After eight months of development, Minetest has released version 5.8.0, a free cross-platform game engine in the genre of Sandshore. This game engine allows players to create games in the style of Minecraft by using various station blocks to build structures and buildings, forming a virtual world. The gameplay in Minetest is dependent on mods created in the Lua language. The game itself is written in C++ using the 3D-bibliotexes Irrlichtmt (a fork of irrlicht). The Minetest code is distributed under the LGPL license, and game resources are distributed under the CC by-SA 3.0 license. Ready-to-install versions of Minetest are available for various operating systems, including Linux, Android, FreeBSD, Windows, and MacOS. [source]
The main changes in Minetest version 5.8.0 include:
- The delivery of the default game engine has been stopped. Previously, there was a default game included with Minetest, which gave the false impression that Minetest itself was a game rather than a platform for creating and distributing games. With the new version, users will now be prompted to choose a game from the catalog when they launch Minetest. The interface for accessing the catalog is built into the Minetest client. [source]
- A new menu with settings has been implemented to simplify the search and changes of engine parameters. [source]
- Improved control on devices with the Android platform. Players can now place blocks in the game with a single touch on the screen. The interaction with the joystick, which emulates keystrokes, has been redesigned to be more responsive. Players now have the ability to move in any direction and at an arbitrary speed. [source]
![[source]](https://blog.minetest.net/blog/5.8.0/debundle_cdb.png){kind=link}
![[source]](https://blog.minetest.net/static/blog/5.8.0/settings.png){kind=link}