Minetest

Luanti
Original author(s)Perttu Ahola
Developer(s)The Luanti Team
Initial release0.0.1 / November 2, 2010; 14 years ago (2010-11-02)
Stable release
5.9.1[1] Edit this on Wikidata / 15 September 2024
Repositorygithub.com/minetest/minetest
Written inC++, Lua
EngineIrrlicht (Irrlicht-MT fork)
PlatformMicrosoft Windows, MacOS, Linux, FreeBSD, Android
TypeSandbox
License2013: LGPL-2.1-or-later[2][3]
2010: GPL-2.0-or-later[4][5]
Original: Proprietary[6]
Websitewww.luanti.org

Luanti (formerly and colloquially Minetest) is a free and open-source voxel game creation system. It is written primarily in C++ and makes use of the Irrlicht Engine. Luanti has a Lua API allowing users to write their own games and mods. It is cross-platform, being available for Microsoft Windows, macOS, Linux, some BSD descendants, some GNU variants and Android.[7]

An in-game browser lets users download games and modifications from the ContentDB website.[8] The five most popular games by downloads are VoxeLibre, Minetest Game, NodeCore, Tutorial and Subway Miner.[9]

Over a decade of active development Luanti has garnered critical acclaim and gained in popularity; the games, mods and texturepacks on ContentDB have over 14 million downloads combined,[10] and the Android version of Luanti has over a million downloads on the Google Play store.[11]

In October 2024 the name was changed from Minetest to Luanti. The new name is a word play using the name of the programming language Lua and the Finnish word "luonti" meaning "creation".[12]

  1. ^ "Release 5.9.1". September 15, 2024. Retrieved September 22, 2024.
  2. ^ "LICENSE.txt". GitHub. October 25, 2021. Archived from the original on January 3, 2023. Retrieved July 8, 2021.
  3. ^ "Remove doc/gpl-2.0.txt, add doc/lgpl-2.1.txt". GitHub. September 28, 2013. Archived from the original on August 6, 2021. Retrieved July 8, 2021.
  4. ^ "Switch the license to be LGPLv2/later, with small parts still remaining as GPLv2/later, by agreement of major contributors". GitHub. June 5, 2012. Archived from the original on August 6, 2021. Retrieved July 8, 2021.
  5. ^ "Working version before block send priorization update". GitHub. November 27, 2010. Archived from the original on August 6, 2021. Retrieved July 8, 2021.
  6. ^ "Initial files". GitHub. November 26, 2010. Archived from the original on August 6, 2021. Retrieved July 8, 2021.
  7. ^ "Minetest". December 11, 2023. Archived from the original on December 11, 2023. Retrieved December 11, 2023.
  8. ^ "Content Flags". December 11, 2023. Archived from the original on December 11, 2023. Retrieved December 11, 2023.
  9. ^ "Games". ContentDB. Retrieved May 28, 2024.
  10. ^ "Welcome". ContentDB. Retrieved October 14, 2024. CDB has 2526 packages, with a total of 14871145 downloads.
  11. ^ "minetest - Android Apps on Google Play". play.google.com. Retrieved May 28, 2024.
  12. ^ "Introducing Our New Name". Minetest Blog. Retrieved October 13, 2024.