This month, Minetest 5.5.1 was released, we reached less than 90 PRs and 1000 issues, and there’s been big improvements to performance, rendering and stability. We also have a new mapping mod and fully-walkable Airships.
Engine News
Fewer than 90 PRs and 1000 issues
For the first time in a long time, Minetest finally has fewer than 90 open PRs and 1000 open issues. A big thank you to the Development Team for speeding up the pace of development, and to Zughy for triaging the issues and PRs and closing the ones that could safely be closed.
10,000 commits
Minetest reached 10,000 commits! A commit is a change to the code and could be a feature, bug fix, or maintenance change. Given that Minetest was first started in 2011, this works out to be an average of 72 commits per month.
Last Month’s Development
May saw 85 commits to master, 57 PRs merged, and 122 issues closed.
Minetest 5.5.1 was released last month. It fixes a whole list of bugs, including several security issues resulting in crashes. Minetest 5.5.0’s release on Android was cancelled due to crashes, 5.5.1 fixes these issues.
x2048 improved the rendering performance of snow and other simple nodeboxes by not drawing hidden faces. Of course, this only applies to opaque nodes where the faces are truly hidden. x2048 also improved soft shadows, by implementing better presets and better filters.
There has been loads of performance improvements and bug fixes this past month. Part of the process of reducing the number of open issues has been reproducing bugs and fixing them.
Look out for Minetest 5.5.2 soon, and the 5.6.0 release is planned for July.
Upcoming Development
rubenwardy has finished work on an upgrade to the Select Mods dialog that shows more helpful information when there are missing dependencies, and it’s currently going through review. This is part of a general effort to improve user experience.
Zughy published his main menu redesign proposal to receive feedback. This is just a mockup, images created to show what it could look like. Whilst there has been some effort in turning this into reality, the current stage of development is to receive feedback and build consensus.
Minetest uses Axis-Aligned Bounding Boxes (AABB) for collision and selecting nodes/objects. This is a fancy way of saying boxes which don’t rotate: the boxes are aligned to the grid directions (=axis).
LMD is implementing support for rotating selection boxes, which will allow mobs and players to have more accurate hitboxes. This doesn’t change collision boxes, as it’s much harder to rotate them - you’d need to handle how two rotated boxes would collide with each other.
rubenwardy has been working on a window information API that will allow mods to get the player’s window resolution and DPI. He has also been working on an API to get the player’s input methods, such as keyboard, touchscreen, or gamepad. Together, these will allow mods to make GUIs more responsive and fit the screen better.
Game News
Nodecore
Since March, Warr1024 has been working on translations for Nodecore. Now there are practically complete translations in Russian, French, and German. Also, many things have been improved with the optics automation systems. The new features especially improve optics’ detection capabilities.
Exile
Exile 0.3.7 is out! Among other improvements, the highlights are improved airboats, multiplayer node protection for some valuable items, and the beginnings of translation support.
Cascade
Cascade is a new maze game. While other maze games have been released, this one is unique in that each new maze level is laid out before you before you enter it, giving you a chance to plan your route to the exit. Once entered, the walls are too high to see over. It is an interesting take on the maze game theme.
Mod News
Xmaps
xmaps is a new mod by erle that adds treasure-maps to the HUD. You get them by rightclicking a mapping kit. You can mark the spot with an X by rightclicking a node. Treasure Hunt, anyone?
Steampunk Blimp
Apercy’s Airship allows you to walk around on it while it flies. It aims for a sense of immersion, with a fire and steam engine sound, and being able to refill the water tank by landing on water. It brings a sense of adventure and mystique to any game as you fly off into the distance with a couple of friends.
Texture Generator
LMD’s new texture generator mod lets you recolor any texture pack into a given color pallete.
Quikbild
MisterE’s Quikbild minigame has been updated to support gameplay in several languages, concurrently. Now you can have fun in your own language (if it’s English, Italian, Spanish, French, or German), or practice and challenge yourself in another language.
Spiradilus release
Spiradilus, a huge crocodile boss featured in March’s post, was released on ContentDB.
Art and Builds
Server News
From Minigames Galore and A.E.S. Minigames:
minetest.eticadigitale.org:30010
The 3rd Blockleague tournament is planned for Friday, June 24 at 21:30 - 23:15, GMT+1. The event will be a direct elimination competition between teams of 3 players. The winners will get a chat prefix and statues in the lobby until the next tournament. There are still 3 team slots left; to find people to team up with or to register your team, join us on matrix or IRC.
In Other News
Minetest was represented this past month at the Svilupparty game dev conference in Bologna, Italy by Zughy, Crazyminer, and _Zaizen_. Visitors had the chance to play Alter, PRANG, Mineclone5, and their server AES (Arcade Emulation Server).
Thanks to our post contributors this month: MisterE, rubenwardy.