Piranesi Restoration Project

An evolved but mostly faithful fan remake of the 2022 Minetest Game Jam silver medalist:

Piranesi by iarbat

This game was originally created as a test case for the Minetest Definition Ripper mod, but it has since evolved into a full remake of the original game, using all new code, but mostly original assets, schematics, design, and core gameplay.

Improvements

• The game is fully working and playable from beginning to end.
  • All areas are accessible.
  • Each puzzle is fully functioning, as apparently intended.
  • The game properly keeps state across mulitple sessions / server restarts.
  • Inherited behavior no longer interferes with gameplay (e.g. fire does not spread).
• Items can be placed in most places in most rooms, and are reliably preserved if you leave the area and re-enter later.
• Corrected and simplified UX and inventory.
  • Less left/right-click ambiguity, critical actions are more likely to work with either.
  • Simplified dynamic hotbar-only inventory.
  • Working compass built into HUD.
• More robust map management and navigation.
  • It's no longer possible to "escape" from the map, fall into the endless void, miss triggers, etc.
• Sequential Multiplayer
  • Only one player can play at a time, but players with interact privileges can take turns (first come first served).
  • Additional players who connect are not allowed to interact with the world, but can be managed by an external spectator mod.
• Activated some unused assets.
  • One originally-completely-inaccessible puzzle room, part of the "main quest".
  • One unused room whose purpose was unclear (used as a decorative bonus here).
  • Music distributed with the original game but never actually played.
• Improved sensory effects.
  • Visuals, e.g. for item pickup and breaking nodes, completing puzzles.
  • Sound overhaul, including feedback, ambiance, and musical cues.
• Translation support from Weblate.
• Colorblindness support, up to full monochromacy, via HUD tips.
• Some random enhancements that probably don't dramatically alter gameplay.
  • The ability to pick up, carry, and move books and clues.
  • Architectural improvements, like reunifying dual item/nodes into a single definition.
  • Room order is now deterministic and pseudorandom to make play-throughs repeatable, for speedruns or exact walkthroughs.

Compromises

• Some of the style information from clue images has been lost, in order to make clues more compatible with translation. Styles will be improved if/when better fonts with broad enough language compatibility are found.
• Some design choices were made where the original intent was unclear, or where obvious mechanics had less-than-obvious problems that needed to be worked around.
• The use of Definition Ripper for all materials indiscriminately, including the original Piranesi ones, causes some architectural extensibility friction.
• There is no longer a distinction between "digging" a node and "applying a tool" to the node, so all "dig times" must be instant.
• Node/item placement rules are a bit byzantine for technical reasons, so mostly just the floor and some tables are usable for storing most things, though this is still plenty of space.
  • Not all things can be put back where they were found, e.g. keys cannot be re-stuck to walls.
• Some lighting adjustments were necessary, due to the game apparently having been designed for a different version of Minetest that may have used a different light curve model.