Whynot is another example of "mod soup", games that collect existing mods and put them on Minetest Game in an attempt to make it fun. I don't have anything against this on principle, but I've yet to see such an effort produce a good game. Sadly, Whynot also fails in this regard.
Whynot does add some quality of life (such as wielded lightsources producing light) and external pressures like hostile mobs and a hunger meter. But honestly, it doesn't do nearly enough--In the time I spent playing I saw exactly two monsters, and neither one did much of anything. That really just leaves hunger, which will cease to matter the moment any farm begins producing. This means the player doesn't have much driving them to actually enter the game loop.
There are other possible avenues to drive players to play. For instance, Whynot does have awards! However, none of them are really well-designed. They mostly revolve around "dig/place x of node y", and offer no interesting goals. Another possibility is exploration, but from what I've seen there's very little to be found. The biomes are identical to MTG, and the only obvious difference I saw was a handful of floating islands. Most of these had nothing, and just checking them involves pillaring up over 100 nodes... nothing feels worse than being led to do busywork for no payoff.
So fittingly, my answer to "Why not?" is "Why?"
Why am I playing? It's not for building or decoration, thanks to the game's many clashing artstyles. It's not for action or survival, those systems are too anemic. It's not for exploration, there's little of note to be found. And it's not to achieve anything, since the game's achievements correspond more to rote grinding than to gameplay.
Ultimately, this is a very typical story. Remember, modders--putting a large quantity of 'content' in a game does not make it good or interesting. Content exists to extend the life of something that is already good, the hook is far more important.
Whynot is another example of "mod soup", games that collect existing mods and put them on Minetest Game in an attempt to make it fun. I don't have anything against this on principle, but I've yet to see such an effort produce a good game. Sadly, Whynot also fails in this regard.
Whynot does add some quality of life (such as wielded lightsources producing light) and external pressures like hostile mobs and a hunger meter. But honestly, it doesn't do nearly enough--In the time I spent playing I saw exactly two monsters, and neither one did much of anything. That really just leaves hunger, which will cease to matter the moment any farm begins producing. This means the player doesn't have much driving them to actually enter the game loop.
There are other possible avenues to drive players to play. For instance, Whynot does have awards! However, none of them are really well-designed. They mostly revolve around "dig/place x of node y", and offer no interesting goals. Another possibility is exploration, but from what I've seen there's very little to be found. The biomes are identical to MTG, and the only obvious difference I saw was a handful of floating islands. Most of these had nothing, and just checking them involves pillaring up over 100 nodes... nothing feels worse than being led to do busywork for no payoff.
So fittingly, my answer to "Why not?" is "Why?" Why am I playing? It's not for building or decoration, thanks to the game's many clashing artstyles. It's not for action or survival, those systems are too anemic. It's not for exploration, there's little of note to be found. And it's not to achieve anything, since the game's achievements correspond more to rote grinding than to gameplay.
Ultimately, this is a very typical story. Remember, modders--putting a large quantity of 'content' in a game does not make it good or interesting. Content exists to extend the life of something that is already good, the hook is far more important.
Thank you for the review. It got me thinking. I created new issue on github for discussions for that: https://github.com/minetest-whynot/whynot-game/issues/60
you gotta be the most bitter person on this platform cause all you do is leave negative reviews the size of essays on things that dont even deserve it