Work on the 5.8 release continues with some exciting new engine improvements, a classic game makes its way to ContentDB, and the use of Minetest in education was explored.
Engine News
Several improvements have been in the works for Minetest 5.8. On touchscreens, it will be possible to place nodes with a single tap. New texture modifiers have been added, allowing developers to adjust texture hue, saturation and lightness, change contrast, create textures of arbitrary size, and more.
Rubenwardy’s settings page redesign has been merged, marking an important step towards a better user interface.
Another major improvment is Desour’s sound refactor which fixes several bugs (such as lag from loading large audio files) and adds many new features such as fade-in for positional audio.
Finally, x2048 added antialiasing post-processing filters for smoother graphics.
Games News
Asuna
Asuna by EmptyStar welcomes the otherworldly wonders of the Everness mod to its domain! From the sparkling vistas of the crystal forests to the haunted bogs of the cursed lands, down to the depths of its lush caves, icy caverns, and beyond— Everness is now a crown jewel of the Asuna experience. With a few personal touches and careful integration into Asuna’s fantastic fabric of biomes, Everness graces every corner of the world.
Along with the inclusion of Everness, much work has been done to improve Asuna’s underground, new biomes have been added, and landscapes are now more diverse than ever. Join the new Asuna Discord server to stay up-to-date with Asuna’s development.
BlockColor
In an effort to preserve an old, interesting game project, the mt-historical organization has added BlockColor by MrChiantos to ContentDB. The name says it all: It’s a world of blocks painted with a soothing palette of colors.
Mineclone 2
The latest Mineclone update, “The Very Nice Release”, went live last month. It is mostly a quality-of-life update with bugfixes, performance, texture, and audio improvements.
Mods News
Many servers rely on the Mail mod for in-game communication. Since the beginning of the year, the mt-mods organization has developed many new features and fixed several bugs using feedback from the YourLand server. They also added translations for at least 6 new languages. The biggest new addition is the “Sent Messages” folder, which required a complete rewrite of the storage system (by BuckarooBanzay).
Other new features include mailing lists, sorters and filters, drafts, multiple-message selection, and a new “About” page.
Most recently, the 1.2.0 release has brought settings, a trash system, major performance improvements, and bug fixes.
Contributors to the mail mod include Athozus, S-S-X, BuckarooBanzay, fluxionary, and the YourLand server.
Plushie Invasion
You may have noticed a recent rise in plushie content for Minetest. Three new mods— Fumo Plushies, and Amogus Plushie by aSliceOfCake, and Plushies by Atlante— introduce a plethora of fluffy decorations.
Nodecore Cat Realm
The Nodecore CatRealm modpack by Warr1024 and Mearson introduces a new NodeCore dimension inhabited by cats. Craft a portal, pay a cat a prill, and step out onto the mythical cat sky islands. Find new ores and craft powerful tools. Conquer the land of the cats!
Arena_lib
Development on Arena_lib by Zughy is nearing completion. With the latest update (6.3.0, “Piove?”) you can choose from rain, snow, or dust weather effects to stylize your minigame arena. You can also change the saturation of the screen inside a minigame to mute colors or create a black-and-white effect.
Art and Builds
Education
Minestory
Every year, hundreds of students from schools across France participate in Minestory, an event created by French teacher Julien Crémoux in 2019. Students are tasked to replicate a heritage site from their local area such as Notre-Dame or the Louvre castle on a Minetest server, and then give a virtual tour of their creation.
This year’s Minestory event was hosted in Terrasson-Lavilledieu in France on May 31st, 2023. 150 of the 413 participants visited the nearby Lascaux cave, which is known for its prehistoric cave paintings. Thomate, Riwad and Lemente were present to discuss the future possibilities of Minetest as an educational ecosystem and how to facilitate its adoption by educators. The next day, they organised a 10-minute workshop (one of 14 other workshops) in which students decorated a Minetest cave with recreations of paintings they saw previously using the ggraffiti and cave_painting mods.
Server News
Open Survival
minetest.skiscratcher.com:30000
On June 14, 2023, Open Survival had a total reset. To remedy increasing management complexity and provide a new experience for long-time players, the Open Survival team removed several mods and completely reset the world and the players.
In Other News
Better late than never, right?
Thanks to our post contributors this month: MisterE, Rubenwardy, EmptyStar, Athozus, Lemente, CodeScratcher, GreenXenith.