And today in “The Dimmest Silhouette of a Potentially Less Poop Future”, Mumbo Jumbo, the famous Minecraft redstone creator/general famous Minecraft-player on YouTube released this week what was initially meant to be a video of him just goofing around in “Minetest” a Lua-based, open-source Minecraft-like game that was designed to basically be a base game engine where folks could build their own game onto it using the integrated modding system. But by the end of it, he was having legitimate fun playing with the redstone-analogue mod he downloaded, and openly talked about the waves of nostalgia he got exploring the game in general, as it slightly, but notably, varied from OG Minecraft.
Now, I’m actually a touch less cynical about the way MC has been handled by Microsoft in the past few years than some folks (though the recent debacle about them cracking down on suggestive content and gun mods has me a more than a little worried about them legitimately beginning to overreach beyond sense. As though the single most downloaded video game in existence needs help with its image). But I legitimately think stuff like this is an amazing potential starting point for folks, especially YOUNG folks, to get excited about FOSS gaming. And open source software in general.
Minecraft’s greatest asset was its modability, but its growing monetization in Bedrock Edition, and the general corporate vibes coming off of a lot of its high-level decisions since MS bought it has really taken its toll on that prospect. But with stuff like Minetest, and other games like it that seek to give people free, open-source tools to build and share their creations and passions amongst each other, I think there really stands to be a chance for folks who, like myself just a year ago, never really paid much mind to open-source, community-driven software to have a chance to jump into the scene. And maybe find out they feel better for it.
Discussions welcome in the comments! I don’t expect everyone to share my hopefulness. But I do hope you give it a chance. A measured level of scrutiny is key to any movement, but so are good amounts of positive vibes and aspirations for the future. So if nothing else, I’d love to hear what y’all think about the potential for FOSS gaming in general, and/or what you think FOSS gaming and the greater adoption of FOSS alternatives could look like if fate favours it and/or efforts by the community increase in the future.
Hope you’re having/had a good day!
This is maybe an odd first comment on my own post, but does anyone know about the etiquette regarding cross-posting on Beehaw? I feel like the Open Source Software community channel would also appreciate this, but I don’t know if I should just repost it wholesale there also, or if there’s some actualy functionality to X-post it over there built in yet. Thoughts?
I see a crosspost button just below the title of your post. I haven’t used it so I don’t know the full process yet, but the functionality appears to be there.
Just cross-posted and it seems to work! Though, if they like it or not is a whole different story. Wish me luck!
On Jerboa/Lemmy, I has no crosspost button. Do have a “copy permalink” option though.
This is already cross post. It was posted somewhere few days ago.
Aw nuts. I just posted it in the community. Hopefully the conversation I aim to start around it is at least a slightly different vibe from the last one. If folks complain, I’ll happily remove it, but I’ll cross my fingers in the meantime!
Eh, if it was posted before I missed it. If people don’t want to see it / have already they just won’t upvote, it’s no big. Sometimes a level of reposting is nice because none of us should be glued to social media 24/7 to catch everything all the time anyways.