Features

Players

Choose from Multiple Games

  • There are many games to choose from. You could survive in a harsh environment, build creatively, or fight other players. Just download a game or connect to a server.

Enormous Maps

  • With 62,000 × 62,000 × 62,000 blocks, there's no running out of space. You can mine 31,000 blocks down, or build 31,000 blocks up.

Multiplayer Support

  • Play by yourself, locally with your friends, or online with dozens of players on a server.

Texture Packs

  • Not happy with the look of the textures? Change them!

Beautiful Map Generators

  • Choose from many different fast map generators included in the engine, or install one as a mod.

Developers

Make a Game

  • Create your own voxel game using our Lua API. No need to worry about tricky voxel rendering or networking; instead, write scripts to add items and control game play.

Modding API

  • Use the same Lua API to make mods for any Minetest-based game. Publish your mods on the forums, and contribute to others' mods.

Large Collection of Existing Mods

  • There are over 1,000 open source mods on our forums which are ready to be used, adapted or learned from.

Friendly Community

  • You can find help with any problems on our forums or IRC channels.

Open Source

  • The engine is open source and transparently developed. Submit an issue for anything you're missing, or get the source code and dig into it yourself.

Installation:

Extract the zip package somewhere. Run the executable found in the bin/ folder.

What's New

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 (sfan5)
  • 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 (rubenwardy, grorp, icon by Zughy)
  • Main menu: better prompt to install a game when none is installed (ROllerozxa)
  • Main menu: various fixes (grorp, ROllerozxa)
  • ContentDB GUI: Load package list asynchronously (grorp)
  • Option to invert direction or disable mouse wheel for hotbar item selection (srifqi)
  • Inventory mouse shortcut improvements (OgelGames)
  • Holding down Sneak+click while moving the mouse over item slots now continously moves items to other inventory (if available)
  • 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
  • Scroll the mouse wheel on top of a slot to pick up or put down items
  • Implement check_offset for decorations (nephele-gh)
  • Touchscreen input improvements (srifqi)
  • Rendering-related performance improvements and fixes (numberZero)
  • Add antialiasing filters (FXAA, SSAA) (x2048)
  • Reverse eye-offset Z-coordinate in 3rd person front view (lhofhansl)
  • DPI-aware crosshair (grorp)
  • Prevent early respawns caused by up/down button in the death screen (srifqi)
  • Sounds and animations are now paused in pause menu in singleplayer (DS)
  • Android: Place nodes with single tap (grorp)
  • Android: Higher default graphics settings (grorp)
  • Android: Auto-detect locale (grorp)
  • Android: ignore broken language files (srifqi)
  • X11 (Linux): Add primary selection (copy & paste via select & middleclick) support (DS)

World / Server / Environment

  • Major speedup for crafting shapeless craft recipes (Hocroft-Karp algorithm) (DS)
  • Fix crash on handling wallmounted nodes with invalid param2 (savilli)
  • Fix biomes not repecting their Y limits (Radar6255)
  • Especially thin biomes will now be generated as intended.
  • Saner (HTTP) timeout limits and log messages (sfan5)

Script API / Modding

  • Add ability to override item images using ItemMetaData (rubenwardy)
  • Add node pos to node damage HP change reason (Radar6255)
  • Add vector.in_area() utility function (AFCMS)
  • Add focused styling to buttons (rubenwardy)
  • Add min/max protocol version to minetest.get_version() (BuckarooBanzay)
  • Add additional texture modifiers (Treer)
  • Add node group disable_descend to disable actively descending down climbable nodes and nodes with liquid move physics (Wuzzy)
  • Add VoxelArea::intersect() (sfan5)
  • Allow nodes to have their post_effect_color affected by lighting (grorp)
  • Fix potential freeze in core.check_for_falling (savilli)
  • Send everlasting particle spawners to all players (chmodsayshello)
  • Allow place_param2 = 0 node placement predictions (SmallJoker)
  • New player physics overrides for climb speed, sneak speed, acceleration, liquid fluidity and liquid sink speed (#11465) (Wuzzy)
  • Allow to set custom third person front view camera offset (grorp)
  • Add script to update/generate mod translations: util/mod_translation_updater.py (Wuzzy)
  • See util/README_mod_translation_updater.md for details
  • Add start_time to sound parameter tables (part of #12764) (DS)

Misc / Maintenance

  • Entity/Object fixes and unittests (numberZero)
  • Lua environment cleanups and improvements (sfan5)
  • Various documentation improvements (Zughy, Wuzzy)
  • Inventory code fixes (SmallJoker, DS)
  • Many various code fixes (sfan5, grorp, srifqi)
  • Opt-out option for Doxygen generation on build (nerzhul)
  • Sound code cleanups and improvements (#12764) (DS)
  • 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 (#12764 and irr#233) (DS)

Minetest Game

  • Minetest Game is no longer the default game and no longer installed by default
  • New water textures (the old ones were non-free) (Lopano)
  • Improve leaves textures in "Opaque Leaves" mode (Wuzzy)
  • When a player dies in protected air, bones now spawn as a block instead of dropping as an item (OgelGames)
  • Add API for sapling growth (aegroto)
  • Hook callbacks for default.set_inventory_action_loggers (appgurueu)
  • Fix logic error in bed rotation (fluxionary)
  • Fix coral and kelp duplication glitch with sticky piston from Mesecons mod (zmv7)
  • Fix players being able to skip many nights at once by spam-clicking bed (appgurueu)
  • Fix not updating vessel shelf infotext (Niklp)
  • Fix bookshelf infotext not updating when adding, removing or moving items inside (Montandalar, appgurueu)
  • Update translations: German (Wuzzy), Spanish (David Leal), Ukrainian (Andriy), French (xin)