Oops! Sorry. I thought I already removed all MTG code before. This is one of the few places where there is some MTG code left (and yes, the player code is really ancient). I guess I should update the player code then, especially since it's broken. This is a valid complaint. If you find more bugs, please report them to the bug tracker. So I checked again today, and it seems the only places with MTG-derived code still in are: Fence, map and player model. With the player model in most desparate need of an overhaul, admittedly.
As I said, adding new skin colors is on my TODO list now, but I still have to figure out a better UI because cycling through >=20 skins with a single button can be tedious.
I admit this game is similar to MTG and MCL2 right now and the core idea (sandbox gameplay) will likely always stay like that. To be fair, I developed MCL for a very long time before. And many ideas are stolen from these games because those ideas just work. However, I do plan to eventually add more and more features to set this game apart. I understand that if you played MTG or MCL2 before, Repixture can be overwhelming when it comes to content. I know that, and I'm actively working on it! This is my main project for 2024. Please check this game out again at the end of the year or so.
Note that with "simple" I didn't mean "fewer blocks". I want Repixture to have lots of content eventually! With "simple" I meant "simple rules". MCL2 has many features but they are also pretty confusing and non-obvious at times; this is where I will go radically different and deliberately avoid confusing/overcomplex features.
You're wrong. This is not a fork nor a "copy paste" of MTG. The code is almost entirely original and written from scratch. Even the mobs code is original. No code is derived from MTG. A few mods were derived from standalone non-MTG mods. This game did not copy player_api either, so don't expect compability. Do you need a particular function?
This game is meant to be a fresh, new start of the genre with simpler rules to make Minetest more accessible for beginners. Eventually, I want to have more content and better balancing. Admittedly, this games does not offer a lot of content right now but I'm in the process of adding more and more features. Unfortunately, you're not really talking about gameplay, so I don't know what to take away from this. *shrug*
But I openly admit that "moddability" of this game is not a top priority. This game is meant to stand on its own, mods are just a "nice-to-have". If you have problems with the functions, just drop a question in the forum thread.
The skin colors do not represent an ethnicity. They are just skin colors. The skin colors are not meant to be 100% realistic and I don't really know how to add more skin colors without bloating the UI. There is no "yellow" skin color, morel like a very bright orange (but this can be debated). I think 10 skin colors is already a lot. Currently, they differ in brightness but not in hue. You're the first one to complain about a missing skin color. Anyway, I keep this complaint in mind as a low-priority feature request.
I don't generate this item in the world myself (because I don't really know where to put it), this can be figured out by games, servers or different mods.
This is the mod we've been all waiting for: A clean method to render Unicode glyphs, based on the GNU Unifont.
I think GNU Unifont with its 16×16 pixel glyphs is just perfect for Minetest, there aren't many other fonts with such a huge coverage of the Unicode code space. And Pixel style is good for many retro-style games.
There are nice features like kerning and color selection.
However, while Unifont may cover the entire Unicode BMP and more, that doesn't mean this mod can render them all properly. Some writing systems are very complex and require additional adjustments. So any users of this mod need to be aware of these limitations:
Bidirectional Algorithm is not correctly implemented
Many complex writing systems have additional writing rules that would need more code to make them work. For example, rendering Arabic not only requires the bidi algorithm but also you need to draw the glyphs differently depending on where they are in the word. (Note: This is a limitation of Unifont as well.)
Complex combining marks are not supported well. The code admits they are hacky
But still, this mod is a massive improvement of what we had before. I will include a modified version of this mod in Repixture.
This mod does what it promises, providing several standing signs that can be rotated as well.
But the polishing of this mod is not good. The mod does not integrate well with all games, it just tries to guess which signs it adds which isn't a great way to do it. My biggest criticism is stretching: If the text is very long or tall, the glyphs are widely stretched, which ruins their aspect ratio.
Some of the signs make no sound when you place them.
Don't be a snowflake. No child will suffer emotional damage by seeing these colorful flags or the phrase "sexual orientation". Sex education is a GOOD thing, actually, and this mod isn't even that. I'm against child abuse, but for sex education and Pride.
Do you crash weddings of heteroSEXual couples because you believe this is a ceremony that implicitly promotes sexuality? Do you condemn wedding rings worn by heteroSEXual people? If not, then you have shown you hold LGBTQ+ people to a different standard than cis/hetero people which is therefore discrimination. I know you'll HATE to hear it, but this way of thinking is already a form of homophobia/transphobia, even if you don't insult people or become violent. https://lgbtqia.wiki/wiki/Queermisia
It's simple mod but it does its thing well. Just rightclick with the spyglass to zoom. And the zoom is smooth and there's a simple HUD effect while you're zoomed in. So it feels like you're actually using a spyglass.
This mod is much superior to MTG's binoculars. A fork of this mod will be included in Repixture.
Thank you for this review. I kinda agree, this game needs balancing especially with the trades. And most importantly, this game just needs more of everything: Blocks, creatures, items, and whatnot. It's true, too many items only have one purpose, I want to change that in the next months.
I am currently in heavy development in this game. The painting system is very recent, and I just finished completing a major mob code rework. Many more features are planned. Please give it another try in a couple of releases or so.
I disagree that being able to place books makes item frames "less useful". I think it is legitimate to have multiple ways of decoration.
BTW: It is possible to multiply all plants, but some plants are harder to multiply. Some of them only spread on fertilizer. Experiment!
In the latest "libre10" update, most of your problems should be addressed now.
The red curtain now matches the color of red wool and should look less bad.
The trampoline is now 3D and no longer invisible from below.
The missing bowl of soup and the infinite extending rope in Creative Mode have been fixed a while ago.
The cactus brick and garden stone path is unchanged. I guess this is mostly a matter of taste; can't make everyone happy. *shrug*
I don't really want to touch the textures except for fixing obvious flaws, as I want to stick to the aesthetic of the original X-Decor mod.
Here are some more thoughts about some specific features of the game:
The world is very nice to look at. The trees are gigantic. The very tall grass in the jungles is quite annoying tho. I can't see, and I often keep missing the hitbox.
There is a shop feature. You can buy and sell items at any time everywhere and you even get to keep the coins after you die. This makes the shop pretty OP in its own right. The shop incentivizes you to just loot and plunder the villages and sell their stuff. Which is so hilarious that its fun again. Oddly, there are also special shops in villages, but the items are always more expensive than the shop you can access everywhere. And these shops are completely random.
There are "functional skins", skins that give you special skills. The snowman is completely broken. If you equip this skin, you regenerate health, food and water levels very quickly when you stand on snow, thus basically solving your food problem.
Features like this show how messy the game balance is. At parts, this game is ridiculously deadly but then much of it is nullified if you press the right buttons.
Cities are very broken. You just walk through the world and *POOF*! A city appears either inside you or under your feet. Full of cars that are all going to crash into everyone and everything including you. This makes GTA look peaceful in comparison. :D
Many foods can be eaten multiple times but this often leads to chaos in your inventory. Like, if you have a stack of 10 flesh, and eat it two times, the partially-eaten fleshes just litter your inventory. Very annoying.
And finally, to be fair, I barely scratched the surface of this game. There are so many features I did not use yet because I just die too often. XD
I think I will look again at this game later, hoping that the worst problems get fixed.
This game has a HUGE amount of content. That's a plus! It will take you quite some time to explore everything. I don't think I've even scratched the surface. You can find villages, even cities, lonely huts, animals everywhere, ruins. The underground is also full of mysteries. The biomes are large and complex. The overworld and underground are nice to look at. There are so many features. There is a LOT you can do in this game.
BUT: This game just want to kill me. Even touching flowing water can propel you at high speeds, often leading to insta-kill. The world is full of deep chasms that will kill you with fall damage. Even a single tiny wasp can kill you within seconds and you usually don't even know what killed you. Sometimes you just randomly die at full health and have NO IDEA why. If you happen to find a city, there are cars that just crash into everyone and everything. Food is somewhat sparse and hunger and thirst come fast. Especially thirst, figuring out how not to die of thirst is tricky.
There's an elaborate parcours mechanic. A LOT of special moves. But I keep triggering the moves when I do not want them and fail to trigger them when I don't. A worst of all, make a wrong parcour move, and you may take collision damage.
I don't have anything difficult games. But if most deaths just happen by random chance, this is not fun.
The menus look ugly and are full of typos. Many menu images are placed in a weird ways. Item names often look like "Crystal15".
And there are just outright bugs. So many bugs I don't even want to list them.
But still … this game, despite all its flaws, still was … kinda fun? Too bad its so broken and frustrating to play. :-(
This game really needs serious polishing and bugfixing before I can recommend it. To the developer I strongly recommend to stop adding more features but instead refine the existing ones, fix all the bugs, polish the UI and review ALL the text for typos.
Fun fact: Back when I was still the main dev of MCL2, I have been guilty of just spamming half-finished feature after feature after feature which eventually made the codebase messier and worse: buggier. The bugs started to pile up quickly which was one of the reasons that lead to me burning out and losing all motivation for MCL2. So some of the messiness of the codebase might be my partially my fault, lol. That having said, I think I never randomly broke compability for no reason except in VERY early stages of development.
If I would pick up leadership of MCL2 again today, my first priority would be to halt all feature development and focus on bugfixing and maintenance first until the bug count has returned to a managable level. Crash bugs will have top priority. Oh, and I would 100% nuke the hamburger. XD I would also be more strict on enforcing backwards-compability.
Anyway, I mostly agree with erlehmann and think having some dev standards for such a complex project is definitely very helpful. (Before you ask, no, I will not return to MCL2 dev in any way lol.)
As for the music argument, there are good news: In MT 5.8.0, music (or any large sound files) loads now much more efficiently (devs worked on performance). I think music should be "safe to use" for most games now.
PS: I haven't been following MCL2 development for years so please excuse me if I got anything wrong.
Tell me about it! I have been unsuccessfully trying to establish this as the (or a) default game for years but yeah. No success and I've given up by now.
Oh well. At least in version 1.1.0, the dialog boxes are fixed and you also can no longer fall in an annoying hole at the aforementioned coordinates. Thanks for finding the coordinates, this stuff is very easy to overlook.
Also, the shadows should no longer spawn at this alarming rate like in the game jam version 1.0.1.
Let's just say I didn't really know what I was doing; I tried to do a little bit of everything and didn't have a great game idea to begin with, especially one that fits with the theme "Unexpected". I changed the direction of the game twice and stuff got a little chaotic … I'm happy I managed to get out something playable with 4 levels in the first place! And some people still liked it tho. I think we can all agree this game does not even come close to Glitch. :D
Yeah, fair enough. I tried to do something with mobs for the 2023 game jam but this was a risk since I'm not very experienced with them. I'm not really happy with the end result either, but you know, time constraints. As for the Unexpected theme, there is a minor plot twist / surprise / ??? at the end that you probably haven't reached although the question of how good it is is debatable of course. Admittedly, the 2023 theme is quite hard to find a good game idea in the first place. Just look at the other submissions. :-(
But yeah, it's not like I disagree with the critics or I'm unaware of the problems. That's the thing with risky game ideas, you can never know how well they turn out before you actually put them into practice. Originally I've planned more types of mobs but it turns out making good mobs is hard lol, especially under time contraints.
Anyway, it seems you haven't figured out how to reach the end boss. If you have 3 light crystals, you need to approach the bush in the last level (portal in the 1st floor of the Tree of Life) to unlock the final level.
I admit the dialog doesn't communicate the goal very well, maybe I improve it in the next version.
Overall, I agree with you. I'm also only half-happy with the result.
In the floating stone platform area, there's a spot where it's not deep to fall down, and you can see the ground. It's unexpected that one dies there, but unexpected in a bad way.
You can easily get out of the level in the first level, and directly go to the last level. This doesn't seem intended.
There are too many enemies at once.
Picking up items by walking over them doesn't work reliably.
Version 1.1.0 has been released and hopefully all your reported bugs are fixed here, including the sound. See forum thread for changelog. You can also check out the new sound directly here: https://codeberg.org/Wuzzy/Shadow_Forest/issues/10
Please tell me if it's OK or if it still needs fixing.
It sounds like you’re not using X-Decor-libre but only X-Decor which is the original but outdated and very buggy. I assure you X-Decor-libre does support the 50-move rule (but a player must invoke it for it to count as draw (I applied FIDE rules)) and castling, too. Also, you need at least Minetest 5.7.0 for X-Decor-libre.
Strange. I am unaware of any of the bugs you just mentioned. Sure you use the latest version of X-Decor-libre (libre8)? If yes, I would like to see the crash logs.
So, thanks for the review. Now that the game jam results are finally in, here's a longer reply:
Actually, this game was never meant as a "soulslike", as in "absurdly difficult". The large amount of mobs was not intended. The problem is that I've put too few restraints on mob spawning in so that mobs just keep spawning and spawning and killing them doesn't help to stop the spawning. Mob spawning is kinda broken and in fact, this is the last item on my TODO list before I ran out of time. :-/
There actually ARE limits to mob spawning, but obviously these restraints are just unbalanced and way too "permissive", i.e. allowing too many mobs to spawn. I think the biggest problem was that killing mobs doesn't stop or even slow down the infinite stream of mobs. So the current winning strategy is to run, which wasn't really intended lol.
Are you sure it's the projectile HIT sound that has a high frequency problem? I would say if any sound is a problem, it'll be the SHOOT sound since it's much higher pitchde than the hit sound. But anyway, I'll add that to the TODO list. This is actually one of the very few problems in the game I was NOT aware of before submission.
PS: I'm also planning to write a making-of and post it in the forum thread soon(ish). Stay tuned for that (and the post-jam update :P).
Item pickup does work reliably but you must stand VERY close to the thing. I think I should increase the pickup range
The unexpected part is the reveal in the final level where you learn where all the shadows are coming from. Your light orb literally says the word "unexpected" in the dialog. THAT is the unexpected part. OK, OK, I admit this is quite "forced". tbh I mostly ignored the theme but still tried to apply it somehow. lol now you know the truth. :P
Goal could be communicated better: Yeah, the wizard is a little cryptic and doesn't explain what the light crstals are for which I think is pointlessly confusing. But apparently not THAT confusing since you obviously managed to break the shadow bush barrier
No boss music: Yes, but this is why: This was the first time ever I composed and published my own music! This already cost me a lot of time. Adding a boss music would have completely destroyed my time schedule. And actually I tried anyway but failed to come up with a good melody but failed as I'm not really a musician lol so I just had to scrap the idea. I'm still immensely proud I managed to put any of my music in the game in the first place tho :P
Boring boss fight: Yeah, my experience with mob development is still low and it's a very very basic mob but at least it's not as broken as the other mobs. But I see if I can make the final boss more interesting
No feeling of progress ... I don't know what to say about that. Very subjective, hard to "fix"
I'm happy you like the light orb. I spent WAY too much time on making it work absolutely smoothly with natural-looking movement without lag .
I don't think I used the damage indicator in a hacky way. It works perfectly, does it not?
The reverb works with the most boring trick ever: Duplicate the normal stone nodes, but add a reverb sound. All reverb sounds are actually new sound files, too. Totally unimpressive programming-wise but the player doesn't have to know :D
The dialog text bug is the worst bug in the game ever because in the final day, I actually added code to make the font smaller on small resolutions but some people still got the bug because I chose a bad cut-off point :-( I'm SUPER mad about this bug because my last-day bugfix was still buggy lol
Good point about the floating stones. I think I should make the chasm waaaaaay deeper so it's actually believable that you die
Great job in finding a way to escape the level! I tried hard to make that impossible but I overlooked something lol. The forest level is the last level I made in the final day so it was hastily put together lol. Not surpried it is THAT level that still had a bug
I agree there are WAY too many mobs. Mob spawning is the most broken/least polished aspect and the only thing left on my TODO list before I ran out of time. Sadly, due to personal life issues (nothing serious, don't worry) and just bad time planning, I failed. I decided to make a game with mobs this time, which was a big risk because of my lack of experience with them. Maybe if I had chosen a less risky game idea, I would have won. :P
I basically agree with most criticisms expect for the "unexpected" part.
But yes, mobs are by far the least polished part of the game and you're right, it is indeed infinite spawning. Also, just way too many of them spawn.
My excuse is that I had poor planning and time management and "fixing mob balancing" was the last item on my TODO list. :-(
Basically I took a risk by attempting mob development and failed. Yeah, that's the thing with risks lol. ;-)
This game was meant as partly combat- partly exploring-style but it was NOT intended that mobs overwhelm you and annoy you all the time.
The idea was, once you defeated some mobs of an area, you are free to explore (at least for a while). Sadly, none of that managed to get in the game. Time constraints. :-(((
As for "too many collectibles": They are all optional tho and you don't even have to find all to get max. HP. Other people seemed to like the collectibles. I'm not sure what I should change here. You can complete the game and ignore all vases (although it's harder then). Maybe you're saying the game would have been better without any vases, or just with fewer? But then, most other players liked them. Difficult decision on what to do post-jam. :-/
I agree with the dialog problem, the appearance mid-combat feels a bit off, too. I'll see what I can do.
But to be honest, I'm a bit mad tho that you outright refuse to complete the game (just like with Glitch last year) after only 1 death. :-( I don't like this (even if I agree with most of your criticisms). I feel like you give up way too early on game jam games. I noticed this with your other game reviews, too.
Anyway, I think all these problems can be fixed. Most importantly, I'm planning to rework mobs completely post-jam.
I'm glad you liked the game, even the mob combat, although mob combat is the least polished aspect of the game. I also noticed there are some dirty tricks where you can just slaughter the shadow mobs without getting hit once, thus quickly getting most upgrades. Although I think not many people found these dirty tricks. Mobs in general are not the smartest and I definitely need to fully rework them. Many players had problems with the mob fight and I fully expected this. I sadly didn't have the time to polish mobs more but I'm planning a post-jam version. If you're interested, I will also write a making-of and post it in the forum thread.
I also agree that Glitch is better (simply way more polished).
The shadows still spawn, and there appears to be no increase in light.
Maybe I shoudn't have built the exit portal in the boss room then to hide this issue. XD
I only added it so you can go looking for the remaining vases. A treat for completionists, basically. ;-)
The in-world excuse is that "the forest still needs time to heal" but this is very lame, of course.
Yeah, since you can return to the Tree of Life, the environment should definitely change.
And yes this was a time constraint thing.
Yeah, basically I took a risk this time by trying a game with mobs, something I have not much experience with. Additionally, I decided to do everything myself, even the music. Which I did. (I'm going to post a making-of in the forum thread soon(ish).)
But I had a lot of problems with time management this time and also pointlessly lost time due to personal matters and procastination.
But ultimately I just ran out of time to polish the mob fighting. :-( The mob spawning is clearly unfair (it never stops spawning) and that's because I didn't really complete it. Basically all the criticisms WRT mobs I got from you and others I agree with and these are problems I am very aware of. Mobs are the only item that were left on my TODO list when time ran out. :-(
Anyway, I think this and some other problems can be fixed.
The most polished mob in the game is the light orb, I think, which I'm actually very proud of how smooth it works.
Interesting how you like the graphics when some other people hated the looks for some reason and thought Glitch looked better. Well, I guess you can't please everyone. :D
My excuse is that I just had poor time management and planning. I think it wasn't that great of a game idea in the first place, plus I was struggling with ideas for a long time. Also, building the map. I also had other difficulties, and you can read more about that in the making-of that I'm going to post in the forums eventually.
Basically I decided to take a risk and try something with mobs. Risky because I still don't have much experience with them.
I wanted to polish everything. But mobs are clearly the least polished thing and it's basically the only big item left on the TODO list before I ran out of time. And I completely agree mob spawning is pretty broken. Fun fact: It was even more broken on the last day, with so many mobs spawning in the old mine that you just can't fight your way through even when maxed-out. I fixed at least that but obviously that's far from enough.
Long story short, the way how mobs work now is not intended and this game was not meant to be ridiculously unfair. Basically all your criticisms about mobs I agree with and are just the result of poor time management. Mobs are the least-polished aspect by far. Of course that's all planned for the post-jam version.
Thanks. Yeah, I spent a lot of time on polishing the light orb behavior and it shows; I wanted to make at least one "mob" with very fluent and believable movement. My trick is to not waste time in writing a mob API in the first place but just directly code everything into the entity. You will read more about that in the making-of I'm going to post in the forum thread eventually.
Sadly, the other mobs are not even close as polished (YET!) as you can see from the other reviews.
my only request is that i'd love upgrades to really beat up the shadow mobs after destroying the boss :p
An interesting idea. You can already return to the Tree of Life (the level hub) after you defeat the boss (who dropped a lot of shadow fragments). An exit portal will open in the boss room. But the world doesn't really change. I'm not sure if I'll add this idea; first I have to balance the main game more (especially mob combat).
I never planned to add more "lore" to the game. The story is intentionally kept very minimalist and is mostly just an excuse plot like in Super Mario games. I wanted to focus more on the gameplay.
As for "drive", I don't know exactly what you mean but my excuse is that, this time I managed my time too poorly (I will post a making-of in the forum thread later if you're interested).
This game is/was incomplete at the date of submission. A lot of the story is clearly missing. The intro kinda works and you get a little dialog at the beginning, then you get to explore some rooms of a building in the barren snow desert but there's not much to do except walk and look. So the gameplay is very very incomplete.
I recommend to check this game out at a later day, when it's complete.
My favourite entry for this year's game jam.
You encounter ruins and a ghost. You find things that make you go to the past, then to the future and there is 5 time periods of a citadel.
You then have to use the seeds of plants and timetravel to reach different parts of the citadel. Each time period unlocks new speeches of the ghost which is a nice touch.
I played this game for like 2 or 3 hours because I also wanted to find all 7 artifacts. (and I did. Woohoo!)
The map is well-made and must have taken ages to piece together.
Using plants to rise in height feels awkward. What I did was I placed an acorn and jumped to the corner and made future travel hoping it'll let me, then I move quickly back to the tree. Only takes me like 50 tries but it works somehow. Awkward. Unless this is cheating?
You'd think that standing on top of a small tree then going to the future would work but no.
The challenge is to obtain several important items and reach tricky locations by clever exploring and timetravel. The final goal is basically to reach the top with a special item.
But that's not all! There are artifacts! These are a clever addition and they kept me hooked a while longer although they were completely useless. And some artifacts had really clever locations. Sadly they don't unlock anything, not even a secret dialog.
The music is simple but sets a good tone. I wish there would be more sound effects. There isn't even a footstep sound yet.
Shadows seem to not work in this game? Every block seems to glow?? It looks certainly a little weird but you get used to it.
I don't really understand where the "unexpected" comes in but whatever.
The submitted game jam version sadly had a lot of small bugs and it crashed when I destroyed the crystal (but this was the end anyway). I really want this game to become bugfree and more polished in future versions.
Anyway, this game definitely kept me busy from start to finished including bonus items, so good job!
The beginning of the game looks like an outright bug. After a first briefing, the screen is (almost?) completely black. I thought the game is broken because I couldn't see the vent I am supposed to open. It is VERY dark and I had to find it basically blind. And the vent glows but it is VERY hard to see. Not a great start.
Once I finally entered the facility, the real game began.
There are a couple of very basic rooms to explore but they're mostly useless. Lots of robots move around but they're harmless vacuum bots or mini-tanks? There is an adventure-game-like interface of inspecting, reporting, using things you see. Sadly, much of it is unfortunately unused.
The game has a lot of dialog but using chat for it is a terrible idea: Font is too small.
Eventually I found some kind of "robo-labyrinth". You try out some very basic puzzles where you can guide robots through mazes with instructions (move North, South, etc.). I wasted my time "solving" the puzzles but the actual goal is to just start the puzzles and pick up the robot that looks different because it's the battle robot. I solved all puzzles but it's no challenge at all; you just need to count the squares, basically.
Once you picked up the battle robot, you must reach the exit and that's it.
I have died like 2 times for no apparent reason. Suddenly a screen showed up telling me a robot killed me. I don't know where it came from and it was an insta-death. Very confusing.
OK. Technical details are best discussed in the issue tracker: https://codeberg.org/Wuzzy/Repixture/issues/183
Oops! Sorry. I thought I already removed all MTG code before. This is one of the few places where there is some MTG code left (and yes, the player code is really ancient). I guess I should update the player code then, especially since it's broken. This is a valid complaint. If you find more bugs, please report them to the bug tracker. So I checked again today, and it seems the only places with MTG-derived code still in are: Fence, map and player model. With the player model in most desparate need of an overhaul, admittedly.
As I said, adding new skin colors is on my TODO list now, but I still have to figure out a better UI because cycling through >=20 skins with a single button can be tedious.
I admit this game is similar to MTG and MCL2 right now and the core idea (sandbox gameplay) will likely always stay like that. To be fair, I developed MCL for a very long time before. And many ideas are stolen from these games because those ideas just work. However, I do plan to eventually add more and more features to set this game apart. I understand that if you played MTG or MCL2 before, Repixture can be overwhelming when it comes to content. I know that, and I'm actively working on it! This is my main project for 2024. Please check this game out again at the end of the year or so.
Note that with "simple" I didn't mean "fewer blocks". I want Repixture to have lots of content eventually! With "simple" I meant "simple rules". MCL2 has many features but they are also pretty confusing and non-obvious at times; this is where I will go radically different and deliberately avoid confusing/overcomplex features.
You're wrong. This is not a fork nor a "copy paste" of MTG. The code is almost entirely original and written from scratch. Even the mobs code is original. No code is derived from MTG. A few mods were derived from standalone non-MTG mods. This game did not copy
player_api
either, so don't expect compability. Do you need a particular function?This game is meant to be a fresh, new start of the genre with simpler rules to make Minetest more accessible for beginners. Eventually, I want to have more content and better balancing. Admittedly, this games does not offer a lot of content right now but I'm in the process of adding more and more features. Unfortunately, you're not really talking about gameplay, so I don't know what to take away from this. *shrug*
But I openly admit that "moddability" of this game is not a top priority. This game is meant to stand on its own, mods are just a "nice-to-have". If you have problems with the functions, just drop a question in the forum thread.
The skin colors do not represent an ethnicity. They are just skin colors. The skin colors are not meant to be 100% realistic and I don't really know how to add more skin colors without bloating the UI. There is no "yellow" skin color, morel like a very bright orange (but this can be debated). I think 10 skin colors is already a lot. Currently, they differ in brightness but not in hue. You're the first one to complain about a missing skin color. Anyway, I keep this complaint in mind as a low-priority feature request.
Something like treasure chests.
I don't generate this item in the world myself (because I don't really know where to put it), this can be figured out by games, servers or different mods.
Wait, what just happened?
This is the mod we've been all waiting for: A clean method to render Unicode glyphs, based on the GNU Unifont.
I think GNU Unifont with its 16×16 pixel glyphs is just perfect for Minetest, there aren't many other fonts with such a huge coverage of the Unicode code space. And Pixel style is good for many retro-style games.
There are nice features like kerning and color selection.
However, while Unifont may cover the entire Unicode BMP and more, that doesn't mean this mod can render them all properly. Some writing systems are very complex and require additional adjustments. So any users of this mod need to be aware of these limitations:
But still, this mod is a massive improvement of what we had before. I will include a modified version of this mod in Repixture.
This mod does what it promises, providing several standing signs that can be rotated as well.
But the polishing of this mod is not good. The mod does not integrate well with all games, it just tries to guess which signs it adds which isn't a great way to do it. My biggest criticism is stretching: If the text is very long or tall, the glyphs are widely stretched, which ruins their aspect ratio.
Some of the signs make no sound when you place them.
Don't be a snowflake. No child will suffer emotional damage by seeing these colorful flags or the phrase "sexual orientation". Sex education is a GOOD thing, actually, and this mod isn't even that. I'm against child abuse, but for sex education and Pride.
Do you crash weddings of heteroSEXual couples because you believe this is a ceremony that implicitly promotes sexuality? Do you condemn wedding rings worn by heteroSEXual people? If not, then you have shown you hold LGBTQ+ people to a different standard than cis/hetero people which is therefore discrimination. I know you'll HATE to hear it, but this way of thinking is already a form of homophobia/transphobia, even if you don't insult people or become violent. https://lgbtqia.wiki/wiki/Queermisia
I'm asexual btw. So much for "sexualization".
Lol of course I understand the code, I've been making Minetest mods on and off for over 10 years.
It's simple mod but it does its thing well. Just rightclick with the spyglass to zoom. And the zoom is smooth and there's a simple HUD effect while you're zoomed in. So it feels like you're actually using a spyglass.
This mod is much superior to MTG's binoculars. A fork of this mod will be included in Repixture.
Thank you for this review. I kinda agree, this game needs balancing especially with the trades. And most importantly, this game just needs more of everything: Blocks, creatures, items, and whatnot. It's true, too many items only have one purpose, I want to change that in the next months.
I am currently in heavy development in this game. The painting system is very recent, and I just finished completing a major mob code rework. Many more features are planned. Please give it another try in a couple of releases or so.
I disagree that being able to place books makes item frames "less useful". I think it is legitimate to have multiple ways of decoration.
BTW: It is possible to multiply all plants, but some plants are harder to multiply. Some of them only spread on fertilizer. Experiment!
The fact this mod is even needed is probably evidence that Minetest suffers from undiscovered memory leaks.
The real long-term solution to the described problem, thus, is to investigate what on Earth is going wrong with Minetest.
Ideally, Minetest should be able to run for a long time with no memory issues.
In the latest "libre10" update, most of your problems should be addressed now. The red curtain now matches the color of red wool and should look less bad. The trampoline is now 3D and no longer invisible from below. The missing bowl of soup and the infinite extending rope in Creative Mode have been fixed a while ago.
The cactus brick and garden stone path is unchanged. I guess this is mostly a matter of taste; can't make everyone happy. *shrug* I don't really want to touch the textures except for fixing obvious flaws, as I want to stick to the aesthetic of the original X-Decor mod.
Thank you for saving the world. You're a hero! :D
Here are some more thoughts about some specific features of the game:
The world is very nice to look at. The trees are gigantic. The very tall grass in the jungles is quite annoying tho. I can't see, and I often keep missing the hitbox.
There is a shop feature. You can buy and sell items at any time everywhere and you even get to keep the coins after you die. This makes the shop pretty OP in its own right. The shop incentivizes you to just loot and plunder the villages and sell their stuff. Which is so hilarious that its fun again. Oddly, there are also special shops in villages, but the items are always more expensive than the shop you can access everywhere. And these shops are completely random.
There are "functional skins", skins that give you special skills. The snowman is completely broken. If you equip this skin, you regenerate health, food and water levels very quickly when you stand on snow, thus basically solving your food problem.
Features like this show how messy the game balance is. At parts, this game is ridiculously deadly but then much of it is nullified if you press the right buttons.
Cities are very broken. You just walk through the world and *POOF*! A city appears either inside you or under your feet. Full of cars that are all going to crash into everyone and everything including you. This makes GTA look peaceful in comparison. :D
Many foods can be eaten multiple times but this often leads to chaos in your inventory. Like, if you have a stack of 10 flesh, and eat it two times, the partially-eaten fleshes just litter your inventory. Very annoying.
And finally, to be fair, I barely scratched the surface of this game. There are so many features I did not use yet because I just die too often. XD I think I will look again at this game later, hoping that the worst problems get fixed.
(review for version 2024-01-23)
This game has a HUGE amount of content. That's a plus! It will take you quite some time to explore everything. I don't think I've even scratched the surface. You can find villages, even cities, lonely huts, animals everywhere, ruins. The underground is also full of mysteries. The biomes are large and complex. The overworld and underground are nice to look at. There are so many features. There is a LOT you can do in this game.
BUT: This game just want to kill me. Even touching flowing water can propel you at high speeds, often leading to insta-kill. The world is full of deep chasms that will kill you with fall damage. Even a single tiny wasp can kill you within seconds and you usually don't even know what killed you. Sometimes you just randomly die at full health and have NO IDEA why. If you happen to find a city, there are cars that just crash into everyone and everything. Food is somewhat sparse and hunger and thirst come fast. Especially thirst, figuring out how not to die of thirst is tricky.
There's an elaborate parcours mechanic. A LOT of special moves. But I keep triggering the moves when I do not want them and fail to trigger them when I don't. A worst of all, make a wrong parcour move, and you may take collision damage. I don't have anything difficult games. But if most deaths just happen by random chance, this is not fun.
The menus look ugly and are full of typos. Many menu images are placed in a weird ways. Item names often look like "Crystal15".
And there are just outright bugs. So many bugs I don't even want to list them.
But still … this game, despite all its flaws, still was … kinda fun? Too bad its so broken and frustrating to play. :-(
This game really needs serious polishing and bugfixing before I can recommend it. To the developer I strongly recommend to stop adding more features but instead refine the existing ones, fix all the bugs, polish the UI and review ALL the text for typos.
Fun fact: Back when I was still the main dev of MCL2, I have been guilty of just spamming half-finished feature after feature after feature which eventually made the codebase messier and worse: buggier. The bugs started to pile up quickly which was one of the reasons that lead to me burning out and losing all motivation for MCL2. So some of the messiness of the codebase might be my partially my fault, lol. That having said, I think I never randomly broke compability for no reason except in VERY early stages of development.
If I would pick up leadership of MCL2 again today, my first priority would be to halt all feature development and focus on bugfixing and maintenance first until the bug count has returned to a managable level. Crash bugs will have top priority. Oh, and I would 100% nuke the hamburger. XD I would also be more strict on enforcing backwards-compability.
Anyway, I mostly agree with erlehmann and think having some dev standards for such a complex project is definitely very helpful. (Before you ask, no, I will not return to MCL2 dev in any way lol.)
As for the music argument, there are good news: In MT 5.8.0, music (or any large sound files) loads now much more efficiently (devs worked on performance). I think music should be "safe to use" for most games now.
PS: I haven't been following MCL2 development for years so please excuse me if I got anything wrong.
Tell me about it! I have been unsuccessfully trying to establish this as the (or a) default game for years but yeah. No success and I've given up by now.
Version 1.1.0 is out with many bugfixes. I hope it is better now.
Oh well. At least in version 1.1.0, the dialog boxes are fixed and you also can no longer fall in an annoying hole at the aforementioned coordinates. Thanks for finding the coordinates, this stuff is very easy to overlook.
Also, the shadows should no longer spawn at this alarming rate like in the game jam version 1.0.1.
Let's just say I didn't really know what I was doing; I tried to do a little bit of everything and didn't have a great game idea to begin with, especially one that fits with the theme "Unexpected". I changed the direction of the game twice and stuff got a little chaotic … I'm happy I managed to get out something playable with 4 levels in the first place! And some people still liked it tho. I think we can all agree this game does not even come close to Glitch. :D
But thanks for playing! XD
Yeah, fair enough. I tried to do something with mobs for the 2023 game jam but this was a risk since I'm not very experienced with them. I'm not really happy with the end result either, but you know, time constraints. As for the Unexpected theme, there is a minor plot twist / surprise / ??? at the end that you probably haven't reached although the question of how good it is is debatable of course. Admittedly, the 2023 theme is quite hard to find a good game idea in the first place. Just look at the other submissions. :-(
But yeah, it's not like I disagree with the critics or I'm unaware of the problems. That's the thing with risky game ideas, you can never know how well they turn out before you actually put them into practice. Originally I've planned more types of mobs but it turns out making good mobs is hard lol, especially under time contraints.
Anyway, it seems you haven't figured out how to reach the end boss. If you have 3 light crystals, you need to approach the bush in the last level (portal in the 1st floor of the Tree of Life) to unlock the final level.
I admit the dialog doesn't communicate the goal very well, maybe I improve it in the next version.
Overall, I agree with you. I'm also only half-happy with the result.
In version 1.1.0, these points are fixed now:
Version 1.1.0 has been released and hopefully all your reported bugs are fixed here, including the sound. See forum thread for changelog. You can also check out the new sound directly here: https://codeberg.org/Wuzzy/Shadow_Forest/issues/10
Please tell me if it's OK or if it still needs fixing.
It sounds like you’re not using X-Decor-libre but only X-Decor which is the original but outdated and very buggy. I assure you X-Decor-libre does support the 50-move rule (but a player must invoke it for it to count as draw (I applied FIDE rules)) and castling, too. Also, you need at least Minetest 5.7.0 for X-Decor-libre.
Anyway, let’s continue this discussion here: https://forum.minetest.net/viewtopic.php?t=28891
Strange. I am unaware of any of the bugs you just mentioned. Sure you use the latest version of X-Decor-libre (libre8)? If yes, I would like to see the crash logs.
How far in the game did you get? Did you at least reach the Hub?
So, thanks for the review. Now that the game jam results are finally in, here's a longer reply:
Actually, this game was never meant as a "soulslike", as in "absurdly difficult". The large amount of mobs was not intended. The problem is that I've put too few restraints on mob spawning in so that mobs just keep spawning and spawning and killing them doesn't help to stop the spawning. Mob spawning is kinda broken and in fact, this is the last item on my TODO list before I ran out of time. :-/
There actually ARE limits to mob spawning, but obviously these restraints are just unbalanced and way too "permissive", i.e. allowing too many mobs to spawn. I think the biggest problem was that killing mobs doesn't stop or even slow down the infinite stream of mobs. So the current winning strategy is to run, which wasn't really intended lol.
Are you sure it's the projectile HIT sound that has a high frequency problem? I would say if any sound is a problem, it'll be the SHOOT sound since it's much higher pitchde than the hit sound. But anyway, I'll add that to the TODO list. This is actually one of the very few problems in the game I was NOT aware of before submission.
PS: I'm also planning to write a making-of and post it in the forum thread soon(ish). Stay tuned for that (and the post-jam update :P).
(to be continued ...)
I basically agree with most criticisms expect for the "unexpected" part.
But yes, mobs are by far the least polished part of the game and you're right, it is indeed infinite spawning. Also, just way too many of them spawn. My excuse is that I had poor planning and time management and "fixing mob balancing" was the last item on my TODO list. :-( Basically I took a risk by attempting mob development and failed. Yeah, that's the thing with risks lol. ;-)
This game was meant as partly combat- partly exploring-style but it was NOT intended that mobs overwhelm you and annoy you all the time. The idea was, once you defeated some mobs of an area, you are free to explore (at least for a while). Sadly, none of that managed to get in the game. Time constraints. :-(((
As for "too many collectibles": They are all optional tho and you don't even have to find all to get max. HP. Other people seemed to like the collectibles. I'm not sure what I should change here. You can complete the game and ignore all vases (although it's harder then). Maybe you're saying the game would have been better without any vases, or just with fewer? But then, most other players liked them. Difficult decision on what to do post-jam. :-/
I agree with the dialog problem, the appearance mid-combat feels a bit off, too. I'll see what I can do.
But to be honest, I'm a bit mad tho that you outright refuse to complete the game (just like with Glitch last year) after only 1 death. :-( I don't like this (even if I agree with most of your criticisms). I feel like you give up way too early on game jam games. I noticed this with your other game reviews, too.
Anyway, I think all these problems can be fixed. Most importantly, I'm planning to rework mobs completely post-jam.
So, stay tuned for the post-jam version! :P
I'm glad you liked the game, even the mob combat, although mob combat is the least polished aspect of the game. I also noticed there are some dirty tricks where you can just slaughter the shadow mobs without getting hit once, thus quickly getting most upgrades. Although I think not many people found these dirty tricks. Mobs in general are not the smartest and I definitely need to fully rework them. Many players had problems with the mob fight and I fully expected this. I sadly didn't have the time to polish mobs more but I'm planning a post-jam version. If you're interested, I will also write a making-of and post it in the forum thread.
I also agree that Glitch is better (simply way more polished).
Maybe I shoudn't have built the exit portal in the boss room then to hide this issue. XD I only added it so you can go looking for the remaining vases. A treat for completionists, basically. ;-) The in-world excuse is that "the forest still needs time to heal" but this is very lame, of course. Yeah, since you can return to the Tree of Life, the environment should definitely change. And yes this was a time constraint thing.
Yeah, basically I took a risk this time by trying a game with mobs, something I have not much experience with. Additionally, I decided to do everything myself, even the music. Which I did. (I'm going to post a making-of in the forum thread soon(ish).)
But I had a lot of problems with time management this time and also pointlessly lost time due to personal matters and procastination.
But ultimately I just ran out of time to polish the mob fighting. :-( The mob spawning is clearly unfair (it never stops spawning) and that's because I didn't really complete it. Basically all the criticisms WRT mobs I got from you and others I agree with and these are problems I am very aware of. Mobs are the only item that were left on my TODO list when time ran out. :-(
Anyway, I think this and some other problems can be fixed.
The most polished mob in the game is the light orb, I think, which I'm actually very proud of how smooth it works.
Interesting how you like the graphics when some other people hated the looks for some reason and thought Glitch looked better. Well, I guess you can't please everyone. :D
My excuse is that I just had poor time management and planning. I think it wasn't that great of a game idea in the first place, plus I was struggling with ideas for a long time. Also, building the map. I also had other difficulties, and you can read more about that in the making-of that I'm going to post in the forums eventually.
Basically I decided to take a risk and try something with mobs. Risky because I still don't have much experience with them.
I wanted to polish everything. But mobs are clearly the least polished thing and it's basically the only big item left on the TODO list before I ran out of time. And I completely agree mob spawning is pretty broken. Fun fact: It was even more broken on the last day, with so many mobs spawning in the old mine that you just can't fight your way through even when maxed-out. I fixed at least that but obviously that's far from enough.
Long story short, the way how mobs work now is not intended and this game was not meant to be ridiculously unfair. Basically all your criticisms about mobs I agree with and are just the result of poor time management. Mobs are the least-polished aspect by far. Of course that's all planned for the post-jam version.
Thanks. Yeah, I spent a lot of time on polishing the light orb behavior and it shows; I wanted to make at least one "mob" with very fluent and believable movement. My trick is to not waste time in writing a mob API in the first place but just directly code everything into the entity. You will read more about that in the making-of I'm going to post in the forum thread eventually.
Sadly, the other mobs are not even close as polished (YET!) as you can see from the other reviews.
An interesting idea. You can already return to the Tree of Life (the level hub) after you defeat the boss (who dropped a lot of shadow fragments). An exit portal will open in the boss room. But the world doesn't really change. I'm not sure if I'll add this idea; first I have to balance the main game more (especially mob combat).
I never planned to add more "lore" to the game. The story is intentionally kept very minimalist and is mostly just an excuse plot like in Super Mario games. I wanted to focus more on the gameplay.
As for "drive", I don't know exactly what you mean but my excuse is that, this time I managed my time too poorly (I will post a making-of in the forum thread later if you're interested).
So more polished than Chess in X-Decor-libre?
This game is/was incomplete at the date of submission. A lot of the story is clearly missing. The intro kinda works and you get a little dialog at the beginning, then you get to explore some rooms of a building in the barren snow desert but there's not much to do except walk and look. So the gameplay is very very incomplete.
I recommend to check this game out at a later day, when it's complete.
My favourite entry for this year's game jam. You encounter ruins and a ghost. You find things that make you go to the past, then to the future and there is 5 time periods of a citadel. You then have to use the seeds of plants and timetravel to reach different parts of the citadel. Each time period unlocks new speeches of the ghost which is a nice touch.
I played this game for like 2 or 3 hours because I also wanted to find all 7 artifacts. (and I did. Woohoo!)
The map is well-made and must have taken ages to piece together.
Using plants to rise in height feels awkward. What I did was I placed an acorn and jumped to the corner and made future travel hoping it'll let me, then I move quickly back to the tree. Only takes me like 50 tries but it works somehow. Awkward. Unless this is cheating? You'd think that standing on top of a small tree then going to the future would work but no.
The challenge is to obtain several important items and reach tricky locations by clever exploring and timetravel. The final goal is basically to reach the top with a special item.
But that's not all! There are artifacts! These are a clever addition and they kept me hooked a while longer although they were completely useless. And some artifacts had really clever locations. Sadly they don't unlock anything, not even a secret dialog.
The music is simple but sets a good tone. I wish there would be more sound effects. There isn't even a footstep sound yet. Shadows seem to not work in this game? Every block seems to glow?? It looks certainly a little weird but you get used to it.
I don't really understand where the "unexpected" comes in but whatever.
The submitted game jam version sadly had a lot of small bugs and it crashed when I destroyed the crystal (but this was the end anyway). I really want this game to become bugfree and more polished in future versions.
Anyway, this game definitely kept me busy from start to finished including bonus items, so good job!
This is the whole gameplay: You click on two things, then walk to the finish line and it's game over. Yeah, it's disappointing.
BONUS: The only room you'll ever see has eye-cancer-inducing colors lol.
I have no idea what this game means and what it was supposed to be. Looks like a last-minute panic submission to me (for the Game Jam). Sorry. :-(
Another sad case of "author ran out of time"?
The beginning of the game looks like an outright bug. After a first briefing, the screen is (almost?) completely black. I thought the game is broken because I couldn't see the vent I am supposed to open. It is VERY dark and I had to find it basically blind. And the vent glows but it is VERY hard to see. Not a great start.
Once I finally entered the facility, the real game began.
There are a couple of very basic rooms to explore but they're mostly useless. Lots of robots move around but they're harmless vacuum bots or mini-tanks? There is an adventure-game-like interface of inspecting, reporting, using things you see. Sadly, much of it is unfortunately unused. The game has a lot of dialog but using chat for it is a terrible idea: Font is too small.
Eventually I found some kind of "robo-labyrinth". You try out some very basic puzzles where you can guide robots through mazes with instructions (move North, South, etc.). I wasted my time "solving" the puzzles but the actual goal is to just start the puzzles and pick up the robot that looks different because it's the battle robot. I solved all puzzles but it's no challenge at all; you just need to count the squares, basically.
Once you picked up the battle robot, you must reach the exit and that's it.
I have died like 2 times for no apparent reason. Suddenly a screen showed up telling me a robot killed me. I don't know where it came from and it was an insta-death. Very confusing.
Overall, the game is too short and not fun. :-(