Goanna v0.10.0-alpha¶

Getting started is one click, Mineclonia gets hand authored materials, sunsets light the land again, water reacts to you, and you can now step out into third person and watch your character walk, swim and tread water.

Getting started¶

One click to play. On a computer without Luanti, Start Game now offers Get ready to play, which sets up a Luanti server and the Mineclonia game for you, with no password and no package manager. The Linux release now includes its own Luanti server, so it works on any recent Linux, with or without Flatpak.

Sky and light¶

Golden hour is back. Sunsets light the land in gold again. Behind hills it comes a little earlier, as the sun drops behind them.
Clouds at different heights. Clouds now sit in up to three layers, with larger, softer banks in the distance and coverage that changes with the weather. Choose one, two or three layers under Advanced, Lighting, Cloud layers.
A richer night sky. A galactic band, coloured and twinkling stars, a few constellations and planets, and the occasional meteor. The sky turns as the night goes on, and twilight gains a violet upper sky.

Water¶

Water that reacts to you. Swimming and wading leave a bow wave and a wake, falling in sends out rings, and waves settle and bounce off banks. Animals make their own smaller waves.
Splashes. Jumping in throws up droplets, climbing out drips, and hitting the water splashes where the blow lands.
Water that fits its place. Beaches and reefs are clear, lakes and rivers carry silt, and swamps are murky and green. Under water it is clear near the surface and murkier with depth, and sunlight through the ripples dances on the bed.
Waves sized to the water. Ponds lie nearly still; the open sea rolls.
Cleaner reflections on water, by day and by night.

Your character and camera¶

Third person. F7 switches between first person, behind you and in front of you. Hold Alt and move the mouse to look around your character (from first person this steps out behind you), and use Alt with the mouse wheel to bring the camera closer.
Your character moves. Your body now walks, runs and sneaks with the game's own animations, bends at the knees and elbows, swims the crawl and treads water in deep water.
Looking down in first person shows the front of your body, not the inside of your neck.

Materials¶

Hand authored materials for Mineclonia. Every Mineclonia block and tool now has relief, gloss and surface detail drawn by hand to follow its pixel art, replacing the generated set. Goanna downloads them for you the first time you play Mineclonia (60 MB).
Glass reflects in every game, not only stained glass.
Gems sparkle. Emerald, amethyst, mese and quartz get the polished, glinting look diamond has.
Ice is ice in more games, including Asuna and Kythen.
Plants show their colour. Sugar cane and other plants are no longer drawn blue grey or black at dusk.

New menu backgrounds. One of three scenes at random each time you start: a coastal village at sunset, a lantern lit street and a lava pool in a birch forest.

Fixes¶

Changing the graphics preset during play no longer risks freezing the machine; sliders apply when you let go of them.
Leaves no longer flicker where two blocks meet.
No more flashing blue sheet where you dig under water.
In Asuna, still water no longer turns to lava, and lily pads and cave vines no longer draw as water.
Flowers and saplings no longer show a neighbour's texture.
On Linux, if a GPU hang freezes the desktop, Alt+SysRq+F now ends just the game.

Known issues¶

Get ready to play has not yet been tried on Windows itself.
The included Linux server needs Ubuntu 22.04, Debian 12 or newer.
A distant swamp looks like the water you are standing in until you get close to it.
Texture packs that recolour gems lose the gem effect on them.
In third person the camera jumps in and out when a wall comes between it and you.
More cloud layers cost some performance; choose fewer on a slower machine.