Voxelmanip Forums
foodyummy foodyummy
Posted on 2022-07-01 19:49 (edited 2023-04-29 21:37) Link | ID: 114
Well, there's my little Minetest game I've just started working on for the past few days and I guess it's kind of experimental, but here goes I guess lol

So maybe some of you know that Minecraft was inspired by this real obscure game called Infiniminer. It was made by some guys called Zachtronics back in the day of like 2009.

It's a competitive game: two teams of miners, red and blue, dig for gold and diamonds and return them to the surface to make money. The team with the most money wins. Of course, people got kind of bored of that after a while and just started building stuff, and, well ... the rest is history :LOL:

(The description is kind of simple and doesn't do it much "justice" I guess. there's a lot more mechanics, such as player classes, interesting block types with unique abilities, etc.)

But I thought, well, since there's already plenty of stuff on Minetest for builders, maybe I felt there could be a niche for Infiniminer's original concept. Kind of re-discovering that competitive twist to digging and building. I haven't really started seriously coding yet as I've been working on the design and concept.

But I don't think the game will be an exact clone of Infiniminer, as I imagine maybe there could be some Minecraft-inspired content (trees that supply wood, rivers to pan for gold in, etc.)

But to be honest I'm still kind of trying to figure out Minetest in terms of how to program it, so I'm sorry if my code is really rough. I'm trying to improve. I'd still like to put the code on github once I get a basic alpha going on though. So i guess if anybody wants to help me improve my crappy code I'd sure appreciate that :)
ROllerozxa ROllerozxa
Site Admin
Posted on 2022-07-01 20:50 Link | ID: 116
Ooh that sounds like a pretty interesting idea! I actually remember playing the original Infiniminer a long time ago but there weren't any servers online anymore so I couldn't actually do much other than run a local server and mess around with the game mechanics alone.

So I'm very interested in seeing how this will end up looking like, maybe even running a server with it when that becomes a thing. :)
foodyummy foodyummy
Posted on 2022-07-01 21:08 (edited 2023-04-29 21:36) Link | ID: 117
So I'm very interested in seeing how this will end up looking like, maybe even running a server with it when that becomes a thing.
Not sure if you're offering to run a server Roller, but if you are, then, gee, that'd be just grand! I mean, i've got a crappy windows 8 laptop (that's like almost a decade old) to spare but idk if that even matches up to a potato :| I mean, even with my 5g connection and all I'd imagine 4gb of ram still doesn't quite cut it ...

Yeah, I'm interested to see where the project goes too. I'm actually reading up on some of minetest's docs right now and I'm excited to really get into programming it!
ROllerozxa ROllerozxa
Site Admin
Posted on 2022-07-01 21:52 Link | ID: 118
Yeah I'd definitively be up to run a server when it's in a playable state.

Although that crappy Windows 8 laptop could probably be enough if it was running some kind of lightweight Linux distro onto it, don't dismiss it too quickly. I'd even go out on a limb to say that it would probably be more than enough to host an Infinitest server. :)

Like, the Minecraftn't server is sitting on my VPS (the same one that hosts this forum) with 2GB of RAM & 1 vCore, it uses half a gig at most (memory usage usually steadily increases with uptime, restarting regularily will fix it) and doesn't really break a sweat in terms of CPU usage (never really goes above 25%). You don't need much resources to run a Minetest server with games that aren't a bloated mod soup with lots of stuff being run on each tick.
foodyummy foodyummy
Posted on 2022-07-01 22:42 Link | ID: 120
Ah, I see. Yeah, maybe I was just a little bit biased ... Thanks for correcting me. Maybe the laptop isn't so crappy after all :D
foodyummy foodyummy
Posted on 2022-07-03 17:27 (edited 2023-04-29 21:36) Link | ID: 145
Phew... after a couple of days I've managed all this! :D



Of course it's still unfinished though ... But i think i've got a solid teaming system going on, although it doesn't have proper randomizing of players yet. I also have the code for starting games, ending them, announcing it all, and tallying score. In between the games there are short interludes.

Right now the games are ten seconds long with five second interludes lol

The game can generate small maps (64x64x64) on the fly , using a dumb workaround with register_on_generated() and *probably exploiting* emerge_area and delete_area. I was actually kinda stumped on that one for like a day. :LOL: Although right now I'm still figuring out how to make ores generate, as for some reason generate_ores isn't working!?!??!?

Anyway, mapgen only generates one map right now, using the world seed, although I think it'll be pretty simple to randomize the seeds for the perlin noise.

The pickaxe can dig the dirt nodes (from a minecraft player's perspective i know that sounds cursed), but other than that none of the other tools in my hotbar (axe, trowel and slingshot) are functional yet. The fifth hotbar slot is reserved for class-specific equips.

I'd like to go on about more of the game's mechanics and such but I guess i'd like to keep my posts relatively short cause I know how everyone feels about big ol' walls of text lol
ROllerozxa ROllerozxa
Site Admin
Posted on 2022-07-03 21:25 Link | ID: 146
Looks really cool, I'm stoked!

Oh and are those skins supposed to look like Quote from Cave Story? :D
foodyummy foodyummy
Posted on 2022-07-04 15:34 Link | ID: 149
Oh and are those skins supposed to look like Quote from Cave Story?
Totally, yeah!!! It's sure been a while since i played cave story but for some reason it was the first thing that came to my mind when i was thinking of what to do for the default skins lol :D
olive olive
Posted on 2022-09-19 21:58 Link | ID: 497
Any more progress on this? Sounds wonderful!
foodyummy foodyummy
Posted on 2022-11-17 05:18 (edited 2023-05-02 02:04) Link | ID: 570
Gee, it's been months since I last posted here... I'd completely forgotten about the whole site! I guess to be fair, it's kind of easy to... It's such a small little corner of the web. Not that I'm complaining :)

Any more progress on this? Sounds wonderful!
Thank you! :D I'd love to say I have made more progress, but ... I forgot to back up the game files when I was reinstalling my OS (for like the tenth time lol) and reformatting my hard drive :( It's all lost now...

I mean, looking on the bright side, the code was kinda crappy anyway :LOL: and maybe I can try remaking all this with a fresh eye :) I almost had no idea what I was really doing, after all... I remember a lot of the code was quite hacky. The map generator was especially dubious lol and ore generation didn't even work properly!?!?!?

I was actually thinking about playing the original Infiniminer some more (on that windows 8 laptop) to try and get a more solid idea of what I'm modelling my own work after. However, I would also like to take my own project some steps further. I've got plenty of ideas on how to flesh out Infinitest. I think I might post about them tomorrow and see what some of you on the forum think! :D

I've also got a Github account up and running, and I've even made a repo for the game!

https://github.com/foodyummy/infinitest

Granted, it's empty right now lol but hopefully soon I'll actually figure out how github even works and start filling it out.
ROllerozxa ROllerozxa
Site Admin
Posted on 2022-11-17 22:16 Link | ID: 571
Hey hey, glad you're finally back! Unfortunate that you lost the original game code though... :( but that's why things like Git is so useful. Code management and versioning that doubles as backups.
foodyummy foodyummy
Posted on 2022-11-18 22:34 Link | ID: 573
Well, on the 16th I had promised to post about some of my ideas concerning how to "flesh out" Infinitest. The project's still alive, you know :) Over the past few days I've been scrapping together a rough draft describing some of my ideas.

As I said in the first post, I don't think the game will be an exact port of Infiniminer (sorry if that's what you've been looking for :( ) but rather a "fresh take" on a game concept that hasn't been dusted off for over a decade now ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Originally I had hosted the rough draft on google drive, but I don't know if anybody actually clicked the link. I think it'll get more visibility if it were posted directly in the forum (besides, I think it'll help spur discussion a bit :D ). I'd llke to make sure you're okay with that, Roller, before I continue.

I'd still like to keep my posts relatively easy to digest, though! So I think I'd probably be posting about the game concept in sections. And, of course, I'd much rather be using plenty of images to help describe my concepts. After all a picture's worth a thousand words :)

But I don't think anything is ready to post today, I've still got some proofreading to do ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
ROllerozxa ROllerozxa
Site Admin
Posted on 2022-11-20 20:29 Link | ID: 574
As I said in the first post, I don't think the game will be an exact port of Infiniminer (sorry if that's what you've been looking for :( ) but rather a "fresh take" on a game concept that hasn't been dusted off for over a decade now
Well that's fine, just making a clone tends to become a bit boring having to recreate it and make it all as faithful as possible, meanwhile taking inspiration becomes more fun because you can take your own creativity and run with it in your own style. :P

Originally I had hosted the rough draft on google drive, but I don't know if anybody actually clicked the link. I think it'll get more visibility if it were posted directly in the forum (besides, I think it'll help spur discussion a bit :D ). I'd llke to make sure you're okay with that, Roller, before I continue.
Well I clicked through the link (I think), can't remember how large the draft document was but if you want to put some of it here on the forums that's fine too.
foodyummy foodyummy
Posted on 2022-11-29 17:04 (edited 2022-11-29 17:05) Link | ID: 594
Well, I won't be able to post anything for the next few days (as if I've posted anything during the last few lol) as I'll be helping out some family with their moving. I'm going a few states away for the next four days. That means literally sitting in a car for like eight hours there and back... real fun. :(

Don't worry, though, the project is still very much alive :D I've just got some other stuff to do, y'know... I'll see all you wonderful folks on Saturday. :)
foodyummy foodyummy
Posted on 2023-04-16 22:07 (edited 2023-04-29 21:38) Link | ID: 629
Well, it's been over half a year since I last posted here... since then, Infinitest was pretty much dead, I'm sorry :(

To be honest, I had frankly lost interest in the project as I had other things to do with my life. I had ultimately lost interest in Minetest modding, and in this forum.

I was also concerned that very few other people would be interested in the game as well. While I am grateful that at least ROller seemed to care about Infinitest, I feel that as a competetive game, it seems to beckon for more interest and more potential players. Y'know what I mean?

However, as much as I was worried about Infinitest having too small of a community, I was also concerned if the game were to suddenly explode into too large of a community for me to handle. I was concerned about server maintenance.

I don't think I can necessarily afford to run a server out of my own home, let alone cope with attempting to moderate it. While I am also grateful to ROller that they offered to run a server for me, I don't want to feel like I am adding an extra hassle for them if that were to happen. :(

And, well, to be even more honest, I did not really have much of a direction or concrete plan in mind for the game in the first place... :| not to mention I'm not the most competent at coding. I am worried that Infinitest will be too big of a first "real" project for me to tackle.

I'm very sorry if a couple people on this forum were excited about Infinitest and now it seems as if I am letting them down. However...

Infinitest might still live on (even if as a zombie). I do have some free time, and I might try programming Lua again. I don't necessarily want to reply "yes" or "no" as to the question of whether I will work on Infinitest again, so... maybe I'll just respond with a "well, I'll try it again and let's see" ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
ROllerozxa ROllerozxa
Site Admin
Posted on 2023-04-26 10:28 Link | ID: 631
Well that's unfortunate... :(

There would certainly be some amount of demand for an Infiniminer-like game in Minetest, someone even asked about whether something like it existed in the Minetest Discord server just a couple days ago. (this thread was linked, obviously :-3 ) And of course, building upon the Infiniminer base and adding some more gameplay elements into it would be neat.

But it's fine. Take your time, or put it on hold for a while if you don't feel the motivation to work on it. Please don't feel like anyone is forcing you to work on it. :P