MineClone2 is pretty much as close as you can get to Minecraft without playing Minecraft. It's free, open source and runs on the Minetest voxel game engine. A new release is now available with version 0.81.0.
I doubt it will need much of an introduction for people new to it: a sandbox game where you go and do whatever you want. The new release requires either 5.5.1 or 5.6.0 at a minimum.
Some of the main highlights from the new version include:
- A rewrite of signs, including coloured text.
- Villager schedule implemented, villager fixes.
- Nether terrain generation improved for a lot more open space.
- Nether bulwark (mini-bastion) added.
- Nether bridge fragment.
- Strider mob added.
- Raids added.
- Axolotl mob added.
- Beehives and honey added.
- Ocean temples added.
- Lots more including various AI improvements.
Minetest has quite a lot of mods, and a few big game packs like this. If you've not tried Minetest or MineClone2 for a while, it looks like a good time to jump back in.
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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11 comments
I imagine it has really wonky movement and doesn't feel as smooth as the real Minecraft. That's been my experience with Minetest modpacks.
1 Likes, Who?
What differentiates this game from minecraft?
Or rather, why should I play this when the real Minecraft exists?
Last edited by Beaky on 6 December 2022 at 1:31 pm UTC
Or rather, why should I play this when the real Minecraft exists?
Last edited by Beaky on 6 December 2022 at 1:31 pm UTC
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gaboversta Dec 6, 2022
What differentiates this game from minecraft?
Or rather, why should I play this when the real Minecraft exists?
Not getting banned from playing multiplayer because someone "hacked" mojangs chat reporting system sounds like a great feature to me.
There also seems to be a significant focus on open source with minetest in general.
6 Likes, Who?
What differentiates this game from minecraft?
Or rather, why should I play this when the real Minecraft exists?
Minetest is much more than a single game, it's closer to Garry's Mod. It has first-class mod support, and isn't much without them (it's more of a game engine indeed).
So you can mix-and-match mods to play the game however you want, and play multiplayer with other people on the same mods.
Mineclone here tries to reproduce the base Minecraft games, and is a collection of mods for minetest that add blocks, mobs, mechanics, etc. You can also pick a few of these pieces individually, and/or build on Mineclone to create new experiences closer to modded classic minecraft. With minetest mods.
Also, it runs better on low-end machines in my experience, though the sort of low-powered machine that can barely run minecraft is getting harder to find, thankfully :P
In Minetest terminology, Games are collections of Mods, that aim to provide a playable (fun to play) set of defaults. Mods provide functionality.
9 Likes, Who?
Or rather, why should I play this when the real Minecraft exists?No Microsoft account needed?
7 Likes, Who?
I played it often with my nephew. He only has a Raspi 400. Minecraft doesn't run very well on it, but Minetest does. Another advantage with an even younger child: the mods are all loaded from the server. There are only zeroconf vanilla clients. You don't even need a password. So I prepared the server and my nephew just connected to it. (I might need to note that I use a dynDNS based firewall. The Raspi updates its IP every 5 minutes via cronjob).
The main problem of Mineclone are bugs. There is Mineclone2 and Mineclone5. The latter implements Minecraft rather more freely and offers more content (and more bugs). Mineclone2 focuses mainly on version 12.2. The world generation is sometimes much more impressive than in Minecraft due to the world size of 65536 blocks in all directions.
Even though there is no way around Minecraft in the end, Minetest is a fantastic alternative that I can highly recommend. Support for mods is built in. These are simply programmed in Lua. What a boon when you compare it to Minecraft.
The main problem of Mineclone are bugs. There is Mineclone2 and Mineclone5. The latter implements Minecraft rather more freely and offers more content (and more bugs). Mineclone2 focuses mainly on version 12.2. The world generation is sometimes much more impressive than in Minecraft due to the world size of 65536 blocks in all directions.
Even though there is no way around Minecraft in the end, Minetest is a fantastic alternative that I can highly recommend. Support for mods is built in. These are simply programmed in Lua. What a boon when you compare it to Minecraft.
2 Likes, Who?
Sil_el_mot Dec 6, 2022
What differentiates this game from minecraft?
Or rather, why should I play this when the real Minecraft exists?
I liked the android version and crossplay with PC a lot
0 Likes
The main problem of Mineclone are bugs. There is Mineclone2 and Mineclone5. The latter implements Minecraft rather more freely and offers more content (and more bugs). Mineclone2 focuses mainly on version 12.2. The world generation is sometimes much more impressive than in Minecraft due to the world size of 65536 blocks in all directions.
As I understand it, that's no longer the case. MineClone2 is not focusing on any particular version now, having pretty much hit their baseline for parity, but they are more interested in stability over frequent releases.
For instance, from the current update, Beehives are a 1.14 element and Axolotls are 1.17.
2 Likes, Who?
You should also check out MeseCraft. Fedora ran a Minetest server with it for the release party. It was very polished, and I honestly don’t miss Minecraft anymore :p
3 Likes, Who?
soulsource Dec 7, 2022
This is imho a _very_ big plus. Microsoft has been pushing very hard to use a single account in all their products, and they didn't care a bit about compatibility issues... Soo, now one is forced to constantly change passwords, because product A does not allow to input password characters that are perfectly valid in product B....Or rather, why should I play this when the real Minecraft exists?No Microsoft account needed?
(As an example: If you change your password in the browser, you can set characters that simply don't exist on the on-screen keyboard of the Xbox 360.)
It would be hilarious, if it weren't so annoying...
3 Likes, Who?
Also, it runs better on low-end machines in my experience, though the sort of low-powered machine that can barely run minecraft is getting harder to find, thankfully :P
Yup, Minecraft is a pain on my old Intel Core i5-661 (iGPU). And versions newer than 1.16 won't run on it, due to raised OpenGL requirements - that iGPU it stuck with OpenGL 2.1. Minetest + MineClone2 work reasonably well. And now that the 0.81.1 performance hotfix is out, I'm curious how the game would run on that oldie. I don't expect a huge boost, but thankfully that's just a "vacation PC". :D
The PC I normally play the game on is also fairly old (Intel Core i5-4690K + Intel HD Graphics 4600, OpenGL 4.5), but it's good enough for a long gameplay.
As previously said, it's nice that you don't need an online account to play MineClone2. You can also start a LAN game by just checking a box in the Minetest GUI (Host Server), although if you do the necessary port forwarding, people from the outside can join too, even from Android devices.
P.S. I'm part of the MineClone2 team, mainly doing testing and bug reporting. If any of you feel like contributing to Minetest (the engine, in C++), that would benefit all the games based on it, including MineClone2. :) As for MineClone2, Lua makes it tick. Minecraft is great but, unsurprisingly, Microsoft is a bit too intrusive for some people. It's well worth having a free software alternative, so any help is welcome.
4 Likes, Who?
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