[Game] Voxelgarden [2025-50 r25]

[rudzik8]

Voxelgarden is a classic game for Luanti, to explore, survive and build. Compatible with most mods for Minetest Game.

This topic is essentially a split from /viewtopic.php?t=6346, just like this game is a split from the original Voxelgarden. The goal is to maintain Voxelgarden in the same spirit as Casimir did.


Download:

• Stable release: ContentDB | Codeberg
• Latest (git): voxelgarden-master.zip

Getting started

Open your inventory and take a look at the Recipes tab. Select items to see how they can be made and select them twice to see what can be made out of them.

The primary resource needed to progress is crumbled stone. Combine 4 of them to make cobblestone, which is the material for stone tools.

To get sticks, place 3 leaves vertically on the crafting grid. Besides tools and torches, sticks are also used to make campfires, a cheap early-game replacement for cobblestone furnaces.

Depending on the biome, it might be harder or easier to find food. Usually, the easier and faster method to get food is to hunt rats. After killing one, it can be cooked in a furnace or on a campfire to make some nutritious rat meat.

The base game mechanics aren't too difficult to get used to. The progression is fairly obvious from this point onwards. Follow the recipes. Alloy new metals. Go to the Nether.

Build a house. Plant a tree. Raise a rat.


Features

• Hostile and passive mobs, partly inspired by Minetest 0.3.
• Good textures by default, forming an overall consistent style.
• Game mechanics different from Minetest Game and Minecraft, giving the game its unique feeling.
• Self-planting saplings. No need to collect them. Forests will spread naturally.
• Biome-dependent weather cycle, with rain extinguishing fire and snow piling on the ground.
• Progressive gameplay, while still offering different ways to achieve your goals.
• Coal-powered alloy furnaces making ingots that are unobtainable through regular cooking or crafting.
• More realistic metal progression. Iron lumps make iron ingots; alloy iron with coal to make steel.
• Hellish Nether realm, separated from the regular world by an unbreakable bedrock layer.
• Nether and Floatlands (v7) portals, ignited with the Realm Striker, an item found within dungeons deep underground.
• Not only stairs and slabs, but a wide range of sub-nodes, enabling detailed buildings.
• Most items can be placed down, allowing for interesting decorative elements.
• Dyes can be placed on wool and similar nodes to instantly color them.
• Must-see mapgen. Getting the best out of mapgens v6 and v7.
• MC-like hunger and healing.
• Sprinting mechanics.
• Simple score system, motivating players to not abandon their worlds.
• Modular doors, with which you can build more than just doors, e.g. window frames, hatches, street lamps...
• Cactus has spikes and they hurt.
• Details, details, details. Don't miss them.

Screenshots

Spoiler

Recipes to know

Spoiler

Code: Select all

Sticks 6

L
L
L

L = Leaves

Code: Select all

Cobblestone

C C
C C

C = Crumbled stone

Code: Select all

Horizontal tree 2

. T
T .

T = Tree
. = Nothing

Code: Select all

Axe

M S
M S
. S

M = Material (rock, copper ingot, steel ingot)
S = Stick
. = Nothing

Licence

Voxelgarden has 2 licenses: one for source code and one for media assets. These licenses are used as fallbacks (by the principle of least permissive) and apply unless stated otherwise.

The source code is licensed under LGPLv2.1 or later:

This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU Lesser General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2.1 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.

Media assets are licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Included mods and their licenses are listed in MODS.md.


Links

ContentDB: Voxelgarden
Repository: voxelgarden/voxelgarden
Website: https://voxelgarden.codeberg.page/
Original topic: /viewtopic.php?t=6346

[rudzik8]

Voxelgarden 5.8.0

Trailer video

Changes:

• Fix syntax errors in bones.se.tr (Wuzzy)
• Fetch multiple mod changes from MTG
• Add Casimir's placeitem mod (with a fix for stick's description)
• Update minetest.conf.example and add settingtypes.txt
• Replace TNT and gunpowder textures (except tnt_gunpowder_inventory.png) with ones from Good Morning Craft (TNTs were slightly color-corrected and the TNT stick was drawn from scratch based on new TNT's colors)
• Custom 3D player skin (with an option to get 2D one)
• Update sprint mod based on changes by AFCMS
• Minor changes and fixes

Download: Codeberg

[Blockhead]

Good to see the community is active in maintaining the good old stuff like Voxelgarden. Free software and a stable API makes it easy.

Going off the trailer Voxelgarden, it looks like a more polished but sometimes antiquated cousin to MTG. It has features like the nice art style and placeable items. But there are rough spots like how the inventory formspec looks like the engine builtin-in and it doesn't have in-game/entity text signs like display_modpack (I know MTG doesn't have those either, but I guess it's what I expect in a good MTG fork/good game in general).

P.S Why is the trailer unlisted? It seems like a good candidate for an algorithm-shared video.

P.P.S. I'm going to be "that guy" so here is a grammar & spelling corrected version of the bullet points

Spoiler

• "Retro" 2D mobs
• Good textures by default, forming an overall consisted style.
• Self-planting saplings. No need to collect them. Forests will spread naturally.
• Progressive gameplay, while still offering different ways to achieve your goals.
• Not only stairs and slabs, but a wide range of sub-nodes, enable detailed buildings.
• Must-see mapgen. Getting the best out of mapgen v6 and v7.
• MC-like hunger and healing.
• Sprint.
• Game mechanics different from minetest_game and Minecraft. Giving the game it's unique feeling.
• With modular doors you can build more than just doors. e.g. window frames, hatches, street lamps...
• Cactus has spikes and they hurt.
• (Most) items can be placed down, allowing for interesting decorative elements.
• Details, details, details. Don't miss them.

[rudzik8]

Going off the trailer Voxelgarden, it looks like a more polished but sometimes antiquated cousin to MTG. It has features like the nice art style and placeable items. But there are rough spots like how the inventory formspec looks like the engine builtin-in and it doesn't have in-game/entity text signs like display_modpack (I know MTG doesn't have those either, but I guess it's what I expect in a good MTG fork/good game in general).

For things like that, the explanation is usually simple - Casimir liked it that way (and I like it too)

From what I know, the formspec is intentional (that's how it looked back in the day; I don't have any intentions of bringing sfinv or a similar mod here, that's just far too generic and doesn't follow Voxelgarden style)

For advanced signs, I'll give it a thought, but I also understand that it works even worse for Minetest. When text is placed as entity, you oftentimes have to come real close to it to read anything if you don't have a big monitor, as the pixels get smashed together. Filters don't really help, most only make this worse.

P.S Why is the trailer unlisted? It seems like a good candidate for an algorithm-shared video.

Fixed.

P.P.S. I'm going to be "that guy" so here is a grammar & spelling corrected version of the bullet points

That is actually useful. Added to the main post. Thanks!

[Blockhead]

From what I know, the formspec is intentional (that's how it looked back in the day; I don't have any intentions of bringing sfinv or a similar mod here, that's just far too generic and doesn't follow Voxelgarden style)

Fair enough, though I can't help but feel with the hotbars being styled in a certain way, a nice faithful texture for the formspec would be welcome.

For advanced signs, I'll give it a thought, but I also understand that it works even worse for Minetest. When text is placed as entity, you oftentimes have to come real close to it to read anything if you don't have a big monitor, as the pixels get smashed together. Filters don't really help, most only make this worse.

True, I speak from a more privileged position of viewing on a 1080p monitor, and even then a lot of display modpack signs can be hard to view, unless they use the big font. The basic infotext signs are at least readable as long as the UI settings already work well for the user. It seems to make sense to keep them that way then.

[rudzik8]

Update: I've transfered the ownership for this repo to a new org called 'voxelgarden'. The updated repo is https://codeberg.org/voxelgarden/voxelgarden
If you had already set up automatic pulling, it is highly encouraged that you update your remote.

[Casimir]

I'm glad this is being revived. Almost feels nostalgic :)

The goal is to maintain Voxelgarden in the same spirit as Casimir did, for as long as he is too busy (perhaps he'll want to continue on his own one day, who knows?).

I already have enough projects to keep me busy for the rest of my life. It's very unlikely that I will continue this project any time. But now that it is up to date, I might play again occasionally.

Going off the trailer Voxelgarden, it looks like a more polished but sometimes antiquated cousin to MTG. It has features like the nice art style and placeable items. But there are rough spots like how the inventory formspec looks like the engine builtin-in and it doesn't have in-game/entity text signs like display_modpack (I know MTG doesn't have those either, but I guess it's what I expect in a good MTG fork/good game in general).

For things like that, the explanation is usually simple - Casimir liked it that way (and I like it too)

I liked the aesthetics of very early Minetest 0.4 or even 0.3, and tried to emulate that.
But in a way, it's even simpler: I'm lazy. I kept the game simple, because adding more complex mods means more work maintaining things. I am aware that the game lacked content. I didn't just add stuff, because many of the mods I tried had various problems. Fixing those problems before adding stuff was just too much work.
Also, I wanted to have the mods work well together in a meaningful way and to be not just separate packages added onto the game (you can always do this with mods on your own). Therefor I focused on the basic mechanics and balancing the gameplay. If I had more time and more coding experience, I would have added a lot of stuff (see the issues on my repository, especially long term plans).

[rudzik8]

Voxelgarden 5.8.0-1

Changes:

• Lower sprint stamina from 20 to 15
• Fix dungeons appearing too frequently in mgv7
• Improve stairs mod compatibility

Download: ContentDB | Codeberg

[rudzik8]

I already have enough projects to keep me busy for the rest of my life. It's very unlikely that I will continue this project any time. But now that it is up to date, I might play again occasionally.

You're very welcome to play it (and give feedback)! For projects like this, it is really good when the creator is still around.

I am aware that the game lacked content. I didn't just add stuff, because many of the mods I tried had various problems. Fixing those problems before adding stuff was just too much work.

I'm actually slowly picking up some mods that I think would fit VG, perhaps first as part of an official modpack. It is completely public, anyone can take a look (and even try these mods for themselves) here
The only one I touched so far is Scaffolding, and I'm currently pretty happy with how it fits VG, considering this mod's age and usefulness (you can't use dirt in VG for scaffolding as it is a falling block)
I will probably release it standalone on ContentDB as well as no compatibility with MTG had been lost in the process.

If I had more time and more coding experience, I would have added a lot of stuff (see the issues on my repository, especially long term plans).

I'm really curious about that "Edge mod" that you mention there. Are there any details? Can you share that prototype you've been working on (or someone else)?

[rudzik8]

Also, if I understood correctly, the real reason behind 2D-only mobs was Casimir not wanting to learn Blender.

I think I'll give 3D mobs a shot once glTF support finally arrives. Though they will be modeled after the sprites to keep the aesthetic.

Might even add new ones.

[Casimir]

The idea with edge is that mods that create new realms within the world, could register the edges of that realm (where it starts, where it ends). Each realm would then be self contained. When a player reaches the edge, they get teleported to the other side of the same realm. E.g. when you use the nether mod and dig down long enough you don't end up in the nether, but find nothing and, going further, start to fall from the sky.

Because that would seem strange with mapgen, and not being able to see where and when you get teleported, I added a hazy substance that you can enter and float in until you reach the actual edge. My plan was to use perlin noise to make the edge seem more natural and not clear cut as it is now, but I stopped along the way. The mod in the attachment has the basic functionality, but is very unfinished.

[rudzik8]

Just tried it out, it is really promising. Could you relicense it under LGPLv2.1-or-later please?

[rudzik8]

Voxelgarden 5.8.0-2 "Sandpaper"

Starting from this release, versions will have codenames, which are first given to individual milestones on Codeberg instead of straight away version numbers: this is because it is sometimes impossible to predict when a new MTE version might release, and VG versioning relies on that.
They don't have any convention for now, but the rough idea is to give them based on real-world physical items that symbolize the general theme of the release.

Changes:

• Replace and optimize many textures leftover from MTG
• Add apple variations (generated/inventory), so that naturally generated apples don't look like they float under trees
• Update doors API
• Update default localization using mod_translation_updater.py

Download: ContentDB | Codeberg

[neo-zzz]

Voxelgarden 5.8.0-2 "Sandpaper"

Starting from this release, versions will have codenames, which are first given to individual milestones on Codeberg instead of straight away version numbers: this is because it is sometimes impossible to predict when a new MTE version might release, and VG versioning relies on that.
They don't have any convention for now, but the rough idea is to give them based on real-world physical items that symbolize the general theme of the release.

Changes:

• Replace and optimize many textures leftover from MTG
• Add apple variations (generated/inventory), so that naturally generated apples don't look like they float under trees
• Update doors API
• Update default localization using mod_translation_updater.py

Download: ContentDB | Codeberg

thank you for your hard work. keep up the good work. c u

[Casimir]

Could you relicense it under LGPLv2.1-or-later please?

You have permission to use it under any free license you like.

[rudzik8]

Voxelgarden 5.8.0-3 "Brush"

There's a big overhaul update coming soon (you can preview it on the master branch), which is why this release was tagged on the classic branch (basically some additions are omitted and kept for the future release, codenamed "Dagger"). The classic branch will get maintenance and some trivial changes backported to it, just in case someone will dislike Dagger (I don't want the Adventure Update drama that happened with MC and resulted in an uneven playerbase divide - this is some unhealthy gamedev practice that should be avoided). You can download the latest code from it using this link (will add it to the main post later).

Changes:

• Add new functions to stairs wrapper (fixes xdecor support)
• Add fence/rail functions to default (fixes nether support)
• Update bucket mod (including locales)
• Update playerphysics to 1.1.0
• Fix wield scale for mese crystal & fragment
• Replace multiple tree top textures for consistency
• Replace granite texture

Download: ContentDB | Codeberg

[rudzik8]

thank you for your hard work. keep up the good work. c u

Thanks. That's actually the first feedback I got from this project!

Could you relicense it under LGPLv2.1-or-later please?

You have permission to use it under any free license you like.

Thank you. The edge mod will be temporarily hosted in a separate repo, as I'm fixing and improving on it (including the perlin noise part, I agree that it'll be a great improvement!):

https://codeberg.org/voxelgarden/edge

[rudzik8]

There are quite a few news!

Going community

There have been 2 documents added to the root of the repo, that both relate to contributions from the community (where the community is basically everyone except me and Casimir).

Firstly, it is the Code Of Conduct, or CoC (CODE_OF_CONDUCT.md). It was adopted from Contributor Covenant and dictates the common norms and guidelines that people in our community must follow. You can think of it as a don't-be-a-jerk clause to the whole thing.

Secondly, it is CONTRIBUTING.md which was partially adopted from a similar document for MineClone2 and which contains some info and instructions on how to contribute and what to contribute with (see Contributing hub).

If you wanted to contribute to VG, this is the time to do it!

Going Matrix

You heard that right. There's now a Matrix Space for Voxelgarden for you to talk in! Currently it has 3 rooms: General, Support and Offtopic. More may be added in the future.

Going forward

It was decided that Dagger should be split into 2 releases: first it is Chisel, and only then it is Dagger. Chisel won't include any adventure-related elements, but rather be a polishing+detailing release. And also it won't be on classic anymore.

Hopefully this way Dagger won't be as sudden of a release as it was planned to be.

Stay tuned!

[rudzik8]

Voxelgarden 5.8.0-4 "Chisel"

There's never enough polishing.

Changes:

• When you wield an item, you see its name above the hotbar (show_wielded_item mod by Wuzzy)
• Override items based on group: now tree trunks added by mods use the same digging groups as the VG ones and flowers utilize the same torchlike drawtype
• A ton of porting from MTG to improve mod support
  • Add groups to tools, similar to MTG
  • Add wooden fence rail (fixes moretrees support)
  • Allow mods to register doors the MTG way (Casimir)
  • Fix crash when chests get destroyed by explosions (Casimir)
  • Add aliases for MTG nodes and add mese post light
  • Add signs from MTG (fixes signs_lib support)
  • Add missing textures from MTG (and make them fit VG)
  • Add new block/brick variations for nodes
  • Make books writable and make bookshelves actually contain books
  • Fix creative API compatibility
  • Update chests with changes from MTG
• Fix waterlily rendering wrong
• Make a seedling appear when a flower is dug (seedlings eventually grow into flowers)
• Add wield scale and sounds to tools (original mod by DuckGo)
• Add hardened rocks and their brick variant (supposed to be a variant of molten rocks; currently unobtainable, will be used later for a new structure)
• Make diamonds placeable as nodes with drawtype plantlike
• Minor production-related changes
  • Add optimize_textures.sh script based on command from REFI's README by MysticTempest
  • Add contributing-related documentation (Code Of Conduct and CONTRIBUTING.md guide)

Download: ContentDB | Codeberg

[Sokomine]

Good that this mod/game is maintained and further developped.

For me, the first screenshot is a bit confusing. What I associate with Voxelgarden and UnterNull is the famous payprus root. That can't be missing from such a thread. Would have to search my old screenshots to find my tiny house built out of it. The texture and usefullness of that papyrus root are IMHO great.

[rudzik8]

Good that this mod/game is maintained and further developped.

For me, the first screenshot is a bit confusing. What I associate with Voxelgarden and UnterNull is the famous payprus root. That can't be missing from such a thread. Would have to search my old screenshots to find my tiny house built out of it. The texture and usefullness of that papyrus root are IMHO great.

I recently wanted to change papyrus texture (and changed it in git, as well as papyrus root rexture) to PixelBOX variant as it didn't quite fit the artstyle IMO... but I guess I'll revert that :)

[Sokomine]

I recently wanted to change papyrus texture (and changed it in git, as well as papyrus root rexture) to PixelBOX variant as it didn't quite fit the artstyle IMO... but I guess I'll revert that :)

Good :-) Save the papyrus root :-) It's really a great texture.

[rudzik8]

But there are rough spots like how the inventory formspec looks like the engine builtin-in -snip-

What would you think of this?

screenshot_20240417_182347.png (520.43 KiB) Viewed 8578 times

[Blockhead]

But there are rough spots like how the inventory formspec looks like the engine builtin-in -snip-

What would you think of this?

screenshot_20240417_182347.png

Well, it's a start that makes sense at least. The rounding matches the hotbar.

[Sokomine]

What would you think of this?

Too minimalistic for me after years of unified_inventory & co but probably fitting to the game as such (minimalistic approach).