mod and was definitely the best at the time, and it is continuing strong.
Moretrains is a mixed bag with many individual mods with different themes. Pick and choose which ones you want; there's a good variety of eras, lightweight carts or mainline stock, and a mix of freight and passengers. It isn't a modpack for metro/subway trains though.
Unlike some other train mods, moretrains is survival-friendly. It uses some of the standard components like basic trains like wheels and driver's cabins. However, it is also strongly tied to Minetest Game at the moment (but most stuff for advtrains is :()
This particular package is a fork of rubberduck's original work (forum thread) maintained by people over at LinuxForks server, where I should disclose for integrity I do often play and know the people well. It hasn't been on the ContentDB until now because we wanted to make sure we weren't stepping on rubberduck's toes by moving too quickly to publish this fork.
What's new in this fork?
So definitely download here or through the source link rather than the forums. Enjoy!
I don't know enough about DAWs to comment on REAPER. My experience is limited to Musescore and Audacity :) I capitalised REAPER because that's how it appears on the product page, maybe I gave the wrong impression that it was an exclamation. Well, if it can make something that sounds great in about an hour, either it's really good or you're really good at making synth tracks despite it :)
The control scheme is about as intuitive as it can be in 3D space, just takes some learning. The gameplay requires intense spatial reasoning which I think is fine. Even if some people are better than others at it, that's just how it goes, much like how not everyone has the aptitude to be a l33t FPS 360 no-scope sniper with impeccable reflexes. As far as gameplay is concerned, you can't go wrong.
However, Snake 3D suffers from problems present in other mods like advtrains and digtron, where the camera rotation will be lost while attached to a moving entity. Add to this the way it moves in discrete increments and the attached segments of the snake is jarring and the net result is it is just not good for people like myself who are prone to motion sickness. Others have also pointed out how limiting the camera to within the rectangular prism of gameplay is unhelpful.
Conclusion: Play it if you don't get motion sick easily, avoid otherwise.
It took me a while to understand what was happening but I came to grips with it eventually. It's technically impressive and I enjoyed exploring it. It doens't look like its ready for you to create your own adventure, but the one included is enjoyable for sure. It seems it might also be possible to softlock yourself out of going back to certain rooms due to the 2-portal-max limit; I think I did this with some of them.
Lack of sound was a bit dissapointing, could have easily re-used Minetest Game sounds and yes some quiet peaceful music or ambience might have helped. SFX for entering newly discovered rooms would push it into a real exploration experience.
The portal barrier states need a bit of a further explanation and even though I think I finished the game by making it to the mine, I'm only guessing. Red = invalid configuration; blue = more than 2 portals in this configuration; pink = sides completed so far are valid, but the portal is incomplete.
I'd love to see an easy way for you to build your own puzzle worlds in it as well. Using the portals at the top and bottom might also be an interesting addition.
It's worth playing for the experience of figuring it out and progressing through the game, but I hope the author continues to improve it because it was a bit hard to start and there's no included documentation in-game or in the game files.
This game clearly needs a lot more love and development to succeed. It could be a fun game where you try to get a high score in rounds of increasing difficulty, or even a competitive multiplayer game, much like Frank Costanza vs the other guy fighting over the last doll in the store (Seinfeld :)
That's about the minimum I would recommend to make this game fun. Persevere and have fun.
From the moment I launched it this game had my CPU running flat out on one core for no apparent reason. We'll get to the bottom of that and other technical problem issues. For now, gameplay: It told me presents were in a few different aisles but there are no signs on the aisles to tell me what number they are. Actually, it turns out this is the z-coordinate of each present. Also, I didn't have damage turned on when I started it, so I was actually cheating without knowing it. Games can override this if they know what they're doing.
So you eventually find at least one present, congrats, it wasn't on the shelves like the others and it was green. At least it doesn't matter if you have colourblindness when the special presents are in a different spot. You run back, place it down, easy enough. Then it tells me I can leave. Leave how? and do what? There's no door, the wall is impenetrable and the world outside is flat and featureless.
At this point you begin to ask what's original in the assets here. Mobs - from an old mod by PilzAdam. Walls - copper blocks from minetest game. For some reason all of MTG default was included. Shelves - from infinite IKEA. I guess the present texture is original? The git history is a mess and there's no licence file in the game's (1) original mod.
Now why does it 100% my CPU? All of the code runs in a globalstep and while the author, mercifully, added most things in a conditional in that globalstep, the entire warehouse of copper blocks, shelves and presents is replaced every single globalstep. Look, clearly the author is new to coding and probably overlooked or didn't fully understand this, but I just find this inexcusable.
Comments: Improvements
I was missing the soundtrack when I first launched it due to having Minetest muted. Woops! It's a bit less boring with the soundtrack going, although at a grand total runtime of 73 seconds it will wear thin pretty quick. I thought it must be a professional/semi-amateur track originally composed elsewhere, but a look at the licence file and OGG metadata will reveal it's an original composition by ExeVirus in REAPER. I have to say the soundtrack does build the mood, but a good soundtrack doens't automatically make it a good game.
It's also the same schematic map with the same spawn point every time, and I really don't think the map layout made any real sense, it's more of a race track than a sensible road layout.
I didn't quite get why bicycle mod was chosen as a vehicle base instead of driftcar. I had some actual fun playing driftgame and one thing I think this game should aspire to become in the future is more like that, with procedurally generated streets. Other elements can be incorporated later as well, but good driving is always what one expects in a 'grand theft' type game.
I can see this project going some place like a drive-by shooting PvP game in a randomly generated arena and ending up being pretty fun. But for now I would hold off from playing it except if you want to do a few laps in the box while listening to the epic soundtrack, and then quit.
Ideas thread
I don't know what your plans are for the game but here's some of my ideas mostly for more variety.
Finally something that feels like its own game with SFX, MSX and custom texturing & HUD. It gets a little repetitive with the same grey brick walls and music, but it's worth exploring several times. The bugs that it does suffer are bearable and there are no huge UX blunders either. I see a great future for it if the author improves it.
The music and a slick looking UI will get you going and ready to play. When you land into the world, you may find it pretty monotonous pretty quick. However, since some of the other reviews I read revealed things I hadn't seen, and I myself discovered more on successive playthroughs/attempts, there's variety out there, it's just a bit sparse at first. I don't know what to say about the inconsistency of props and guards that I found throughout the jail, whether it's good or bad. Finishing your game can be a little anticlimactic and I didn't realise the air in front of me was indeed my escape.
There are two stats to manage: Health and sprint. There is a variety of food, beverages, enemies and weapons to be found. Play it multiple times to discover more. Be aware some enemies are plain-clothed.
The bugs have to be acknowledged: Health sometimes won't show, there are randomly dark areas, dynamite blowing up the light, you can cheese it by digging the walls (why are they diggable??), guards that deliberately try to avoid eye contact and pretend they don't see you or who like to stare at the wall for long periods.
The inability to save a game in progress is a little frustrating. The main menu should only show if no level is in progress.
Conclusion: Play it blind for the joy of discovery, bear with the monotony and bugs for a little bit. If not, be hopeful that the author will improve the game later enough for you to enjoy it.
Comments: Ideas for improvement
Room for improvement: The minimap should be enabled by default, corridors should not be 2 nodes wide, because the pills end up on one side and not the other. The game should detect when a level is finished. The ghost AI needs to be much, much better and eating ghosts needs to work (punch or collide, I don't care).
Recommedations: Since the game has high walls, the minimap should be toggled on by default; that way you can see what pills have been eaten. I wish the ghosts would also show there, but that's not possible in Minetest (yet?). Also a way to make teleporting sections in the level editor.
Pac-Man itself is a good basis however Arcade3D fails to be fun, intuitive or automate the right parts. It's derivative to the point of probably being copyright infringing (I am not a lawyer; this is not legal advice), but it's not worth the rightsholders of Pac-Man suing over. It's also not the first Pac-Man game for Minetest.
However, with a bit of a clean-up, the game could be good. Work has clearly been put into the visual art, I chuckled at the player model in a good way and the use of spheres for pills seems sensible, including not having too many polygons.
The idea of making your own arena is defeated when you realise the game has no way to spawn ghosts and pills for you. A good level editing experience is possible within the Minetest engine, so I exhort the developer to make better tools, which would be marking spots for the ghosts and pills to spawn, being able to start/stop a game intuitively, and of course not leaving the player inside the arena wall when placed.
Pacmine, part of myArcade, has the game starting feature down pat: right-click a starter node. The pink gates in Arcade3D make no sense, something myArcade handles better by having you right-click a node to start a game. However, Pacmine also suffers the issue of poor pill collision detection with server lag, so having the pills as nodes is better for that. Some comparisons to Pacmine wouldn't be helpful; Arcade3D being its own game is fine.
Conclusion: The promise of being able to make your own arenas is enticing, but as-is the game fails to deliver a good Pac-Man clone or level editing experience.
Recommendations in comments...
I wanted to enjoy some good movement mechanics and a well-guided experience. Instead I landed on the floor and had no idea how to get back up. There was no mention that it has to be done through a command, not on the ContentDB page, not in the game's root directory README ; instead I just granted myself fly and flew up to the start point again.
The lack of inclusion of a sprint mod lets it down; I don't see why it wasn't included, it's an important part of other block game parkours, and there is no issue with server lag if it's just as singleplayer game. I won't blame this game's developer for the changes to bouncy blocks, where they used to be much more fun but were changed to limit the jump height somewhere in the Minetest 5.x series.
The fact that some of the diggable blocks drop themselves and others don't was arbitrary and shouldn't have been done, especially when they look the same.
Lack of sound also lets the game down. With footstep sounds and a sprint sound it could have been better. Including (toggleable) music could have also help and wouldn't have broken competition rules to include minetest_game footstep sounds and a Creative Commons music track as far as I know.
Overall: A known-good idea for a game, but not implemented well enough as it is to recommend.
This mod is really useful for taking pictures of a small scene like a few nodes in a specific arrangement, an advtrains train or a mob. Just enclose it in a green screen (or one of several other colours) and take a screenshot of it. Then in your favourite editor e.g. GIMP, select that colour and turn it into transparency. Instantly isolated! Note: For best results isolating, disable anti-aliasing,
First let me say this is a well-put-together modpack. Highlights include:
However, homedecor doesn't gel with me, and maybe it won't with you. I'm not intimately familiar with the modpack's history, but it seems to aggregate several mods or parts of other mods, like cottages roofing. This does result in a 'kitchen sink'*, but it's alright as you you're downloading a modpack and can disable bits that don't suit you.
Many models have some combination of curves, noticeable polygon count, and higher resolution texture that doesn't fit into a 16px block type aesthetic. I find that which items have had a high-polygon treatment and which haven't seems a bit random, and each mod has some of these spread through the pack. If all the models had more polygons, the whole thing would be cohesive and the net effect would be better. I'm particularly confused why the couches from lrfurn had curves added that actually seem to make the whole thing look worse. If all models were consistently block or highpoly it would be better.
I think the '3D extras' mod should be a config option.
Homedecor locks you into the Basic Materials system for crafting. Sure, there have to be concessions to add intermediate crafting materials and so that available recipes aren't exhausted. The problems caused might be better explained in a review on Basic Materials. Suffice to say if your server has a forked technic or other mods that haven't commited to Basic Materials it can create minor problems. Given the size of this modpack, nobody wants to be making their own set of dozens and dozens of crafting recipes.
In conclusion, only play with homedecor if you're willing to sacrifice visual consistency to get a large collection of stuff. Otherwise, use a few different decor mods for similar effect.