Minetest

December, 5th 2023 - 15.2 MB - Open Source

Latest Version

Minetest 5.8.0 LATEST
Review by

Jack Taylor
Operating System

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

Click to vote
Author / Product

The Minetest Team / External Link
Filename

minetest-5.8.0-win64.zip

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

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

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

Main features

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

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

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

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

PROS

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

CONS

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

Overall

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

Download Minetest Latest Version

What's new in this version:

Deprecations and compatibility notes:
- Minetest Game is no longer the default game and will no longer be shipped by Minetest. If you want it back, install it by using the “Content” tab
- lua_api.txt has been converted to Markdown and renamed to lua_api.md
- Android now builds via CMake
- Compiling: C++17 support is now required
- Node definition field air_equivalent is now documented—as deprecated

Client / Audiovisuals:
- Main menu: Redesign and unify settings interface
- Main menu: better prompt to install a game when none is installed
- Main menu: various fixes
- ContentDB GUI: Load package list asynchronously
- Option to invert direction or disable mouse wheel for hotbar item selection
- Inventory mouse shortcut improvements
- Holding down Sneak+click while moving the mouse over item slots now continously moves items to other inventory
- Press Sneak+click on the crafting output slot to craft and move result to inventory
- Left mouse button: Craft as many as possible
- Mouse wheel: Craft 10 times
- Right mouse button: Craft once
- Drag an item stack on the crafting grid to split stacks evenly
- Hold down Left mouse button while holding an item stack and move the cursor over the slots to pick up items of the same type
- Implement check_offset for decorations
- Touchscreen input improvements
- Rendering-related performance improvements and fixes
- Add antialiasing filters
- Reverse eye-offset Z-coordinate in 3rd person front view
- DPI-aware crosshair
- Prevent early respawns caused by up/down button in the death screen
- Sounds and animations are now paused in pause menu in singleplayer
- Android: Place nodes with single tap
- Android: Higher default graphics settings
- Android: Auto-detect locale
- Android: ignore broken language files
- X11

World / Server / Environment:
- Major speedup for crafting shapeless craft recipes
- Fix crash on handling wallmounted nodes with invalid param2
- Fix biomes not repecting their Y limits
- Especially thin biomes will now be generated as intended.
- Saner

Script API / Modding:
- Add ability to override item images using ItemMetaData
- Add node pos to node damage HP change reason
- Add vector.in_area() utility function
- Add focused styling to buttons
- Add min/max protocol version to minetest.get_version()
- Add additional texture modifiers
- Add node group disable_descend to disable actively descending down climbable nodes and nodes with liquid move physics
- Add VoxelArea::intersect()
- Allow nodes to have their post_effect_color affected by lighting
- Fix potential freeze in core.check_for_falling
- Send everlasting particle spawners to all players
- Allow place_param2 = 0 node placement predictions
- New player physics overrides for climb speed, sneak speed, acceleration, liquid fluidity and liquid sink speed
- Allow to set custom third person front view camera offset
- Add script to update/generate mod translations: util/mod_translation_updater.py
- See util/README_mod_translation_updater.md for details
- Add start_time to sound parameter tables

Misc / Maintenance:
- Entity/Object fixes and unittests
- Lua environment cleanups and improvements
- Various documentation improvements
- Inventory code fixes
- Many various code fixes
- Opt-out option for Doxygen generation on build
- Sound code cleanups and improvements
- Long sounds in sound packs, or sent via dynamic media, no longer cause client freezes on load
- Positional sounds can be faded now
- Documentation
- Other improvements listed elsewhere
- Faster client load times

Minetest Game:
- Minetest Game is no longer the default game and no longer installed by default
- New water textures
- Improve leaves textures in "Opaque Leaves" mode
- When a player dies in protected air, bones now spawn as a block instead of dropping as an item
- Add API for sapling growth
- Hook callbacks for default.set_inventory_action_loggers
- Fix logic error in bed rotation
- Fix coral and kelp duplication glitch with sticky piston from Mesecons mod
- Fix players being able to skip many nights at once by spam-clicking bed
- Fix not updating vessel shelf infotext
- Fix bookshelf infotext not updating when adding, removing or moving items inside
- Update translations: German