{"slug": "luanti", "name": "Luanti", "category": "media", "category_name": "Media and creative", "description": "", "recommenders": 6, "commenters": 9, "warners": 1, "score": 4.998, "rising": -0.64, "first": "2025-11-12", "latest": "2026-08-29", "why": "Check out Luanti.  My son pulled off his own multiplayer game", "why_is_quote": true, "has_verdict": false, "sentiment": {"recommend": 6, "neutral": 3, "compare": 0, "warn": 1}, "spark": [1, 0, 1, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 3, 1, 0, 0], "listed": true, "loved": [], "caveat": "", "short_quote": "Check out Luanti.  My son pulled off his own multiplayer game", "kind": "", "icon": true, "domain": "luanti.org", "github_repo": null, "official_url": "https://www.luanti.org", "pricing": "", "aliases": ["Luanti"], "verdict": null, "praise": [{"label": "", "summary": "", "quotes": [{"id": 791718448, "item_id": 49482403, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49482403", "by": "astrobe_", "date": "2026-08-28", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Luanti is a respectable platform", "excerpt": "Correction: half of the pictures are not from mods, but from Luanti games; Luanti is a platform for voxel games. And there's no screenshot of the two Luanti games that come the closest to Minecraft, both in terms of looks and gameplay. None of them are included in the standard Luanti distribution. One can download games and mods from ContentDB (or directly from Luanti itself); ContentDB administrators are looking clo", "context": "", "use_case": "voxel game platform", "switched_from": "", "story": "Luanti removed from Google Play due to baseless AI copyright notice"}, {"id": 783666464, "item_id": 48979154, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48979154", "by": "mghackerlady", "date": "2026-07-20", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I love Luanti.", "excerpt": "I love Luanti. Is it as good as minecraft? No, not really, but I appreciate it's existence, if not for a non-hacky BSD minecraft experience (You can run java edition on *BSD from what I've seen, but ymmv as I've personally never tried)", "context": "BSD user", "use_case": "open source Minecraft-like game", "switched_from": "", "story": "Minecraft: Java Edition now uses SDL3"}, {"id": 783507056, "item_id": 48969191, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48969191", "by": "hedgehog", "date": "2026-07-19", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Luanti with Mineclonia plug-in works well if you are willing to move entirely to Mac/Windows/Linux clients.", "excerpt": "Luanti with Mineclonia plug-in works well if you are willing to move entirely to Mac/Windows/Linux clients. The whole stack is open source so it's easier to make changes etc if you want. No hacky binary patching of Java bytecode. Originally I was going to try Minecraft proper first since I'd already paid for that, but Microsoft doesn't honor old licenses and in the end the Luanti path probably works better. https://c", "context": "", "use_case": "family game server", "switched_from": "", "story": "Minecraft: Java Edition now uses SDL3"}, {"id": 782606800, "item_id": 48912925, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48912925", "by": "salutis", "date": "2026-07-14", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Check out Luanti.  My son pulled off his own multiplayer game", "excerpt": "Check out Luanti. My son pulled off his own multiplayer game, by mixing some existing mods and writing a pinch of Lua. He is not into programming, and he did not even use LLM, do it was probably not all that hard. And the result was impressive, and I say that as a professional programmer.", "context": "professional programmer", "use_case": "making multiplayer games", "switched_from": "", "story": "European \"age verification\" \"app\" forcing everyone to use Android or iOS"}, {"id": 748852612, "item_id": 46803288, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46803288", "by": "rav3ndust", "date": "2026-01-28", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "i love luanti, xonotic, openarena, veloren, etc", "excerpt": "i like a few multiplayer shooters, fortnite being one of them. i also exclusively use gnu/linux on my machines, so i got around this issue of games like fortnite/battlefield/etc issue a long time ago by simply doing what i've always done for years, playing these on xbox. i even 'stream' these games to my linux machine from my xbox if i want to play them from the computer with the xbox controller, and can join and cre", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Microsoft forced me to switch to Linux"}]}], "caveats": [{"label": "", "summary": "", "quotes": [{"id": 791709248, "item_id": 49481828, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49481828", "by": "WarmWash", "date": "2026-08-28", "version": null, "stance": "warn", "quote": "Luanti probably could doge all this if they just ditched all the blatant minecraft clone mods", "excerpt": "But the IP is, and it's jury that would likely decide. So with a straight face, you think a jury wouldn't call this Minecraft? https://www.luanti.org/media/gallery/5.jpg Also Luanti probably could doge all this if they just ditched all the blatant minecraft clone mods. A mining game with blocks is totally fine. If you look back at infiniminer, it's clearly a different vibe of the same concept.", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Luanti removed from Google Play due to baseless AI copyright notice"}]}], "who": [{"by": "mghackerlady", "context": "BSD user", "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48979154", "date": "2026-07-20"}, {"by": "salutis", "context": "professional programmer", "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48912925", "date": "2026-07-14"}], "tags": [], "use_cases": ["voxel game engine", "voxel game platform", "open source minecraft-like game", "family game server", "making multiplayer games"], "compared": [{"slug": "minecraft", "name": "Minecraft", "co": 3, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 0}, {"slug": "xonotic", "name": "Xonotic", "co": 2, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 0}], "makers": [], "threads": [{"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49475079", "title": "Luanti removed from Google Play due to baseless AI copyright notice", "mentions": 3}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48967256", "title": "Minecraft: Java Edition now uses SDL3", "mentions": 2}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49070820", "title": "Minecraft Java raises recommended memory to 16GB ahead of Vulkan transition", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48903777", "title": "European \"age verification\" \"app\" forcing everyone to use Android or iOS", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47664186", "title": "Battle for Wesnoth: open-source, turn-based strategy game", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46795864", "title": "Microsoft forced me to switch to Linux", "mentions": 1}], "sentiment_by_month": {"2025-11": {"recommend": 1}, "2025-12": {}, "2026-01": {"recommend": 1}, "2026-02": {}, "2026-03": {}, "2026-04": {"neutral": 1}, "2026-05": {}, "2026-06": {}, "2026-07": {"recommend": 3, "neutral": 1}, "2026-08": {"warn": 1, "recommend": 1, "neutral": 1}, "2026-09": {}, "2026-10": {}}, "versions": [], "version_unnamed": 0, "family_ref": null, "runs_on": null, "lines": [], "quotes": [{"id": 791809729, "item_id": 49488108, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49488108", "by": "kdhskdh", "date": "2026-08-29", "version": null, "stance": "neutral", "quote": "", "excerpt": "Luanti is available on Obtainium: https://apps.obtainium.imranr.dev/apps?categoryMode=inclusive&sort=popular&q=luanti The only sustainable solution to these kinds of problems is to diversify away from Google Play Store.", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Luanti removed from Google Play due to baseless AI copyright notice"}, {"id": 791718448, "item_id": 49482403, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49482403", "by": "astrobe_", "date": "2026-08-28", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Luanti is a respectable platform", "excerpt": "Correction: half of the pictures are not from mods, but from Luanti games; Luanti is a platform for voxel games. And there's no screenshot of the two Luanti games that come the closest to Minecraft, both in terms of looks and gameplay. None of them are included in the standard Luanti distribution. One can download games and mods from ContentDB (or directly from Luanti itself); ContentDB administrators are looking clo", "context": "", "use_case": "voxel game platform", "switched_from": "", "story": "Luanti removed from Google Play due to baseless AI copyright notice"}, {"id": 791709248, "item_id": 49481828, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49481828", "by": "WarmWash", "date": "2026-08-28", "version": null, "stance": "warn", "quote": "Luanti probably could doge all this if they just ditched all the blatant minecraft clone mods", "excerpt": "But the IP is, and it's jury that would likely decide. So with a straight face, you think a jury wouldn't call this Minecraft? https://www.luanti.org/media/gallery/5.jpg Also Luanti probably could doge all this if they just ditched all the blatant minecraft clone mods. A mining game with blocks is totally fine. If you look back at infiniminer, it's clearly a different vibe of the same concept.", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Luanti removed from Google Play due to baseless AI copyright notice"}, {"id": 785191920, "item_id": 49074495, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49074495", "by": "astrobe_", "date": "2026-07-27", "version": null, "stance": "neutral", "quote": "the engine handles shaders, networking, DBMS backends", "excerpt": "Yes, the engine handles shaders, networking, DBMS backends (Sqlite, Postgres,... to store \"worlds\"), entities (mobs/items/vehicles...) to name the obvious things, but the logic of the game (weather, mob AI, user/world interaction, inventories, forms and other dialog box, custom world generation) and other other functions (area protections in multiplayer, account management, chat moderation, ...) are done with Lua 5.1", "context": "", "use_case": "Voxel game engine", "switched_from": "", "story": "Minecraft Java raises recommended memory to 16GB ahead of Vulkan transition"}, {"id": 783666464, "item_id": 48979154, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48979154", "by": "mghackerlady", "date": "2026-07-20", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I love Luanti.", "excerpt": "I love Luanti. Is it as good as minecraft? No, not really, but I appreciate it's existence, if not for a non-hacky BSD minecraft experience (You can run java edition on *BSD from what I've seen, but ymmv as I've personally never tried)", "context": "BSD user", "use_case": "open source Minecraft-like game", "switched_from": "", "story": "Minecraft: Java Edition now uses SDL3"}, {"id": 783507056, "item_id": 48969191, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48969191", "by": "hedgehog", "date": "2026-07-19", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Luanti with Mineclonia plug-in works well if you are willing to move entirely to Mac/Windows/Linux clients.", "excerpt": "Luanti with Mineclonia plug-in works well if you are willing to move entirely to Mac/Windows/Linux clients. The whole stack is open source so it's easier to make changes etc if you want. No hacky binary patching of Java bytecode. Originally I was going to try Minecraft proper first since I'd already paid for that, but Microsoft doesn't honor old licenses and in the end the Luanti path probably works better. https://c", "context": "", "use_case": "family game server", "switched_from": "", "story": "Minecraft: Java Edition now uses SDL3"}, {"id": 782606800, "item_id": 48912925, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48912925", "by": "salutis", "date": "2026-07-14", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Check out Luanti.  My son pulled off his own multiplayer game", "excerpt": "Check out Luanti. My son pulled off his own multiplayer game, by mixing some existing mods and writing a pinch of Lua. He is not into programming, and he did not even use LLM, do it was probably not all that hard. And the result was impressive, and I say that as a professional programmer.", "context": "professional programmer", "use_case": "making multiplayer games", "switched_from": "", "story": "European \"age verification\" \"app\" forcing everyone to use Android or iOS"}, {"id": 762720064, "item_id": 47670004, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47670004", "by": "MarsIronPI", "date": "2026-04-06", "version": null, "stance": "neutral", "quote": "they recently changed name to Luanti to get away from the \"it's Minecraft but worse\" perception", "excerpt": "> Minetest Heads up: they recently changed name to Luanti to get away from the \"it's Minecraft but worse\" perception. They also un-bundled the built-in game and are trying to be a game engine these days. I recommend looking into Age of Mending. It's still in alpha, but if it's ever finished it'll give Minecraft a good run for its money, especially among the builder-minded players.", "context": "", "use_case": "voxel game engine", "switched_from": "", "story": "Battle for Wesnoth: open-source, turn-based strategy game"}, {"id": 748852612, "item_id": 46803288, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46803288", "by": "rav3ndust", "date": "2026-01-28", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "i love luanti, xonotic, openarena, veloren, etc", "excerpt": "i like a few multiplayer shooters, fortnite being one of them. i also exclusively use gnu/linux on my machines, so i got around this issue of games like fortnite/battlefield/etc issue a long time ago by simply doing what i've always done for years, playing these on xbox. i even 'stream' these games to my linux machine from my xbox if i want to play them from the computer with the xbox controller, and can join and cre", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Microsoft forced me to switch to Linux"}, {"id": 734398497, "item_id": 45899906, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45899906", "by": "finalarbiter", "date": "2025-11-12", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Luanti[1], formerly MineTest, to the 'sandbox games' category", "excerpt": "This is a good list, and there are some games on here I've never heard of. That said, I would suggest the addition of Xonotic[0] to the 'first-person games' category, and Luanti[1], formerly MineTest, to the 'sandbox games' category. [0] https://xonotic.org [1] https://www.luanti.org/en/", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Open Source Games"}]}