Top reviewer
Wuzzy has written the most helpful reviews on ContentDB.
Top 3 game
Wuzzy has a game placed at #3.
>300k downloads
Has received 1314084 downloads across all packages.
Packages
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Armor HUD bar
Adds a HUD bar displaying the current damage of the player's armor.
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Basic Help
Adds some help texts explaining how to use Luanti.
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Basic HUD textures
Adds basic but neccessary HUD images: Heart icon, bubble icon, … (for game authors)
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Biome Info API
Simple API to get data about biomes.
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Calendar
A simple calender system to track the passage of days
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Calendar Node
Adds a placeable calendar
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Central Message
Simple API to show messages to the center of the screen to players.
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Color Cubes
This mod contains several colorful abstract blocks for decoration.
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C.O.W.
A cybernetically enhanced cow seeks revenge
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Cups
Decorative cups.
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Dice
Decorative dice blocks which face a random direction.
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Documentation System
A simple in-game documentation system which enables mods to add help entries based on templates.
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Easy Vending Machines
Adds vending and depositing machines which allow to buy and sell items from other players, using a currency item.
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Encyclopedia
Adds an encyclopedia item which allows you to access the help.
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Extended Tooltips
Support for custom tooltip extensions for items
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Extended Tooltips: Base
Adds generic tooltip extensions to items
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Eyeballs
Explore the Realm of Eyes, but you must be seen by the friendly eyeballs at all times.
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Find Biome
Add commands to list and find biomes
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Flying Carpet
Quickly explore the vast terrain with the magical flying carpet.
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Forgotten Treasures
Official community level pack for Lazarr!
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Get Item
Allows you to get all items
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Giftbox2
Gift boxes that players can give to other who will then receive random items
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Glitch
You’re lost in cyberspace. Collect electrons, unlock new sectors and find your destination
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Hades Revisited
You have stranded on the planet Hades. Use your limited supplies to survive and use terraforming to create a beautiful habitable place. (EARLY TEST VERSION)
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HUD Bars
Replaces the default health and breath symbols by horizontal colored bars with text showing the number. Extensible.
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Hunger with HUD Bar
This mod adds a simple hunger mechanic (plus HUD bar) to the game. Eat food to avoid starvation, be sated to regenerate health.
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Indestructible Bedrock Layer
Adds an indestructable bedrock layer at the bottom of the world.
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Inventory Icon
Shows a backpack icon in the HUD, which shows how many slots are available and free in the player inventory and equipped bags (if available).
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Item Help
Adds automatically generated help texts for items.
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Lazarr!
Be a pirate and solve laser puzzles
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Lookup Tool
Adds a tool which shows help entries about almost anything which it punches.
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L-System Tree Utility
A form to easily spawn L-system trees, aimed at mod developers.
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Mana
Adds a mana attribute to players, can be used as energy source for magical items, etc.
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Mesecons Windows
Adds 3 glass blocks which change their transparency when supplied with Mesecons power.
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Minetest Game Plus
Adds various simple decorative blocks, doors, panes and other items, focusing on snow, ice, luxury, bamboo and more.
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Mirror of Returning
Adds a magical item which teleports the user to a previously set location.
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No Fall Damage
Disables fall damage.
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Orienteering
A collection of tools to help you orient yourselves in the world, such as compass, altimeter, etc.
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Pedology
Adds some different ground blocks in several wetness levels; the wetness slowly flows downward.
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Perlin Explorer
Developer tool to create previews of Perlin noises
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Player Effect Potions
Adds potions with temporary player effects.
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Player Effects
Framework for temporary effects for players.
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Player Physics API
This makes it possible for multiple mods to modify player physics (speed, jumping strength, gravity) without conflict.
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Point Teleporter
Adds a short-distance teleportation device which allows the user to instantly change the position in front of a pointed node.
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Pride Flags
Adds a variety of animated flags to celebrate Pride
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Pyramids (with treasures)
Pyramids with treasures!
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Rail Corridors + Treasures
Adds simple underground mines with railways and occasional treasure chests.
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rcsv
RFC-4180-compliant CSV parser and writer
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Repixture
Simplistic sandbox survival game that plays in mostly lush biomes in a mostly peaceful world and only simple technologies.
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Retro Plus
Look and feel of the oldest versions of Minetest-c55
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Schematic Editor
Advanced tool for modders and advanced users to create and edit schematics.
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Select Item
Allows other mods to add a simple form to choose a single item.
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Shadow Forest
The forest has been overrun by the Shadows who’ve cursed it with eternal darkness. You’re the Wizard of Light; you’re the only hope to break the curse.
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Show Wielded Item
Displays the name of the wielded item.
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Simple Fast Inventory Buttons
Adds a tab to the Simple Fast Inventory on which mods can add buttons for easy access.
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Slow Eater
After eating something, the player must wait for 5 seconds before eating again.
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Spawn Builder
Generates a stone platform below the world origin or static spawn point.
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Surprise Blocks
Randomly spawns surprise blocks closely about ground level.
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The Origin
Adds a single starter block below the first spawn position in singlenode, called “The Origin”
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Treasurer
A framework to define and distribute random treasures into the world.
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Tutorial
Learn how to play.
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VoxeLibre (formerly MineClone2)
Survive, farm, build, explore, play with friends, and do much more. Inspired by Minecraft, pushing beyond.
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Watering Can
A watering can to wetten soil.
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X-Decor-libre
A decoration mod meant to be simple and well-featured (libre version).
Maintained Packages
This user is also a maintainer of the following packages
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Quikbild
MisterEThe artist dashes to build their word! The others race to guess the word first!
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Tntrun
debiankaiosPlayers compete to be the last one standing on a layer of falling TNT
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TNTTag
debiankaiosA player is holding TNT which is about to explode; they must tag other players to get rid of it
Sounds nice on paper, but poor technical execution
This mod is super hacky and I don't recommend it. To create such a block, you must manually put a "top slab" node on top of a normal node and you can only get those special top nodes in Creative Mode. The top slab nodes also "blocks" the node above them, because technically the top slab is occupying the node above the bottom slab node. This means you cannot place anything above a stacked slab.
Worse, this mod allows you to place the top slabs anywhere, not just above slabs. If you place a top slab on just any random node, it "sinks" inside that node, causing ugly z-fighting (a graphical glitch).
Finally, this mod is not generic at all, only a few select Minetest Game nodes are supported.
Looking-at-numbers simulator
(DISCLAIMER: This review was written for the game jam version, written by a participant.)
This game (?) is basically a looking-at-numbers simulator, and super confusing. The game is meant to be educational and it does include an in-game help but how it relates to the game is unclear. I also have no idea how accurate any of the information presented to us is; the meaning of the icons is not explained. I suggest readers to be skeptical by default.
You as the player can only interact by producing stuff like adrenaline but what does it do? No idea. Also, that's the ONLY way for you do do something. The rest of the time you can only follow some numbers which I assume are some measurement values of the body.
And this is the whole "gameplay". SUPER confusing. The help is not really helpful; I don't really understand what is the point of clicking the buttons. The help only gives you vague relationships but the info seems incomplete. It seems a lot more is going on behind the scenes than is displayed which makes it harder to understand. I highly doubt this "simulation" is even close to medical reality.
The "blocky" body shown in the background means nothing. You might expect that it would show something interesting like bloodstreams or chemicals moving in the body or whatever, but no. Nothing happens there ever, it's just background decoration.
This game aims to be educational but I believe it failed even at that goal because it does not do a great job in visualizing or explaining things or how stuff interacts with each other.
Sadly this game ended before it even begun. :-(
(DISCLAIMER: Written by a game jam participant)
This game is a direct sequel from Artifact from last year, and has the same feel. Sadly, it is MUCH shorter and not as vast.
I dislike the use of AI for a title image, especially in a game jam.
The first room was surprisingly difficult because it turned out to be a parcours puzzle, so it was irrelevant to the "Line of Sight" theme of this year's game jam. while probably not strictly required, I figured the parcours section of the game were easier with the secret sprinting feature. The game never mentioned you're allowd to sprint. :-/
The second room was more interesting and introduced the first actual "line-of-sight" puzzles. But those puzzles were very basic, you just had to activate a few switches. The hardest part was finding the right spots to walk to and parcouring. Not really enough for a new game, even a short one. Even a short game should at least explore a little bit the unique mechanic it introduces. This game did not do that.
And the third room already ended the game. :-(
I really love the graphics and textures, it's very mysterious and dungeon-ish. The story is not really that interering and frankly forgettable, but maybe that's because the game is too short for the player to "connect" to any of the characters.
BUT! I do believe the Artifact series has potential to become something really great if more time is spent on it. There is something special about this dungeon atmosphere …
Sound design was only a few simple sounds but no music or ambience, although these dungeons really YEARN for some audible ambience.
The cut scenes have improved compared to last year's Artifact. The game uses a formspec trick to force the camera to be fully locked during cut scenes, so the glitchy camera twitching is gone. GENIUS!
Finally, this game is shizophrenic about its own name. Artifact, or Artifact One? Hmm …
Unsatisfying because the end is missing
(DISCLAIMER: This review was written for the game jam version of the game, written by a participant.)
The plot and setting of this game is great, especially for a game jam. You have dropped into a hole, and must find out. This is small and simple enough to write a little mini adventure game for and initially the game does deliver on that promise.
Unfortunately, this game is very incomplete, you only get to discover the early part of level design and can interact with a few things, but you can never escape The Gorge. Except you can, actually because you can break random blocks (like pipes) and just nerdpole out of the map. :D (this is probably a bug)
I like the mechanic where you can drag furniture to solve puzzles. Future adventure games can and should STEAL this idea. :D
The interpretation of the theme "Line of Sight" feels kinda forced here. The game justifies it with that you can "see" outside the gorge. Yeah …
For a post-jam version of the game I recommend to fix the obvious bugs (like all the breakable blocks) and the very least add a level exit door, (unless you actually plan to make the world more complex anyway). Even if the game ends up very short, having some closure will make it so much more satisfying.
Good interpretation of the "Line of Sight" theme, needs more polish and levels
(DISCLAIMER: This review was written for the game jam version, written by a participant.)
The plot of this game caught me by surprise, but I like it. The narration makes the abtract world feel like it has purpose.
The mechanic this game introduces is interesting a great interpretation of the "Line of Sight" theme of the game jam. You can't walk/jump but have to click on attractors to be attracted, while avoiding laser fields. This has potential. "Line of Sight" can be taken literally because you can only click on attractors you can directly see. The controls are weird, having to click somewhere else to stop being attracted feels a bit hacky. I would maybe suggest to allow to press Sneak or Aux1.
There are not a lot of levels atm but the few levels that exist were fun. The end was unsatisfying; it came before the game really began.
The speech is generated with Text-to-speech LLMs (=AI). I would normally STRONGLY disapprove of. However, the theme of this game is the digital and the voice feels uncanny corporate. Which actually makes 100% sense here. IMO this use of AI was appropriate because it is actually using technology to fulfil an already well-defined and thought-out task, rather than to just bypass the creative process. I assume the AI was not used to write the actual texts, right?
I like the music. It's not a masterpiece, but it does its job well enough for this game to give a "digital" feel.
The graphics feel somewhat cheap. I know this game is probably meant to be abstract but something just feels … off. With the color scheme, the shapes, etc. That the "lasers" are a full blocks is very confusing to me. The player model is probably just a dummy.
The game contains cut scenes but moving the mouse causes annoying camera twitching. This is a Luanti limitation, but Artifact One found a clever workaround: opening an invisible non-closable formspec.
Overall, I don't think this game is "there yet". With more levels and especially polish it could be nice.
Too much of a grind
(DISCLAIMER: This review was written for the game jam version of the game, written by a participant.)
I think I played this for about 30 minutes then became bored after I managed to craft the first "light towers". You are thrown in a dark random world full of dead trees and must progressively collect materials and craft buildings to proceed, most importantly the towers of light. You can gather stone, wood metal and most importantly lightshards.
Unfortunately, this game turns out to be too grindy: It seems the only way to get the important lightshards is by killing the bug creatures but you need to kill a LOT of them. It doesn't seem you can mine for lightshards. The fact this game also doesn't have an end or any sense of closure is unsatisfying. Sandbox games only make sense when you have a lot of things to do (like a large list of crafts). For smaller games like this one, adding some mission, goal or closure is key to success, I suppose.
More frustratingly, the bug creatures randomly destroy your structures, so say bye-bye to your furnace you have grinded 20 minutes to get. :-( I don't mind difficult games, but I mind games that are difficult by being annoying.
The bug creatures don't really behave well either: Their movement is not fluent at all.
Also, the game is lacking in atmosphere: No music, no sounds. And the landscape overall feels a bit too repetitive as well so it's unfortunately not immersive.
Conceptually, this could have become a nice game. The idea sounds very interesting on paper, but the excution is sadly not. If the grind was not so bad, it was more atmospheric and the core gameplay would be more focused towards an end.
Walking simulator without little content
(DISCLAIMER: This is a review for the game jam version of the game, written by a participant.)
This game offers too little in gameplay.
You just walk on a path and come across various biomes (mostly forest) and occassionally meed 2D NPCs with some very basic throwaway dialogue. That's it. That's the whole game.
This game is basically a map generator with a few NPCs slapped on a path, there is not much real gameplay beyond that, sadly.
I wonder if the author just ran out of time for the game jam. I wonder what the author envisioned for the "full" game.
One hour of nice thinking with arrows. It's okay
(DISCLAIMER: This is a review for the game jam version of the game, written by a participant.)
This game makes no sense but I liked it. You are trapped in hyper-minimalist (but not ugly) rooms and must hit the target block with bow and arrows to proceed. The game progressively adds more puzzle elements like switches, arrow (symbols) that deflect the arrow (that you shoot), low gravity, etc.
This game reminded me a lot of the game Alter but it felt a little bit more polished.
It's a really basic puzzle game but the level design has a good progression. Finishing the game took me about 1 hour. I also like this game actually felt "complete" compared to other jam entries.
A few levels were slightly frustrating because they required too strong parcours skills, causing me to fall off over and over again, but the frustration was still in the acceptable range.
This is not the most polished game; there is no music and the sound effects are super basic. I also found the game to be rather buggy, many others have already mentioned the same bugs I also found in their reviews. I wish the bugs will get fixed later.
API documentation is insufficient
I got very excited when I saw this mod. Entities that recreate nodes? Awesome!
But sadly it is unusable in its current state because the API documentation is very insufficient. Only a few data formats are described but not the functions.
Mod is obsolete since 5.13
Since the release of Luanti 5.13, this mod is obsolete because that version offers GUID for objects natively.
I suppose this mod may still be useful if you need to depend on old Luanti versions, but that’s it. (I still appreciate the work behind the mod tho.)
Poor code quality
The code quality of this mod is terrible, the same code is literally repeated 14 times but with different colors instead of just doing a simple for-loop. What's worse, the texture names ignore ALL convention (no mod prefix used), thus polluting a lot of namespaces and creating a headache for texture pack creators and game devs. Also, this mod registers the red bed again which doesn't make sense and just pollutes the item list. Disappointingly, you can't use dyes to re-color beds. For no reason, this mod decided to also make beds bouncy, which is out-of-scope for a mod that claims to only offer new bed colors.
At least the bed textures themselves are good, but that's about it.
Suggestions:
colorful_beds_The intergration into Hades Revisited is okayish but not perfect
Developer of Hades Revisited here.
This mod looks like a very basic adaption for the game by basically just adding new nodes without really caring about the details of the game. It’s okayish, but I cannot really give it a thumbs up at this point. Depends on how high your standards are.
OK, if you build it correctly, it can look cool. But building the arches and doors is tricky and annoying. The texture rotates with the arch so if you rotate the arch in a particular way, the texture is all messed up. Why not used world-aligned textures? Also, the mod adds two door nodes for each side: Left and right. This is unneccessary, one node should have been sufficed. Other door mods including the game’s own only need one door node because they allow to flip it.
This mod adds wooden and metal doors. The wooden textures match the actual wood in this game, but the metal doors sadly have a color mismatch. For example, tin doors look different than tin blocks.
The in-game door names are bad. Why use the name "door3" in a player-facing text? Just say something like "Tall Door" or whatever instead of this technobabble.
The screwdriver is partially supported, but behaves differently and inconsistently compared to the game's default doors. Punch key rotates the door instead of flipping it. Place key does nothing instead of centering the door. (I understand that support for door centering would need a major rewrite, but still!)
Finally the mod breaks a few unwritten "rules" of the game:
Nice textures
Yes, it’s true: The textures indeed go well together with the islands mod by Termos. Great to be integrated in a game.
This is why I cannot take vibe coding seriously
minetest.serializeto store positions instead ofminetest.pos_to_string%sinstead of@1, or outright string concatenationAnd I could just go on and on and on …
PLEASE just learn real progamming already. Vibe coding is a dead end.
Nice simple tool to visualize 2D noise
Useful tool if you need a quick visualization of 2D noise, I think I'll keep it.
Although I believe it could use a few more convenience features, to make it more useful to actually use the noise parameters in stuff like mapgens, or decorations. For 2D noises in mapgens, we frequently check if the noise value is within a particular min/max bounds, so customizing the min/max bounds of the rendered pixel color would be very useful.
The information could use some work as well. To make it more "scientific", it should have a gradient showing the meaning of the pixel values, as well as the axis directions (X, Z). Tooltips would also go a long way.
Very strange this is a game and not a mod. I would like it more as a mod. Anyway, this is an overall thumbs up from me.
Btw, have you heard of Perlin Explorer? It's the same, but in 3D.
Too incomplete in its current stage
(This review is for version 6-7-2023)
In this game, your task is to fly over the world of lakes, grasslands, deserts and mountains to extract resources by placing buildings like collectors (to collect ore and more), power plants (to make your buildings work), towns and markets (to earn $$$) and connect them with rails. You can start anywhere you like on the map, which, as usual for Luanti games, extends very very far away.
You start out small but get to increase your industrial empire one building at a time.
At least in theory. In this current stage I cannot recommend this game as it appears to be in an early alpha stage: incomplete, buggy and unpolished. The rails and trains are confusing, the UI is too much Minetest-Game-like (rather than more fitting to an economy game) and sometimes some buildings appear to just not work, or I don't understand them.
The mechanics of the game are often confusing as it seems there are hidden mechanics at play. The behavior of the trains is a great mystery and you don't know or control when they will pick up or drop items.
There are many ways in which your economy can come to a screeching halt and you have no idea why: Is it because the power plant ran out of coal? Is it because a train got stuck or took the wrong turn? Is it because you forgot to tell the workshop what it should do?
The graphics are also disappointing: It literally uses textures from Development Test, for example.
Beautiful music
There is just something magical about this particular style of music. This music is nice to listen to even if you're not playing.
I’m confused …
This survival game tries to be a little different and I appreciate the new art style. 2×2 textures? :-) It was interesting to explore the different biomes and the cute trees you built. I like the night sky. This simple glow effect in the clouds was nice to look at. I like when people use the simple tools of Luanti without any hacks to create a nice effect.
But I admit I didn't play with the highest graphics settings tho.
I disliked the vertical hotbar and quickly switched to the horizonal one. It's very hard to get used to the vertical one.
The downside is that the gameplay feels lacking. Unfortunately, I don't know how to proceed. I tried to make iron ingots but the instructions are just too confusing. After trying a few times, I gave up. I managed to make fire at least and light some trees on fire lol.
I wish this game had a crafting guide. Not even the README tells me a lot of information. Which is a bummer because I would have liked to see the other parts of the game. :-(
Overall, I have to give a thumbs down because of the confusing gameplay and the game help … well … doesn’t help me so I quickly became stuck in this game, not knowing what to do. :-(
But still thanks for posting this, it was still interesting to look at for a while.
Generic space accident
I almost feel like I played this game before in previous game jams which also featured space stations. Sure, it's not exactly the same, but not very innovative. :-(
The story, sorry, just feels lackluster. You wake up in a space station and try to figure out what happened. You basically run from area to area to do some thing in a simple quest system. The graphics are okayish. The audio is … ugh. The heavy breathing makes me nervous. I know the breathing is intentional but still.
I did not really have fun playing it, playing it once was more than enough.
I think the reason is the game just failed to set the right mood/atmosphere to me, there is not really a sense of danger. And the story was not really capturing to me. Sorry. :-(
Just play literally any dice game with friends IRL and you'll have a better experience
This game is technically a complete game but extremely simple. You just throw dice in the hope to get only the number 2-6 but not 1 so you add to your score. Sorry, but I don't think this is enough to justify a full entry in the ContentDB, frankly. I would have expected at least a couple of dice games, and not just one.
Also, for such a simple game concept, I think polishing is absolutely crucial. A simple but well-polished game can make a world of a difference. Sadly, this game is not polished at all.
It's just a mishmash of existing mod code, including the dice (this is literally my own dice2 mod btw), are just copied into the. While this is not forbidden (I'm not arguing from a copyright / game jam rules standpoint), it kind of misses the point of a game jam if you couldn't even be bothered to make the key aspects of the game yourself.
And the core game mechanic is very unpolished. Using the chat to show the game status is an absolute no-go for me. At least the game itself works but that's not enough to create a fun game. :-(
Big Empty Sandbox?
The concept (explore different star systens and planets) sounds exciting on paper but in practice I get bored very fast. I'm really sorry, that's just how it is. :-(
OK, sure, this game has a large number of worlds and star systems to choose from but … I don't really have a reason to explore. Sure, I get different metals and plants and stuff but I don't really know what do to with it. And sadly, most planets feel the same.
Maybe I'm just too arrogant to find the fun part of the game but the game doesn't show me where the fun is.
I think the reason is the game suffers from the "Big Empty Sandbox" problem as described by Jim-Stephanie Sterling. The game advertises how "big" it is and that may be true but the problem is, there aren't many interesting things you can do in the big sandbox, the big worlds quickly repeat themselves. The sandbox may be big, but it also feels empty. Which is poison for any sandbox game. Good sandbox games allow you to do stuff. Lots of stuff.
Early demo?
Unfortunately, it looks like this game was left in a very early stage. It's like a pre-alpha? You spawn in some kind of room of metal and all you can do is go through the exit and then you see a large empty world.
That's it. That's the whole game. :-(
If the game would just have better polishing …
The puzzle idea is not that innovative (It's mostly a Bloxorz clone), but it's OK. I appreciate the author has put thought into the push/color mechanic.
Especially the puzzles get hard fast. It seems the author took their time to put it all together.
Unfortunately, they're hard not in an engaging way. It feels very punishing early on. The game mechanics take time to get used to and the early levels do not do a great job introducing them. You have to memorize the help page (that is only shown once and then gone forever. Not great).
What is especially confusing is the meaning of color. You might think the colored side of the block must touch the colored floor tile but no. It only counts if the matching color is on the opposite site. Very confusing. Oh, and also not friendly to colorblind people.
The biggest downside of this game is the complete lack of polishing. There is no level selection. There is no music. The sounds are the most generic sounds ever. The block you're moving is not visibly animated, instead it takes steps instantly. Even Bloxorz, a simple old Flash game, featured such animations. The lack of animations makes it hard to follow what is going on. The active block looks identical to the passive blocks you can push around, making it easy to forget which one is "your" block. There is no "undo" or "restart level" feature. The background is literally the default sky. The textures also don't look that great.
The lack of polishing is such a shame because I think the game does have potential but if the game looks like default.
Neutral rating because the puzzle idea is nice, but the generic look and feel ruins the experience for me, sadly. :-(
Dungeon crawler puzzle with dark mood (in a good way)
I liked the dark blue gloomy atmosphere. The game comes with cut scenes which was a neat surprise, but it was somewhat hacky because Luanti doesn't allow you to lock the camera yet.
Basically this is a dungeon explorer/puzzle game. You have to explore the dungeon and solve simple puzzles by moving some kind of electricity (?) with a wand. I like the mix of "ancient mystery dungeon" and "electronics". The story is simple but I kind of wanted to know how it ends. It seems you cannot die, so it's entirely a puzzle game. It's nice to explore dungeons without deadly danger behind every corner. :D
There are not many types of blocks, but the level design I have seen so far is nice. It feels like the dungeon is absolutely HUGE for a game jam game. The sliding doors were a nice touch that sets this dungeon apart. And they work absolutely perfect, with no flickering, seams or other visual oddities.
Overall, I liked the mood of this game, even if there wasn't music.
Unfortunately I was unable to complete the game because I was stuck at the part after you free the prisoner. I was unable to find a way across the abyss. Maybe I will be able to finish it later.
But I think for this simple concept the game was very-well executed. Thumbs up from me.
Very short cute story with excellent pixel art
I think this game has the best artwork of the game jam. The village is simple but cute. The surrounding landscape is cool. I liked the red plants. I liked the mini-lanterns. I liked the simple huts. The level of darkness (that this game is about) is just right. I'm just a sucker for good pixel art. ;-)
This game is a simple adventure with a very simple quest system. You need to use books from a library to fend off the darkness. What was a little weird is that you have to literally type something in the chat to proceed but OK.
I would have wished the game would be a bit larger because the story is REALLY short. Especially the Library was surprisingly small and actually not a really important part of a story. Given from the title, I would have expected the search for books would be important but it turned out to be very easy. Many people just outright refuse to talk to you and do not contribute anything to the story. But I guess this is what we get in a game jam. ;-)
While I enjoyed this short game simply because of the world/map, I have to say, the story itself was a bit generic. Why is the darkness evil? Why does it hate books or knowledge? How does it affect the villagers? I think this could have been explored more. But still!
Anyway, while the game may be short, it is very solidly executed start from finish. Therefore a recommend from me.
The game feels more like a chore than fun. :-(
Resources are scarce and you have to pick the perfect starting spot if you don't want to be forced to wait FOREVER for your resource counters to grow. Growing your empire becomes hard soon. In a non-fun way.
The only way to reasonably expand is by storage units where yourpeople can drop off resources. But it comes at a hefty price: 500 stone! Which is half the amount you get from a big stone mine. And those are rare and, of course, don't regenerate. Food and wood regenerate and won't be a problem early in the game but for stone and metal, you must expand into the deserts. Which is quite hard or impossible if you picked the wrong starting position. Once a stone/metal mine is too far away, you come to a screeching halt.
The game has a workaround. I can always collect resources manually but this is slow and feels a bit like cheating but often is the only way to proceed. :-(
After I have build every building and I depleted the metal and stone in my nearby surroundings, I quickly lost interest even before the first goblin army arrived.
Sorry, but this game wasn't really fun to me. :-(
It's games like this why I like game jams
This game really puts Luanti to its limits by doing things that seem impossible. It's a 3rd person shooter which is highly unusual for Luanti.
The gameplay is quite well-executed. While the objective is quite simple (walk to all control points and survive against the hordes), there are 5 difficulty levels. The mining laser is very fun. There is a surpringly large number of weapons and they feel mostly balanced. I would have wished if there was some kind of unlock mechanic and multiple levels. Well, there are 5 difficulty levels. I managed to beat the first 3 so far.
The graphics qualitily is good but inconsistent. First we have a very nice-looking robot model which is expertly executed. Also the GUI is well-made pixel art. The robot rotation is absolutely smooth. The shooting particles and sound effects are well-made. BUT then we have odd floor textures with visible seams everywhere. Lava textures are just textures and for some reason don't hurt you.
But the biggest downside of this game is that it's quite obviously a giant HACK and uses MANY dirty tricks to work. I appreciate the experimentation for a game jam and love that it was attempted. And I rate this game very high. But it's not enough for a ContentDB recommendation due to instability. The map is full of dark spots, making it quite unfair/frustrating to fight the enemies because they're basically invisible in darkness. The darkness isn't a fog-of-war. The map doesn't light up close to you. The camera movement is very weird due to the hacky nature of this game but it's amazing it works at all.
I give this one a neutral rating but only because of the HACKS. But for a game jam, this is great.
I think this game is a great demonstration of why Luanti needs more camera options. :D I hope one day there will be a way to fix the hackery so that it becomes a serious game.
EDIT: Oh, the audio of this game is good. Voice acting in a game jam game is very cool. :-)
Feels very unprofessional
This game has a simple quest: You must slay some hidden beast. To do that, you have to discover two areas and then drop into some kind of dungeon.
The graphics are custom and include 3D models but everything looks really bad and clunky.
Then the game has a lot of bugs: The beast didn't even spawn in the final arena (and I didn't bother to check why). There are missing textures. You can dig through the ground and fall into the void (and the game doesn't reset you).
The game overall is quite boring. The quest is too simple, you basically just have to walk in a small forest to reach targets on a map. The map helps you.
The final dungeon looked a bit better than the rest, but it still was just a (mostly) simple linear corridor and unfortunately, at the end, no beast to be found here (bug?).
Basically an empty game
This is barely even a game. There's not much to do. It looks like a VERY early pre-alpha version. Just a grass biome with small trees, an ocean, and that's it. No music, no sound, no mobs, no crafting (at least I didn't discover any recipes), no plants besides trees.
:-(
Lots of levels but needs serious polishing
This game is a simple puzzle game and a good time-waster when you're bored. The gameplay is 2D but with (cheap) 3D graphics. There are a lot of ideas which are all over the place. And an absolutely massive number of levels. You either have to eat all apples, push boxes, blow up TNT to break walls, open doors with keys, push linked pyramids around, etc.
The biggest downside of this game is the lack of polish. No sounds, no music. The graphics are a mix of Minetest Game and programmer art. There are no animations for events e.g. TNT doesn't visually explode, it just disappears. Fire isn't animated, neither is water. When you shoot arrows, there's no shooting animation. And so on. Events (like level completion) are shown in the chat.
The levels are okayish. Most of the levels do a good job in introducing new puzzle elements, but there are 2 game elements which can be tricky. What's a bit annoying that a few levels are duplications. Those should be removed. Let's say the levels are good enough I keep coming back to this game.
Controls are straight-forward: Movement keys to move, jump key to fire a ball (rarely used), sneak key to reset and Aux1 key to undo last move. Unfortunately, the undo only works for the last move. The level selection is less pleasant: You must punch literally blocks with the word "WORLD1" on them. You must manually select the next level after you completed one. This gets tedious.
The game is not well-programmed. It has a surprisingly high CPU use and a single move has a noticable lag/delay. (ca. 1/5 of a second, which adds up quickly). Some puzzle elements like the blue arrow only exist in one direction.
Some puzzle elements are just outright annoying. There is a block that turns the light off, one activates a 30s timer
This review was written for version 2.15.1.
Beautiful
I like this mapgen a lot, it shows what nice things you can build with Minetest with relatively little code and data. I like that the sky has changed as well, the color fits nicely.
While the mod itself doesn't offer any real gameplay, it is still nice to explore it. I see it as a form of artistic expression. And this mod is basically begging to be integrated into an actual game (which I might just do). ;-)
I wish there would be more detail tho. First, the ocean is mostly empty. There are a few rare kelps and corals, but only at the beaches. There is no ocean vegetation otherwise. This is a major missed opportunity. So for an actual game, the ocean would definitely need some love.
The code quality leaves much to be desired, it's pretty chaotic and hard to actually integrate it into games; you are probably better off rewriting much of the registration code.
Still a thumbs up from me tho because it's just so nice.
Impressive, even if very incomplete
This is the mod we've been all waiting for: A clean method to render Unicode glyphs, based on the GNU Unifont.
I think GNU Unifont with its 16×16 pixel glyphs is just perfect for Minetest, there aren't many other fonts with such a huge coverage of the Unicode code space. And Pixel style is good for many retro-style games.
There are nice features like kerning and color selection.
However, while Unifont may cover the entire Unicode BMP and more, that doesn't mean this mod can render them all properly. Some writing systems are very complex and require additional adjustments. So any users of this mod need to be aware of these limitations:
But still, this mod is a massive improvement of what we had before. I will include a modified version of this mod in Repixture.
Mod works, but not well implemented
This mod does what it promises, providing several standing signs that can be rotated as well.
But the polishing of this mod is not good. The mod does not integrate well with all games, it just tries to guess which signs it adds which isn't a great way to do it. My biggest criticism is stretching: If the text is very long or tall, the glyphs are widely stretched, which ruins their aspect ratio.
Some of the signs make no sound when you place them.
Does what it promises
It's simple mod but it does its thing well. Just rightclick with the spyglass to zoom. And the zoom is smooth and there's a simple HUD effect while you're zoomed in. So it feels like you're actually using a spyglass.
This mod is much superior to MTG's binoculars. A fork of this mod will be included in Repixture.
Lots of content, but this game is such a mess
(review for version 2024-01-23)
This game has a HUGE amount of content. That's a plus! It will take you quite some time to explore everything. I don't think I've even scratched the surface. You can find villages, even cities, lonely huts, animals everywhere, ruins. The underground is also full of mysteries. The biomes are large and complex. The overworld and underground are nice to look at. There are so many features. There is a LOT you can do in this game.
BUT: This game just want to kill me. Even touching flowing water can propel you at high speeds, often leading to insta-kill. The world is full of deep chasms that will kill you with fall damage. Even a single tiny wasp can kill you within seconds and you usually don't even know what killed you. Sometimes you just randomly die at full health and have NO IDEA why. If you happen to find a city, there are cars that just crash into everyone and everything. Food is somewhat sparse and hunger and thirst come fast. Especially thirst, figuring out how not to die of thirst is tricky.
There's an elaborate parcours mechanic. A LOT of special moves. But I keep triggering the moves when I do not want them and fail to trigger them when I don't. A worst of all, make a wrong parcour move, and you may take collision damage. I don't have anything difficult games. But if most deaths just happen by random chance, this is not fun.
The menus look ugly and are full of typos. Many menu images are placed in a weird ways. Item names often look like "Crystal15".
And there are just outright bugs. So many bugs I don't even want to list them.
But still … this game, despite all its flaws, still was … kinda fun? Too bad its so broken and frustrating to play. :-(
This game really needs serious polishing and bugfixing before I can recommend it. To the developer I strongly recommend to stop adding more features but instead refine the existing ones, fix all the bugs, polish the UI and review ALL the text for typos.
A pleasant surprise
My favourite entry for this year's game jam. You encounter ruins and a ghost. You find things that make you go to the past, then to the future and there is 5 time periods of a citadel. You then have to use the seeds of plants and timetravel to reach different parts of the citadel. Each time period unlocks new speeches of the ghost which is a nice touch.
I played this game for like 2 or 3 hours because I also wanted to find all 7 artifacts. (and I did. Woohoo!)
The map is well-made and must have taken ages to piece together.
Using plants to rise in height feels awkward. What I did was I placed an acorn and jumped to the corner and made future travel hoping it'll let me, then I move quickly back to the tree. Only takes me like 50 tries but it works somehow. Awkward. Unless this is cheating? You'd think that standing on top of a small tree then going to the future would work but no.
The challenge is to obtain several important items and reach tricky locations by clever exploring and timetravel. The final goal is basically to reach the top with a special item.
But that's not all! There are artifacts! These are a clever addition and they kept me hooked a while longer although they were completely useless. And some artifacts had really clever locations. Sadly they don't unlock anything, not even a secret dialog.
The music is simple but sets a good tone. I wish there would be more sound effects. There isn't even a footstep sound yet. Shadows seem to not work in this game? Every block seems to glow?? It looks certainly a little weird but you get used to it.
I don't really understand where the "unexpected" comes in but whatever.
The submitted game jam version sadly had a lot of small bugs and it crashed when I destroyed the crystal (but this was the end anyway). I really want this game to become bugfree and more polished in future versions.
Anyway, this game definitely kept me busy from start to finished including bonus items, so good job!
Incomplete game?
This is the whole gameplay: You click on two things, then walk to the finish line and it's game over. Yeah, it's disappointing.
BONUS: The only room you'll ever see has eye-cancer-inducing colors lol.
I have no idea what this game means and what it was supposed to be. Looks like a last-minute panic submission to me (for the Game Jam). Sorry. :-(
Offers too little
Another sad case of "author ran out of time"?
The beginning of the game looks like an outright bug. After a first briefing, the screen is (almost?) completely black. I thought the game is broken because I couldn't see the vent I am supposed to open. It is VERY dark and I had to find it basically blind. And the vent glows but it is VERY hard to see. Not a great start.
Once I finally entered the facility, the real game began.
There are a couple of very basic rooms to explore but they're mostly useless. Lots of robots move around but they're harmless vacuum bots or mini-tanks? There is an adventure-game-like interface of inspecting, reporting, using things you see. Sadly, much of it is unfortunately unused. The game has a lot of dialog but using chat for it is a terrible idea: Font is too small.
Eventually I found some kind of "robo-labyrinth". You try out some very basic puzzles where you can guide robots through mazes with instructions (move North, South, etc.). I wasted my time "solving" the puzzles but the actual goal is to just start the puzzles and pick up the robot that looks different because it's the battle robot. I solved all puzzles but it's no challenge at all; you just need to count the squares, basically.
Once you picked up the battle robot, you must reach the exit and that's it.
I have died like 2 times for no apparent reason. Suddenly a screen showed up telling me a robot killed me. I don't know where it came from and it was an insta-death. Very confusing.
Overall, the game is too short and not fun. :-(
Confusing to play, not much to do
The game idea is relatively unique and hasn't been tried out too often. Trying to explore the world (almost) only by sound. Interesting, but I find it to be very confusing in practice. The README explains things well, but I still didn't get very far.
You're not entirely blind. Blue particles float upwards from blocks, so they're an useful indicator of the landscape while still leaving much ambiguity. I like that concept, so you're not staring at a completely black screen all the time. XD
I managed to dig a few blocks like dirt and sand. But the pickaxe seemed useless. I tried to dig stone for like 1 minute but apparently stone is unbreakable in this game, even with a pickaxe. There are "achievements" but I only found 1 for digging lots of sand, maybe? I don't know what the other achievements are.
My biggest success is killing a few chicken for food.
The world itself must be very barren. I walked 1000s of blocks but all I found is dirt, sand and stone, and what seems to be the occassional cave. Leaves and woody-like blocks exist but are rare. I don't think I ever found a forest.
Item selection is confusing. You have an "audible" hotbar, meaning by switching tools, you hear a sound. Each thing has its unique sound, which is nice, but you still have to guess what each sound means. And I think this is where the whole item system kinda falls apart, sadly.
Low health is signalled by heartbeats but I find it stresses me out so I just restart the game when I take damage lol.
The sound design isn't that great. The sounds that are in the game are pretty good, but there are too few of them overall. There's music, but it plays too rarely. If you don't do anything, the game is often silent. There is a lack in ambient sounds which for a game like this is a bummer.
I get the game is supposed to be about blindness but I think the whole UX needs to be reworked entirely cuz I simply don't have any idea WTF I'm doing lol.
Laziest trolling ever
The "air sword" is an old Minetest meme and it's getting stale. I think it is time to put it to rest.
As for the "game", this is literally an empty game. Just forget it.
Chess with luck ... way too much luck
This is a very simple but clean Chess implementation. The pieces look nice, you know whose turn it is. En passant works. Castling works. Basic draw conditions work. And the computer opponent is stronger than me, but then, I'm terrible at Chess, rofl. Dead position detection is incomplete but that's a known problem in Chess software. Also, promotions always promote to queen, you can't choose.
What I criticize is that you must use a chat command to start the game. Why not use blocks or buttons or something on the chessboard instead?
But this isn't Chess. It's Chess with luck. Every few turns, something random happens. A piece disappears or gets added. Two pieces are swapped. A lot of pieces disappear. Night mode gets activated. You travel back in time. And so on.
While this is an "unexpected" idea, I think the random events are just too random. Worst, they are just very poorly balanced. The developer just took a few simple ideas and threw them in. Any random event can make or break the game at any time. The Showdown events removes all pieces except kings and queens and is probably the most broken event lol (in terms of gameplay). One random events leaves the board in an seemingly "illegal" state: Sfter two pieces are swapped, it can happen a pawn ends up at the other side of the board but it does not promote so it can't do anything anymore.
Another UX criticism I have of the luck element is that you don't see which pieces got removed/added/swapped/etc. You have to recall it from memory somehow (VERY hard). This makes it awkward to play. So the luck is not only too random, but also too confusing.
I give this a negative rating because the luck elements kinda ruin the game. If the luck elements would have been more balanced or be more fun, that would be different. To be fair, there's a "normal chess" mode but this wasn't the point of this game.
Thumbs up for the innovation
Well, this is something special. It replicates the UI of old OSes from like 30 years ago and captures the look-and-feel ... somewhat. Even the booting screen is (somewhat) replicated.
It supports multiple windows (but overlapping is buggy). It can run multiple "applications" (read: windows) at once.
The most impressive part in mineos is "Boom", a simple Doom-like shooter completely within a window. This window is very small but it actually works. The game itself lets you just shoot things, there is no mission, health or pickups, but it's a great proof-of-concept.
There's also a Pong clone (sadly, no win condition, too) and a ... Lua interpreter (which is very hard to use since you must type with a on-screen keyboard).
I am a bit disappointed there aren't more applications or things to do, or that at the very least , the existing things weren't more fleshed-out. The icons on the desktop can only be dragged but are otherwise non-functional so a bit more polishing would have been nice.
But still: Thumbs up because of the innovation. Although there is not much to do and it gets boring fast and there isn't much in terms of gameplay, it's the technical innovation that you check out.
Not a game, only a proof of concept
You just walk around the world and it replaces blocks around you. That's it.
And even this mechanic isn't well-implemented, I get spammed with performance warnings.
No gameplay
[NOTE: This review is for the game jam version of the game]
Sadly, this game was released in a near-empty state when the game jam development time ended. There was only a single room and nothing to do in it.
I'm waiting for the shiny "official" release with actual gameplay and I might update this review then.
(Mostly) Easy Puzzle Game
[NOTE: This review is for the game jam version of the game]
The game mechanics are pretty simple: You get a magic staff and it has 3 capabilities: You can float, you can shoot blue projectiles of ... something and you can become small. The rooms are pretty simple parcour and/or puzzle maps. Only one room has frustrated me a little because the timing of your jump had to be near-perfect, but I still managed to do it. The "shooting" and "become small" abilities work exactly as you think and they work perfectly.
The "floating" ability feels kinda awkward tho. Basically it just deactivates gravity for you for a few seconds, so you have to first jump, then activate the ability and time it VERY precisely. It works, but it's awkward to use. I wish this ability had been more fleshed-out. I would strongly recommend this in case a larger, more serious version of the game is planned.
The game is pretty short. At the end there's a simple but solid boss fight. It crashed but I could restart and finish the game.
The game is okayish but not great. It's well enough executed for a neutral rating. Neutral because the floating is not well balanced and there is one room that was pointlessly frustrating because you needed perfect jump timing. With better polishing and levels, I would have given thumbs up.
PS: My game completion time was 24 minutes, 18.467227 seconds (very precise game timer lol)
"Oh, you expected a REAL game? HAHAHAHAHA!"
This is just low-effort trolling. You click on a lever, then it's game over. LITERALLY.
The rest of this ... thing ... is a lengthy on-screen text basically mocking the player. Basically: How you could have been so stupid to expect a real game? The text isn't even funny or clever, just insulting. I kind of hoped the REAL game would start after the text but nope. That's literally it. There is ONE joke, and it's not even funny.
OK, there are "achievements" for such challenging things like "look at the ceiling" (before pressing the lever) but that's all the content you will get.
This entry is so lazy, not even most of the code was written by the submitter, a lot of code is just borrowed. This is not against the rules, but I think this is missing the point.
Very cool idea, bad in practice
I really like the idea of a camera mod. Create an image of what you see and put it on a wall later. This could be used for various creative things. The picture taking itself works fine but is oddly done with a command rather than an item or something.
Sadly, due to the limitations of Minetest, there are several drawbacks and limitations:
While the first 3 limitations may be acceptable, the performance problem is the biggest show stopper right now.
This mod clearly tries to put Minetest to its limits and it's definitely worth checking out because it's something very unique. But I don't recommend this mod for actual gameplay or server use. Consider this mod experimental.
Idk, I just don’t think the FPS genre works for Minetest
I don’t know why, but I just can’t get myself to like this minigame. I feel like the FPS genre doesn’t really work for Minetest, as Minetest was never made for this.
I recognize all the features and depth in this game, but no matter what, I just can’t have fun. Doesn’t matter if I win or lose, it just gets boring for me. It's hard to explain, but somehow the controls just feel a bit off and don't feel like that of a proper FPS.
Also, you have a special tool that you can use to do super jumps which sounds awesome on paper but in practice you first have to select the super jump tool first and then punch the ground. It's inconvenient and slow to use and it doesn't feel smooth; other "parcours"-focused shooters like Red Eclipse do parcours better IMO.
The game isn't bad tho, there clearly was a lot of thought and effort put into it. Maybe I'm just not the right type of player, idk. So: Neutral rating.
NOTE: A previous version of this review complained about a major lag problem in this game, causing misses far too often, making it practically unplayable to me. But this issue has now been resolved, I can actually hit things now. So I replaced this review with a re-review. The old review rating was: Neutral (so no change).
Very fun game!
This is one of my favourite minigames on the A.E.S. minigame server and it gets better the more players there are. This one is reason alone to go on the server.
It's basically a deathmatch, but fantasy-style. Sounds simple, but it isn't because of a non-trivial set of weapons of a class you can choose: Warrior and Mage. And its fun to play. Hard to explain, you just have to try it out yourselves.
The two classes seem to be more or less balanced except MAYBE the "fist" ultimate because it seems it can never miss unlike the mage's ultimate. On the other hand, the mage's ultimate can kill multiple players but it can miss. So I am not sure if this is good of bad balancing.
The UI is very polished apart from a few little bugs (all reported).
A minor criticism I have is that most player hits are silent from the attacker's perspective. This is most irritating when hitting someone with a sword.
Quite powerful
I haven't worked w/ arena_lib a lot so far but from what I've learned by going through the documentation and fixing some bugs of existing minigames, I think it seems quite powerful. What is especially interesting is the editor mode where you can edit arenas with special "items" in your hotbar which act like some kind of "mini menu". It is unusual but I understood it somehow.
Nothing of the mod's design seems to disturb me so far, coding with it is fairly reasonable with no weird surprises.
A minor downside are the signs because they introduce non-translatable text. Signs are hardcoded in arena_lib and can't be removed but I've read it is possible to add alternative entry methods (not tested so far).
The only major criticism I currently have is that there is no player or admin manual, only a programmer's manual because not everything is obvious from the player/admin perspective (although it is mostly intuitive already). For example, I don't know how many players are aware that you can rightclick the signs to enter spectator mode. And it also took me quite some time to figure out how to set up my own test world with arena minigames because the documentation doesn't say.
Arena_lib has been successfully supporting the A.E.S. minigame server which is I guess evidence enough for it's power. Overall, I can give it a clear recommend.
Gets boring fast
I think this is currently the worst minigame on the A.E.S. minigame server right now. The premise is as simple as it is boring. You just jump from platform from platform. The game will get faster over time, until it hits a limit and that's the only thing that changes. Yawn.
The reason why I think this game is so boring is because it's so repetitive. There are always 9 platforms and each round the same thing happens: 8 random platform disappear. Yawn. The game doesn't even try to be a little bit more interesting by adding some variation, surprise, challenge. The only difficulty increase here is by speed which I feel is not enough.
Balancing is also an issue. Sometimes, a jump is just physically impossible that even perfect timing and jumps won't save you. This is often the case late in the game when you must from one corner to another. While I understand the game wants to prevent games from going on forver, it still feels poorly balanced. Because the timer doesn't seem to take the required jump distance at all.
There is no consideration of colorblindness at all.
Then, the mod's coding is just horrible. The logic is very much hardcoded and painful to set up. You have to manually set the coordinates for all 9 platforms. PAIN. There is no consideration for extensibility at all. So if someone wants to seriously improve ColourJump: Don't. Burn it all to the ground. Instead, start it from scratch; it'll be easier.
sus
sus.
(In seriousness tho: It's cute, although I wish there were more colors.)
(EDIT: There are multiple colors now, cool.)
Critically important tool
I have used this mod countless times, especially in game development. It has sped up tasks considerably and helped me a ton. I used it to create various structures and trees in MineClone 2, Lazarr! Glitch and Repixture.
During the development of Glitch, I have felt one of its biggest shortcomings is usability. Typing in chat commands all the time gets tedious and time-comsuming very quickly, especially if you want to do many complex operations in row. The worst part is setting pos1 and pos2 because you have first fly to these places (using mouse and keyboard) and then type in the commands. This part is always the most time-consuming. Unfortunately, WorldEdit GUI only works in combination with selected games/mods for now.
I wish one day WorldEdit usability gets seriously improved because that area still needs work IMHO.
That having said, it's still a recommendation because it's still a big improvement over having nothing at all. Without WorldEdit, productivity would slow down to a crawl, so that cannot be understated as well. Still a good mod/modpack overall.
Mod is in ... French? idk
For some reason the entire mod is in French only. The translation system is not used. Sorry, I have to give a thumbs down just for that.
EDIT: The language problem has been resolved but the mod does not work at all right now (see below). I will update my review when it actually does what it promises.
Simply great
This mod allows a lot of new decoration things and looks very cool. It is easy to use, however, the selectionbox is annoyingly big in 5.6.1. (I know this mod is built for the upcoming version, tho.)
A small thing that annoys me is the giant smoke puff in Minetest Game when a lead "dies". Another small thing is the chat message. I would remove it because it quickly fills the entire chat if you misclick.
The only thing I’m missing is some subtle sound effect for attaching/detaching/etc.
I don’t know what else to suggest, so, good work!
Literally just the same as "/giveme mcl_portals:portal_end"
The bucket does literally the same as if you just do "/giveme mcl_portals:portal_end". It just places a single end portal node. Apart from the new texture, there is no innovation. It is now easy to add "invalid" end portals everywhere but it is not trivially possible to remove them.
Kept me busy for a few hours
The Backrooms are an Internet meme at this point, it's a classic, and I love that has arrived to Minetest. As soon as I saw this entry, I instantly downloaded it.
It does not disappoint:
The "classic" backrooms level captures the spirit of the Internet meme well. It's how I would have expected it: A yellow infinite chaotic mess of walls. The ceiling lamps hum terrifyingly. The game does not seem to care too much about "conforming" to SCP lore.
It is not just the backrooms, but there are several levels that look very different, some with some really complex design like the infinte bath (?) and overall it's just fun exploring. There is not really much else you can do nor is there a challenge but that's the point. It's also good if you're listening to a podcast.
Exploring the levels for the first time is fun. For the future, I would suggest to add more variety to each level so that you don't figure out the level's pattern completely after a few minutes.
Graphically, it is also well done. The low-res textures look nice and I like this game actually makes use or scaled textures that span over multiple nodes (a feature which many games do not use yet). This is great to make the tiles not look too repetitive. There are still a few graphical bugs (see issue tracker on Codeberg), but it's OK. The teleport effect is a bit too instant for my taste.
The sound ambience is pretty good but could be improved, especially the footstep. Some areas have no ambience which is a little disappointing, but I hope future versions will improve.
Good remake
Apart from a few minor bugs and UX complaints I had, I think this game is already in a healthy state and the promise of it being fully playable to the end is true. All the major bugs of Piranesi appear to be fixed.
The game stays mostly faithful to the original, especially, although some UX changes/improvements were made. The game allows you to pick up clues (paper, book) but it restricts where you can place items now. Which is fine, I guess? The compass now works smoothly and is part of the HUD, although the arrows are not labelled (where is North?). Additionally, background music plays from time to time and several sound effects were added. This game clearly has seen major polishing, which is exactly what Piranesi neede.
Although it seems the project is not finished yet and still has many minor bugs, it's in a OK state already IMHO.
As for the gameplay, the puzzles are as difficult as in the original. My opinion on them is the same as for Piranesi (see the review there).
Unlike the original, this game still relies on color for some on its puzzles but it will now display the color of some blocks if you point to it for a few seconds. However, this still isn't perfect as some colored nodes in some rooms are too far away to be pointable. So for colorblind people this game is still not fully accessible. Hopefully this will get fixed later.
Overall, I give a recommedation, except when you're colorblind.
EDIT: The game now shows colors as words when you point at something colorful, so I guess that's one way to address colorblindness.
You mine 5 meterorites, that's it (game is probably still WIP)
Overall result 🔗
I'm sorry, but no recommendation, this is way too incomplete, too little gameplay. This looks like a prototype tho, so I'm still interested to see where this game will go in the future, if it is continued post-jam, because I'm kinda curious about the concept.
Gameplay 🔗
Sadly, there is not much you can do yet. Probably this is another prototype for the game jam. Your main mission is to collect 5 asteroids with the "power hammer" tool and then you win. :-( And you basically just have to wait until they randomly drop from the sky. The mapgen is also very, very simple and mostly, although the MASSIVE ravines look really cool. I was promised an alien fight but even after 3 playthroughs I never encountered them. (?????) I like that you have a companion, the C.O.M.P. Unit. This reminds me of some really old-school sci-fi stories. There are special abilities you can use with your two tools, but what use do they have if there is nothing to fight? :(
Graphics 🔗
I was pleasantly surprised. Interesting art style and use of contrast which sets the world apart from default Minetest Game textures. The game logo could still do some work tho.
Sounds 🔗
This one had a surprise: It has speech output for your companion "C.O.M.P.". And the music seems to be composed and created by the author as well. Very nice! Even if the music is a bit simple, I really like that someone made music for the game specifically for the game jam.
Stability / Performance 🔗
The game is stable. It greets me with an harmless error message about missing river water, but not real bugs. I had no performance problems on a >10y computer. 60 FPS effortlessly.
It's a glorified screensaver
Overall rating 🔗
Absolutely no recommendation as a game. This is just too boring even as a tamagotchi. It is probably WIP/incomplete anyway. At this stage, it might serve as a screensaver at best.
"Gameplay" 🔗
This is a very early prototype, so there is very little of what you could call "gameplay". You mostly just watch forms slide around on an orange asteroid, that's it. You can raise the ground at certain places and add new space worms with a maximum of 3. That's it. You can't even undo the raising of land, that's how incomplete this is. It gets boring instantly, sorry. First, this is not a game, as there is no gameplay. It is more like a tamagotchi. That alone isn't a problem, but even as a tamagotchi is has nothing to offer since you just can't do anything. And if all you can do with the worms is just watch, you can hardly call it a game.
It's still interesting to see new concepts being tried out in Minetest. I believe something like Adopt a Space Worm! was never even tried before, so I give a few points for the idea. :P
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Unfortunately feels to incomplete, the lack of sounds is disturbing
Overall rating 🔗
No recommendation, because the gameplay experience is still bland due to incompleteness. A lot more work is needed, but it's a start. To players I advice to just wait until the complete game gets released. Currently, this is mostly feels like an early demo version. I think the size of the map was ultimately this game's downfall, the author made the map WAY too big and then was unable to create a complete (or even semi-complete) experience within the time frame. I still appreciate the work that has been put into this MASSIVE map already, I think I should check out this game again if a post-jam version is planned. Although the game got no recommendation, I do NOT say it's worthless. I would love to see an actual polished adventure/mystery-style game in MT.
Gameplay 🔗
First of all, this game might be the first attempt to create a non-trivial adventure/mystery-style game in Minetest ever (together with Piranesi, I guess). The attempt alone is cool, it's high time that Minetesters explore new genres. :-)
Sadly, the result ultimately falls flat IMO. You explore the various rooms and collect items and clues, except the only item that actually matters are the keycards that unlock new rooms. Oddly, the key cards just magically increase your security clearance by using them in mid air (not at a terminal)??? There are working computers which their own GUI, which is nice, but you can't do much with them yet. A minimal game functionality is available: You can open doors and close them and the security clearance is checked properly.
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IMHO Best sound ambience of the 2022 Minetest Game Jam
Overall rating 🔗
I give this one a recommendation for the sound design ALONE, even if the game is lacking a bit in content and the goal is a GRIND to achieve. I hope this one will get expanded (and bugfixed) post-jam, I am looking forward for an update.
Gameplay 🔗
The gameplay is basically ... survive, I guess? You run in a seemingly endless expanse of metal rooms, except it's not rooms, it's walls in a chaotic pattern. This game must have been directly inspired by SCP stories from the Internet, I guess it's not a coincidence that the letters "SSP" are similar to "SCP". :-) You constantly run throughout the rooms, hoping to find something new and punch to destroy objects like drawers, storage boxes. Most of the "rooms" look alike, but they are not identical, it's chaos. Normally I would find such things boring fast, but the ambience REALLY carries the game. I found two rare special structures: The engines with coal stacks inside, and a filter system. Apart from that, it's boxes, computers, drawers and some random electronics.
The game tells you very little about what happens, you have to figure (most) things on your own, but this adds to the mystery. You get hungry fast, but there are plenty of food boxes, but you still need to restock constantly, so you need to explore further. I think the game still needs to add a few more special structures to be not monotonous, however, the endless repeating halls still have something spooky ...
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Unique experience, but unstable and feels incomplete
Overall rating 🔗
First of all, even if this game is incomplete, this game demonstrates greatly how games can be a form of artistic expression. This game is clearly a very special and unique submission for tha game jam. I like that a lot! But I still have to give a "No recommendation" due to massive performance problems. This is a shame, as the game is otherwise something really special, I really hope the problems will be fixed and the game will continued to be worked on post-jam, it 100% has HUGE potential. I am looking forward for a post-jam version of this game. It's stuff like this why I like the game jam, even if not every submission passes the park.
Gameplay 🔗
This is unique, yet familiar. It takes on the "mining" genre with a twist. The custom mapgen definitely is a huge plus for this game. Your goal is to go deeper and deeper. The mapgen is good, you will be able to go down relatively easy, don't have to backtrack often and frequently find large cavities. What's unique are the ores, which might come in high and low quantities. Alien plants grow on the floor and ceiling.
You collect resources while venturing down and have to evade ... aliens?
This game should actually be called "Speedrunning Down" because that's the winning strategy. :D My winning strategy is to first stockpile enough saturnium and steel on the high and safe layers, and then YOLO downwards as fast as I can, not even trying to fight the enemies. When I get hit, I briefly heal my self, then continue to speedrun downwards. I also try to avoid large caves due to the enormous amount of enemies. Maybe it would be better if the game had some other method to prevent the player to venture down too fast.
What was confusing is the game tells you to go to a spot on your radar but I did that and found ... nothing. Strange. Probably this wasn't coded yet?
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I am VERY confused
This looks like a VERY VERY VERY early prototype and there is almost nothing you can do. No sounds, no music, no explanation. You spawn in a space station and there are a couple of blocks you can pick up and place somewhere else but that's mostly it. You can also "warp" your space station apparently but I don't know what it does. I am VERY confused and I don't know what else to say. The README file also openly admits you can't do much, so …
Obviously, I cannot give a recommendation for such an early game. I might still check it out later, just in case.
I don't know what else to say.
You just collect 200 moon rocks, that's it
Overall rating 🔗
No recommendation, because there's way too little to do, and it crashes often. However, I like this submission a LOT more than Occupy Moon since at least an actual effort was made to do something new from scratch rather just mushing together Minetest Game and Technic. So, I appreciate the effort. :-) Maybe this game will be more interesting with more missions, content and in general just more stuff to do and more challenging gameplay.
Gameplay 🔗
The gameplay is very simple: You grab your jackhammer and dig as many moon rocks as you can, then you return them to the base. There's a catch: Your jackhammer needs to recharge, so you might need multiple travels. But this is really the only thing the game has to offer: Once you collected 50 rocks of a total of 4 types, you win. The game's only real challenge is to remember your base location, which is easy if you place moon rocks as some kind of waypoint markers. Not every rock will be right at your doorstep, so you might need a longer trip. But that's really the only challenge. I don't think it is even possible to die / fail, or at least that's very hard to achieve.
Mapgen 🔗
Unfortunately, it appears it's just the default mapgen with different blocks. Since it's a moon game, I would at least expect something like moon craters, but I could not find anything unique about the mapgen. The strangest thing about the map is the HUGE amounts of moon ice.
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This game has no innovations
Overall rating 🔗
No recommendation, this game is just a prototype, the gameplay doesn't really work yet.
Game Jam comment 🔗
This game was created for a game jam, but it has clearly missed the point of it, because there is a HUGE number of pre-existing mods, but the goal was to create game from scratch. Using some existing code is OK, but this one apparently includes half of Minetest Game and the Technic mod and even more; that's way too much for a game jam IMHO. For that reason alone I cannot give a good rating for this game jam submission. The README lists the pre-existing mods. The only mod that is not listed is
weld_all. I looked at this and apparently it is responsible for the checmicals sampler and supply rocket and missions. This is a bit too little effort IMHO. The bulk of this game is this clearly carried by the other mods.But I am going to pretend I'm not aware of that …
Gameplay 🔗
This is very clearly an alpha stage game. Not even the moon gravity is working! And everything about this game I have to get from the README. At first, the README told me I had to install an inventory mod myself. :( Then I tried to start with farming. This part worked, but growth is slow and boring. Unfortunately, I quickly got stuck as I have been unable to produce power for the technic machines. The game doesn't even tell me how the basic Technic stuff works, but I still remembered the basics. Sadly, the solar panels don't work, and that's apparently the only way to operate a working furnace, so I can't even cook glass, apparently, so I came to a screeching halt. And then I lost interest.
Graphics, sounds, controls, etc. 🔗
No comment, most content is just copied from other games/mods.
It's a grind
Overall rating 🔗
No recommendation. This game just offers way too little in terms of gameplay to be interesting, and it's a grind.
Gameplay 🔗
Frankly, it's a boring grind. There are only 3 things to do: Fly to astroids, mine and craft stuff to advance the story. Later you get to search for blackboxes, and then the game ends. Meh. I appreciate the innovation of flying in a spaceship, but movement still feels a little bit laggy sometimes. You can safely crash into asteroids without taking damage.
The universe is made out of asteroids, but they are very repetitive. The map generation appears to be procedurally generated, but it looks the same everywhere. The astroids don't look "natural" to me either, they look more like blobs than asteroids.
Graphics 🔗
The graphics are a werid mishmash of high-res and low-res textures, it's not a good overall. The menus all use the boring default graphical style. :-( The health indicator also uses the default texture.
UX/UI 🔗
It's all pretty confusing. For some reason, you must combine a stick and a broken drill to even get started (???). Later, I was flying in slow-mo for a long time until I realized I must release the handbrake. XD. The game doesn't have any HUD indicators. Also, the various ship's crafting features are kinda confusing as well, and I had to try out various combinations. The crafting system is pretty weird, so you collect every asteroid to craft "gravel mix" and this in turn gives you ... fuel?!
Music / sound 🔗
I really like the music, it gives the game a good "space explorer" vibe. Quite a contrast to the graphics. But there are no sounds.
Story 🔗
The story isn't really noteworthy. It a generic "lost in space" story that we all heard hundreds of times. Other game jam entries had more memorable stories.
Stability / performance. 🔗
The game is mostly stable, but I found a funny bug: You can drop items and they … fall down in space?! I had no performance issues.
You can't actually destroy that much
Overall rating 🔗
No recommendation. The core gameplay just doesn't work out, as the only thing that you can reliably attack are windows, and even then your ammo is limited and there is no way to refill. And everything else about this game is not good either.
Gameplay 🔗
It's very simple. You run around a town and firebomb everything on sight. And that's basically it. There is a destruct-o-meter but pretty much the only thing that raises is are glass windows. A few other things can be destroyed as well, but they are too rare in the world to be relevant. My record was to get the destruct-o-meter to 100, then I ran out of ammo. The town itself looks very incomplete, there are a lot of empty areas. There are cops that try to kill you on sight, so you have to be on the run.There are 3 weapons: Fire bomb, pipe bomb and your fist. The fire bomb makes a lot of fire, but it doesn't seem to be very useful with destroying things. The pipe bomb is your main weapon, but it seems to be only useful to destroy windows and the occasional furniture. Most things appear to be immune to damage.
Once your run out of ammo, you only have your fist left and the game is basically over. There are no ammo pickups or anything like that, which is a huge bummer. When you die, you just respawn with your entire inventory and score. The game doesn't even restart properly when you die.
The game isn't fun at all, the core gameplay mechanic just doesn't work out, especially since you apparently can't actually attack a lot of things to increase the destruct-o-meter and you have to deal with a SINGLE ammo supply for the entire game, and the game doesn't even restart properly.
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I had a great time
Overall rating 🔗
A BIG recommendation from me, EXCEPT when you're colorblind, then not (hopefully this gets fixed). Overall, I was pretty impressed by that one, but please figure out the accessiblity thing. Apart from that, the game still can use a bit of polishing and especially content, but hey, it's a game jam! :D
Gameplay 🔗
This is where the game shines. You have to figure out everything on your own, but the game is never unfair to you. Every concept is introduced one after another. It seems a lot of time was put into level design, even with a lot of attention for detail, which I appreciate a lot. The core feature of the game, the pushing and pulling of klots, works perfectly. The movement of the klots is completely smooth, both visually and physically; even a player collision was considered to prevent awkward overlaps. That alone is quite an achievement, WOW! There aren't a lot of levels, and the game sadly ended before it really began, but this is a fake complaint, as it is WAY outweighed by quality. Thinking of good levels for such a game isn't easy, I guess.
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Low quality gameplay with performance problems
Summary 🔗
Absolutely no recommendation. Both the game itself as the gameplay design are too broken.
Gameplay 🔗
It's really bad and doesn't make any sense. A seemingly infinite amount of robots starts to chase you. You have two abilities: You poo, which places a poo block where you look (???). With the plunger you turn a poo block into a package (??????). The robot army becomes huge very quickly so unless you stack yourself up or don't immediately wall yourself in poo, you will die very easily. The goal is to place 200 poo blocks and then "package" those 200 poo blocks (??????). Oddly, it doesn't matter if you die, because your poo counter doesn't reset, so you will win eventually, even if you die like 100 times lol. The robots are really fast and you have to be constantly on the run; if you stay for even one second, you will die. I found two winning strategies: Stacking yourself up (nerdpoling), or walling yourself, both of them bypass the robots completely and you can easily complete the goal without dying. That's another minus from me, that the game can be essentially be exploited that easily.
Story 🔗
Well, the story is essentially just an excuse plot. It's kindergarden-level humuor. I want to be clear this whole "poo" theme does NOT offend me, this doesn't give the game a penalty. My issue is the game just does a really poor job at it. I think it IS possible to do piss/poo humour right; South Park is a famous example.
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Great idea ruined by game-breaking bugs
Summary 🔗
Before you read ahead, be warned of SPOILERS! My summary is that I really like the game, but I don't recommend it YET because of critical bugs that ruin the experience. But I also recommend to players to just wait and check this game out later, when the bugs have been fixed. That way, you will have a more pleasant experience. Keep this game on your watchlist, folks! The game is also not accessible to colorblind people (yet).
If you want to read my REAL review (with MEGA spoilers), go in the comments.
Simple, short and enjoyable puzzles
Summary 🔗
I recommend it! The game is very short and could use some polishing as well, but overall I can still recommend it. I did have fun figuring out the puzzles and the game is stable. Just because it's short doesn't make it bad.
Gameplay 🔗
The concept is simple: You just move until you bump, or into one of these "grid nodes". I'm glad there is another node type added, and not just the solid one.
The puzzles are fun and and interesting. This is one of the game in which you have to think first, and then do something, or else you fly off into space and regret your decision. :D But this isn't annoying, you can always insta-reset.
It's a bit surprising that all levels are mushed together, in one big map. Normally, in games like these, levels are clearly separated. But I think this is fine. When you fail, you get teleported the the start of the level, not of the entire game. There is no level selection but that doesn't really matter as it's only 7 levels. That's really the only real downside of the game: It's over before it has really begun. :(
Graphics 🔗
Graphics-wise, I feel this is a bit TOO simple. There's just 3 nodes with no variation. There was also no decoration besides the skybox. This isn't really a problem tho, but graphics-wise, it had more porential. What annoyed me a bit were the grid nodes. It is not easy to distinguish between a grid node, and empty space between two grid nodes. The empty node looks like a grid node as well. These grid nodes definitely could've seen a graphical improvement because currently, it's kinda confusing. If you fly off into space (and fail), you just insta-teleport back to the level start, with no graphical effect at all. :( Overall, the minimalist graphics are pretty OK tho, although not great. Exception: Level 7. Here the flat color 100% makes sense and is pretty clever.
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Nice and simple
This is very simple but also pretty interesting and fun. It works well with many games. I tried it in my Repixture game and it works like a charm.
It's fun to slowly but surely build your island and it's exciting when you finally get an important item like a sapling or dirt. Good mod.
Very bad as a standalone game, shouldn't be default game. But OK for creative building and modding
I have been a long-time vocal critic of MTG, and for a number of reasons. This post serves as a summary. Review for version: 5.5.0
The biggest problem, tho, is that MTG just "feels" incomplete. In essence, MTG is a Big Empty Sandbox that Jim-Stephanie Sterling talked about on the Jimquisition. Meaning, the world is large, but the number of different things you can do is very small. It thus feels "empty".
So what can you do? You can explore the world, but the biomes don't offer special items that advance the game (except food, maybe). You can go mining, but it's easy to get to the best ore, the diamond ore. You can farm blocks and build, and you can farm wheat and cotton. And this is ... mostly it, apart from some smaller features. Needless to say, a new player will have explored all the major features fast. Not being able to do various different things is the death for any sandbox.
Thus, you run out of new things to do in MTG fast. Once you get the best tools, farmed some resources, built some things, that's all the game offers, basically. MTG is fine if you really only care about raw creative building. The selection of blocks is fine, and people did build amazing things in MTG.
But IMHO, the standalone MTG is completely uninteresting as a game. It is, however, extensively used for servers, but in a heavily modded form. As a basis for servers to add mods on, MTG has done its job well. As a basis for modders, MTG does an OK job.
But most players want more than just a raw sandbox. MTG does not deserve its special status as a default game and should therefore lose it. That MTG is still the default game is the single-most damaging thing to the whole community, because it makes such a bad first impression. Thankfully, development focus has mostly moved away, as MTG is currently in "maintenance/bugfix-only" phase.
Full disclosure: I did contribute some smaller features and bugfixes in the past and also a translation. But not the big stuff.
Too few features and content
PLEASE NOTE: This review is written for the 2021 Minetest Game Jam version of this game, by a PARTICIPANT. I used Minetest version 5.4.1 to playtest.
I appreciate this submission I like to see more parcour games in general, so thank you for that. :-)
This one in particular is too basic and too abstract for my taste. In 3 weeks time, more levels and especially more interesting elements should have been possible. This feels like many of the classic parcour maps the Minetest community has seen over the years. So it fails to stand out. Parcour maps from Inside The Box are generally more engaging because of better graphics and soundtrack.
The graphics … they are just too abstract for my taste. Or rather, to minimalist. Idk, it's not just something I like.
Nice, small, simple, complete game
PLEASE NOTE: This review is written for the 2021 Minetest Game Jam version of this game, by a PARTICIPANT. I used Minetest version 5.4.1 to playtest.
This is one of the few game jam submissions that are actually PLAYABLE. Really important, many people did not get that far (and thus gained lots of thumbs down from me, sorry. :-( ). And this game feels complete, with multiple levels, a menu and everything you expect. Even just 1 level would have been enough for me, but you went with multiple. Nice! So yeah, this is a classic bomberman clone with everything you expect from it. I don't know what else to say, but I just like it. I think the execution is done nicely. I'm missing a singleplayer mode, but it's okay since multiplayer seems to work. I also can't remember any bugs. The game isn't really great, but it's kinda good in my eyes. The menu is done very well, it has many features, even an in-game help is provided (something that many games with much MORE time to work in lack!). I know how much boring work it is to put a good menu together, and you did it completely within the time. I highly appreciate the effort that was put into the menu. Although I think, graphically, the menu is still kinda "meh", from the usability and features standpoint it is good.
Most importantly, this submision perfectly fits game jam's theme: "small game". It's a small yet COMPLETE game. Clear and easy thumbs up.
For post-jam I think more levels would be nice. A singleplayer mode would be very cool. I hope someone will host an actual server of this game someday, that would be cool.
Insta-crash
PLEASE NOTE: This review is written for the 2021 Minetest Game Jam version of this game, by a PARTICIPANT. I used Minetest version 5.4.1 to playtest.
This game insta-crashed on me. Sorry, that's all I can say. Contact me if you want a re-review (once the bugs are fixed post-jam).
Build your own island with hexagons
PLEASE NOTE: This review is written for the 2021 Minetest Game Jam version of this game, by a PARTICIPANT. I used Minetest version 5.4.1 to playtest.
It's an interesting concept. The hexagon platforms are a HUGE surprise for something like Minetest. But that's not enough for a good rating. Unfortunately, there's not much to do, it's basically a demo version right now. I played through the whole (demo) game. There are 3 things you can do: Dig "resources" which are colorful cylinders and you use them at the borders of your hexagons to create new hexagons. And occassionally you find new "friends" which are basically traders, they give you new resources. And that's it for now. Hate to say it, but that's not really enough in my taste. Especially the mining and building gets boring rather fast. The concept seems fine for a small game (the game jam's theme) but I think the mining and building activities would be better if they are faster so you don't have to stand on the same spot for a long time. There is no sound, nor are there any effects. The building is very awkward, you have to hit into an invisible spot to build, there is no indicator except a text. The game also gives color somewhat weird name. The "silver resource" is not really silver, etc. Overall, since this game is too basic right now and just in a demo state, I have to give a thumbs down at this stage. Also the lack of sounds is disturbing.
That having said, I think you struck a quite interesting concept here. If the building and mining aspects get a little more refined, and less annoying, and if there are just more features in general, or more depth, I feel like this game has potential to become something cool.
The game is not very good in the current state, but it COULD be. I will probably look forward for new versions of this game (post-jam) to see if more interesting stuff is being added. If this is extended with the right ideas, this might become something interesting.
A failed experiment
PLEASE NOTE: This review is written for the 2021 Minetest Game Jam version of this game, by a PARTICIPANT. I used Minetest version 5.4.1 to playtest.
It's a simple and nice idea, perfect for a game jam focused on "small games". But I don't like the way it got executed. It's just a very minimal snake clone. You need to eat apples and grow, and that's it. That alone wouldn't be a problem, but the controls and camera are extremely awkward. They just don't feel right at all. Especially the camera is a HUGE problem. This really shows the limitations of Minetest. I apprecitate the effort, though. I like it when people experiment with unusual concepts, games that Minetest clearly was NOT made for. And obviously, when you experiment, you fail sometimes.
Just a maze
PLEASE NOTE: This review is written for the 2021 Minetest Game Jam version of this game, by a PARTICIPANT. I used Minetest version 5.4.1 to playtest.
I got bored. :-( Not much to do. You just run aroud in a random maze and rarely you run across items and guards. Most of the time, you wander around aimlessly. Am I supposed to have fun that way? o_O Apparently you can break walls, but they just lead you to other parts of the maze. Apart from that, there's nothing else to do. This is barely even a playable game, it feels almost like a sandbox. I don't know how to escape, but I’m not intersted enough in this game to care.
Just a techdemo at this stage.
PLEASE NOTE: This review is written for the 2021 Minetest Game Jam version of this game, by a PARTICIPANT. I used Minetest version 5.4.1 to playtest.
So … The basics of a kart racing game are present. You can race on a simple race track, there are computer opponents, there are some bonuses that I don't understand. The driving physics seem solid and also the opponents seem to work more or less OK (but I did not test for long). The fact that you managed to get some kind of working AI in that time is really impressive, however, I have to admit.
But the most important thing is missing: There's still no actual game. There is no time-trial, no laps, no actual timekeeping, no actual racing, etc. It seems like an early demo, probably ran out of time. So since the most important aspect of a racing game is missing (i.e. racing), I sadly have to give a thumbs down. Sorry if this sounds harsh, but for 3 weeks of time I expect at least have a basic gameplay. At least playable 1 level/race/time-trial, or anything. Keep in mind the theme of this game jam: "small game". This is small, but not a game (yet). I'd say this thing was CLOSE to a thumbs up from me, but it's not quite there yet.
As for graphics. The racing track isn't really exciting either, the landscape is completely flat. This is probably also on the TODO list, I guess? I like the kart racer models and the kart selection.
Finally, I can 100% say this one is far superior to the other kart game in the game jam (Minekart).
Obviously incomplete
PLEASE NOTE: This review is written for the 2021 Minetest Game Jam version of this game, by a PARTICIPANT. I used Minetest version 5.4.1 to playtest.
It's a Pacman clone. Unfortunately, the game jam version is in a very incomplete state, it's like in an alpha state right now. The level does not generate automatically and even then the victory condition does not exist. Did the author run out of time?
My threshold for a thumbs up for the Game Jam is at least a minimal amount of playability, but this is not the case here. Sorry. :-(
Incomplete game
PLEASE NOTE: This review is written for the 2021 Minetest Game Jam version of this game, by a PARTICIPANT. I used Minetest version 5.4.1 to playtest.
Incomplete game. You can only generate a map (apparently random?) with a chat command and drive with a kart around. There is no gameplay, like actual races, time-trail, or anything else you expect from "normal" racing games. It seems this game was not finished in time. Sorry, I just can't click in good faith click "Recommend" for incomplete games.
Basically gambling, except it's not addictive (because it's boring)
PLEASE NOTE: This review is written for the 2021 Minetest Game Jam version of this game, by a PARTICIPANT. I used Minetest version 5.4.1 to playtest.
The problem with this game is that the very game concept is not convincing. You just click squares and HOPE it randomly turns gray or green. And it seems there's only one level. I can't see how this could be possibly fun for more than 10 seconds. To me, it feels very boring. This is very subjective, I just write about my feelings here.
But it is probably a good thing this game itea is so utterly boring, because then casinos might sure as hell might find a way to capitalize on it. ;-) Even slot machines are more "engaging" than this. I am biased, of course, since I DESPISE casinos and gambling mechanics and this looks like a classic casino game, except it probably won't get adopted.
Screenshots are deceptive
PLEASE NOTE: This review is written for the 2021 Minetest Game Jam version of this game, by a PARTICIPANT. I used Minetest version 5.4.1 to playtest.
Right off the bat, the game does not really look like the screenshot. The early levels look very empty and much less impressive. Also, the map ends in open air, rather than a constant grassland. For this deceptive/bad use of screenshots, this game immediately gets a thumbs down.
The cool models seem to appear in the later levels only? But why only in the later levels? Meh. Not enough for a thumbs up anyway. A little bit more consistency would have been nice. The screenshots sure look nice, but the actual game much less so (esp. early levels).
Also, I'm stuck in the level in which I'm supposed to climb up the vine. No matter what I do, I can't get up. I read the instructions, but they didn't help at all. Confusing and frustrating. Difficult is okay, but if I have no idea what I am supposed to do to do basic tasks like "climbing", then the game has failed.
If this game would have been a little bit more stable and playable, I might have given a thumbs up.
Just ... bad
PLEASE NOTE: This review is written for the 2021 Minetest Game Jam version of this game, by a PARTICIPANT. I used Minetest version 5.4.1 to playtest.
Bad. You fight with a diamond sword against retextured stone monsters between shelves full of presents and that's it. Sounds mildly exciting but it's really not. The map is also very repetitive. I don't see the point. Very boring. Is this an incomplete game? And when you die, you teleport outside the map.
Broken
PLEASE NOTE: This review is written for the 2021 Minetest Game Jam version of this game, by a PARTICIPANT. I used Minetest version 5.4.1 to playtest.
Unfortunately, this game for me is broken and unplayable. You spawn in an empty world and fall down. You can't do anything. The game starts with two warnings. Sorry, this is all I can say. :-( Maybe I will look again at it later, when the post-jam version has been fixed.
Pretty much nothing to do
PLEASE NOTE: This review is written for the 2021 Minetest Game Jam version of this game, by a PARTICIPANT. I used Minetest version 5.4.1 to playtest.
Boring. You just enter random cubes to drive around a boring minimalist retro poly city and that seems to be it. This is barely even a complete game, sorry. This seems like a basic tech-demo.
Too sandbox-y
PLEASE NOTE: This review is written for the 2021 Minetest Game Jam version of this game, by a PARTICIPANT. I used Minetest version 5.4.1 to playtest.
There is not much to do except hopping around to color the blocks. On the ContentDB I heard of dragons by replicating something in the screenshots but I was so completely unexcited by this idea I didn't even try. This is very essential information, should be all in-game. Since this is a GAME jam, not a SANDBOX jam, I have no choice but to give a thumbs down.
And even as a sandbox, I think it's boring since you literally have only 4 actions.
I highly appreciate the experimental nature of this very unusual game/sandbox concept, however. Experimenting with new concept is always great, so obviously some experiments end up in failure. Don't feel bad for this project, the thing is that you did something.
Too little gameplay
PLEASE NOTE: This review is written for the 2021 Minetest Game Jam version of this game, by a PARTICIPANT. I used Minetest version 5.4.1 to playtest.
I almost gave up playing this game at all. It took me ages to figure out that I have to build at the first street. Building anywhere else is forbidden. :/ Okay, so the game is basically a very simple sandbox. You can basically only do 3 things: Collect power from wind turbines, and build streets and houses, and power them. That's it. Building costs money, but powering a building (or street) gives you back the full cost. So there is literally no strategy at all required here. You could theoretically make your city infinitely large (well, at least until you hit the ocean or hill, because slopes and bridges don't work yet). The controls are kind of awkward and simply due to Minetest's limitations. Since Minetest is at its core a first-person game, top-down city-planning games are somewhat awkward to do, but the game tries its best. You have to awkwardly rely on Minetest's "fly mode". This is one of the more special games for Minetest which shows the limitations of the engine. Another big limitation of the controls is that you can't really build long streeds or housing areas properly with drag-and-drop like in other city building games. Again, Minetest's fault. The graphics style is really cute, something really refreshing to see in Minetest. The ocean could look better but apart from that I like it a lot. As for the gameplay: Really basic sandbox building game, except you can only build streets and like 5 types of houses that don't do anything. It feels very incomplete. Needless to say, it gets boring very fast. And because of this, I give a thumbs down (sorry!).
Unconvincing
PLEASE NOTE: This review is written for the 2021 Minetest Game Jam version of this game, by a PARTICIPANT. I used Minetest version 5.4.1 to playtest.
Bad. I'm greeted with many console warnings. This is barely a game, almost just an (incomplete) sandbox. You just walk around in a maze and kill people. There does not seem to be an objective. This is unconvincing.
Broken
PLEASE NOTE: This review is written for the 2021 Minetest Game Jam version of this game, by a PARTICIPANT. I used Minetest version 5.4.1 to playtest.
It's literally unplayable for me. It say "Jump to play" but when I do that, nothing happens. I tried that multiple times, but failed. I'm sorry. :-(
Too little
PLEASE NOTE: This review is written for the 2021 Minetest Game Jam version of this game, by a PARTICIPANT. I used Minetest version 5.4.1 to playtest.
The idea for the game is okay, but I think there are just too few levels. There are no sounds. Also, the game doesn't have too many puzzle concepts as well. I appreciate the little "story", but it's still just too little, too boring. Sorry.
Grundingly thumbs up
PLEASE NOTE: This review is written by a PARTICIPANT of the 2021 Minetest Game Jam. I used Minetest version 5.4.1 to playtest.
I grudgingly give this game a thumbs up because it perfectly matches the game jam's theme of "small game" and it's an arcade classic, although it has some flaws. The fences have broken lighting, apparently. The text doesn't match properly into the GUI. The graphics could be better, it doesn't look like you're in a subway. ;-) But still, the execution of this game is done okay enough to barely reach a thumbs up for my taste.
Interesting concept
PLEASE NOTE: This review is written by a PARTICIPANT of the Game Jam.
The game seems complex at first but as soon you figure out how each of the machine actually works, it actually turns out to be mostly a "numbers managing game", and you just have to find the best values for each machine and then a strategy on how you manage repairs. What makes this game tricky to win is that your expenses constantly go up and there is no way to stop it. So if you take too long before making a serious profit, you are doomed to lose. The GUI has a few bugs for me, the text is "overbleeding" for some reason, and I use default fonts. But fonts are kind of a mess in Minetest anyway, unfortunately. Until Minetest has better font handling, I don't punish the game rating for it. I appreciate the in-game help, although those highly technical formulas ... ooff! Considering this is a game jam submission and the game jam theme is "small game", I therefore give a thumbs up.
For those who are interested, here is my winning strategy: Immediately buy 50 food (should be enough for the whole game), set HVAC and heating to 15, set cooler to 300, set drill to 300, keep airlock closed, then go to gravity generator and WAIT. When energy is lower than 50 and nothing needs to be fixed, sleep. If the gravity generator breaks, you can instantly fix it because you're already standing there (the gravity generator is very important, if it breaks, other machines will soon follow). If the cooler breaks, RUN and fix it asap to prevent a full breakdown. For other machine breakdowns, you can just walk. If you don't have anything else to do, wait in front of the gravity machine to insta-fix it in case of breakdown. This setup seems to be most stable.
Nice mod but sadly broken
I liked this mod on the JT2 server, it was a nice decoration but also nice to give random stuff to players. :-) This was always nice and fun to use it, as you know, I and other players on the server had lots of fun with it.
Unfortunately, this particular mod release is very buggy and broken in its current state, so I can sadly not recommend it right now. There's also non-free media. See more about this in the threads.
Some general criticisms I have:
use_texture_alpha="clip"(triggers a legacy warning)mod.confNew concept is exciting but limited
(Note: This review is identical to my text to Rhotator because both mods are very similar.)
Initially I was very excited to see this mod and the new concept seemed so obviously better. For normal full cubes, this is clearly superior. Yes, the MTG screwdriver indeed has bad usability, so an improvement is so much needed.
But then I noticed a huge problem: Rotating becomes hard and inconvenient again if you have to deal with complex selection boxes. Because with complex selection boxes (like a toilet), you have to hit not only correct side, but also a side which faces the right way. Since this will change drastically after every click, you can no longer spam-click a node to quickly get to the correct rotation, but you must always move the mouse and concentrate to hit the right "side" of the selection box. Faces that face the wrong way willl be frequently exposed so it is easy to hit them and screw up. That's a problem because it means you still need to think when rotating.
And the push method might sometimes be useless if the selection box face is very small (like only on the right side, meaning you can't push to the left) and you must walk to a different side.
This issue could be mostly circumvented by games by simplifying their selection boxes but sometimes that's not what you want …
For many games, this will still be a massive improvement, but they can't have complex selection boxses.
Overall, this mod is still a thumbs up, because it is an improvement over the MTG screwdriver. I appreciate all new concepts of rotation.
New concept is exciting but limited
Initially I was very excited to see this mod and the new concept seemed so obviously better. For normal full cubes, this is clearly superior. Yes, the MTG screwdriver indeed has bad usability, so an improvement is so much needed.
But then I noticed a huge problem: Rotating becomes hard and inconvenient again if you have to deal with complex selection boxes. Because with complex selection boxes (like a toilet), you have to hit not only correct side, but also a side which faces the right way. Since this will change drastically after every click, you can no longer spam-click a node to quickly get to the correct rotation, but you must always move the mouse and concentrate to hit the right "side" of the selection box. Faces that face the wrong way willl be frequently exposed so it is easy to hit them and screw up. That's a problem because it means you still need to think when rotating.
And the push method might sometimes be useless if the selection box face is very small (like only on the right side, meaning you can't push to the left) and you must walk to a different side.
This issue could be mostly circumvented by games by simplifying their selection boxes but sometimes that's not what you want …
For many games, this will still be a massive improvement, but they can't have complex selection boxses.
Overall, this mod is still a thumbs up, because it is an improvement over the MTG screwdriver. I appreciate all new concepts of rotation.