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Goanna v0.11.0-alpha

Goanna's Linux build now starts on systems back to Ubuntu 22.04 rather than only the newest, which should take in the Steam Deck. It updates itself, and brings Mineclonia's authored materials in the box. Plants show their texture relief, metal blocks shine, and Minetest Game gets the same hand authored treatment Mineclonia has.

Running on more Linux systems

  • Linux builds start on older systems. Every Linux release until now was built against a very new system library and only started on the newest distributions. Anywhere else, including a Steam Deck, Ubuntu LTS and Mint, Start Game opened a grey screen. This build is made for systems from Ubuntu 22.04 onwards and was checked on Ubuntu 22.04; it has not yet been played on a Steam Deck.
  • Logs you can find. Run from a folder Goanna can write to, such as a USB drive or an unzipped download, it keeps its logs in a logs folder beside the game, the local server's log included, with the previous run's kept too. No terminal needed.
  • No more silent grey screen. If Goanna's engine library cannot load, the menu now says so and where the log is, instead of opening an empty window.

Materials

  • Mineclonia's materials come in the box. The download carries the authored Mineclonia pack, mob skins included, and installs it on first start, so Mineclonia looks right even offline. The download is larger for it.
  • Minetest Game gets authored materials. Its 243 block, plant and furniture textures are rebuilt with the crisp texel relief Mineclonia uses, replacing the old blurry maps. They download when you join a Minetest Game server.
  • Plants have relief. Flowers, saplings, crops, mushrooms and grass now draw their material maps, so they sit among extruded blocks instead of looking like flat paper. Mushrooms and fungi no longer glow through like leaves when lit from behind.
  • Shiny metal. Minetest Game's steel, gold, copper, tin and bronze blocks are polished plates that reflect, and screen space reflections are on in the High and Ultra graphics settings (Graphics, Light), so polished surfaces mirror what is around them.

Updates

  • Goanna updates itself. When a new release is out, the menu offers Update and restart. It checks the release is signed by Goanna's maintainer before installing it, and keeps your worlds and settings. Coming from 0.10.0 needs one last download by hand.

Your character

  • More ways to move. Landing from a fall crouches your character, deeper the harder you land, with the feet staying on the ground; falling puts the arms out; stepping up a block lifts the leading knee; ladders and vines are climbed hand over hand; and in third person your character leans into starts, back on stops and into turns.
  • Swimming without sprinting. Moving through deep water upright now swims the breaststroke instead of treading water. Sprinting with your head under still swims the crawl.
  • Back into first person with the wheel. Alt with the wheel brings the third person camera in and, past the closest, back into first person; out from first person steps behind.
  • Arms in first person. Your arms no longer swing a held item up into the view as you walk.

Water

  • Under water looks like water. The murk is lit cyan near the surface, darker with depth and through the evening, instead of nearly black. Looking up, you see the sky through the window overhead and, beyond it, the water below reflected in the surface. The bed loses its colour to the water the same way seen from in it as from above, neither brighter nor murkier once you dive in, and the waves show on the underside again.
  • Third person in water. With your head under and the camera above the water, the view no longer turns water blue.
  • Waves round your body. Wading, swimming or jumping in, the water rises and rings right at your body's edge instead of a node away, and splashes are thrown as streaks of water rather than white blobs. Seen from above, ripples are lit on the sun's side, and the water froths into bubbles where you push through it or jump in.
  • Crown splashes. Jumping or falling into the water hard throws up a crown of water round you, its rim breaking into fingers and drops, higher on the side you were moving towards; punching the water throws a small one the way you hit.
  • No more strobing near the shore. The sea no longer flickers as if in fast forward when you stand a few blocks from the water's edge.

Fixes

  • Missing particles are back. Effects a game attaches to a creature, such as a glow squid's glints, were not shown at all, and nor were most effects within about 100 blocks of the world's centre. They now show, each on the creature or place it belongs to.
  • Old materials are cleared away. Installing a newer materials pack now removes the version it replaces, which was kept beside it before. On a long running install that frees a few hundred megabytes.

Experimental

  • Let a program play as you. With GOANNA_PLAYER_AGENT set, a local program (an AI agent, say) can see what your character sees and walk, look, dig, place, use items, chat and sort your inventory through the same controls you use, with no powers you do not have. It needs a key the game writes to your own files each time it starts. See docs/agents/agent-interfaces.md.
  • An AI game master for your world. A world started from Goanna can connect to a game master run by an AI agent you choose, through tools/goanna-director-mcp. In Mineclonia it can stage encounters sized to each player's gear and pace them, and speak as characters who remember what you said to them. Anyone who joins is told it is running and can turn it off for themselves with /director optout. It does nothing until you connect one. See docs/agents/director.md.