FOSSPicks
Voxel game engine
Minetest
At first glance, Minetest looks like a clone of the now venerable Minecraft, and to some extent it is. It features voxel graphics, there are both creative and survival game modes, and there's a huge modding community of people that spend their time designing and building unique environments within the game. All of this will be familiar to Minecraft players. But Minetest offers much more than this. It's open source (unlike Minecraft, which despite Notch's early promises is not), and this means that you can invest your time in the code and the game engine sure in the knowledge that it won't become redundant when development drops or moves to a different platform. The Minetest community has fully embraced this, creating many of their own games, mods, and textures, many of which can be downloaded for free from the main website.
Minetest improves on Minecraft in other important ways too. There's a Lua-based API that can be used to augment your creations in only the way a programming language can. Maps can be huge, incorporating 62,000 cubic voxels, and there's a gallery of user-created games and maps that can often be freely built upon or incorporated into your own worlds. While it may not have the depth of crafting mechanics of Minecraft, Minetest conveys a greater sense of jeopardy because the worlds are larger and feel more unknown, especially in survival mode where you have to explore and craft your way through the night and from one virtual day to the next. It's also a great way to play with new game ideas separate from the mining, crafting, and trading of the traditional mechanics. The environment is perfect for building scripted adventures, or an RPG, or even simple collections games, all of which can be found in the database of games created by users.
Project Website
Buy this article as PDF
(incl. VAT)
Buy Linux Magazine
Subscribe to our Linux Newsletters
Find Linux and Open Source Jobs
Subscribe to our ADMIN Newsletters
Support Our Work
Linux Magazine content is made possible with support from readers like you. Please consider contributing when you’ve found an article to be beneficial.
News
-
Linux Servers Targeted by Akira Ransomware
A group of bad actors who have already extorted $42 million have their sights set on the Linux platform.
-
TUXEDO Computers Unveils Linux Laptop Featuring AMD Ryzen CPU
This latest release is the first laptop to include the new CPU from Ryzen and Linux preinstalled.
-
XZ Gets the All-Clear
The back door xz vulnerability has been officially reverted for Fedora 40 and versions 38 and 39 were never affected.
-
Canonical Collaborates with Qualcomm on New Venture
This new joint effort is geared toward bringing Ubuntu and Ubuntu Core to Qualcomm-powered devices.
-
Kodi 21.0 Open-Source Entertainment Hub Released
After a year of development, the award-winning Kodi cross-platform, media center software is now available with many new additions and improvements.
-
Linux Usage Increases in Two Key Areas
If market share is your thing, you'll be happy to know that Linux is on the rise in two areas that, if they keep climbing, could have serious meaning for Linux's future.
-
Vulnerability Discovered in xz Libraries
An urgent alert for Fedora 40 has been posted and users should pay attention.
-
Canonical Bumps LTS Support to 12 years
If you're worried that your Ubuntu LTS release won't be supported long enough to last, Canonical has a surprise for you in the form of 12 years of security coverage.
-
Fedora 40 Beta Released Soon
With the official release of Fedora 40 coming in April, it's almost time to download the beta and see what's new.
-
New Pentesting Distribution to Compete with Kali Linux
SnoopGod is now available for your testing needs