Getting Started

Downloading

Firstly, download Minetest for your operating system and extract it somewhere you can access it.

Installing

Installation will differ depending on your operating system. Here are instructions for each OS:

Windows Installation

Open the extracted folder and look for the bin folder. Open bin and run minetest.exe.

File structure as installed by the run-in-place built for Windows32 minetest-0.4.9-65d1cb8 compiled by sfan5 (2014-03-30)

minetest/
├── bin/
├── builtin/
├── client/
│   ├── serverlist/
│   └── shaders/
│       ├── alpha_shader/
│       ├── leaves_shader/
│       ├── liquids_shader/
│       ├── plants_shader/
│       └── solids_shader/
├── doc/
├── fonts/
├── games/
│   ├── minetest_game/
│   └── minimal/
├── locale/ 
│   └── (lots of language folders)
├── mods/ 
└── textures/
    └── base/
        └── pack/

OS X Installation

Open the extracted folder and run the .app.

GNU/Linux Installation

If you can, download the version already compiled for your distribution of GNU/Linux. If you can't find one, you can compile it yourself from here. In this case, you should also install a so-called Minetest-Game.

Playing

Now that you have it installed you can either; play singleplayer, play on a local server or play online by connecting to a server.

Play Singleplayer

To play singleplayer simply create a world and click Play.

You can choose (or install) a Game or just use the Minimal development test game.

Play Online

File:Password.PNG

The select password screen

To play online you must enter a username, a password for yourself, and the server address (and port). If it is your first time connecting to that server it will create a player for you with your chosen username. Using a password is strongly recommended to stop others griefing your character.

Creating a password/account is done by:

Login to a server (it can be local, but not singleplayer) without a password (this is for the first time setup only)
Once connected to the server, press Esc and click the "Password" button.
Enter your desired password here, leaving the "Old Password" box empty.
You have now created a Minetest account! To log in with this name in the future you must use your chosen password.

Basic Controls

Most of these can be changed in the “Change Keys” menu. For a more complete and accurate list of controls, see Controls.

The default and most important controls are:

W/A/S/D: Move
Space: Jump
Left mouse button: Attack, mine blocks, move an item stack in an inventory
Right mouse button: Use (e.g. open chest/furnace), place blocks, move one or split blocks/items in inventory
Shift+Right mouse button: Place blocks
Middle mouse button: Move 10 blocks/items in inventory
Mouse wheel: Select block/item in hotbar
0-9: Select block/item in hotbar
Q: Drop block/item
I: open/close inventory menu
T: open chat window
Shift: Descend on ladders or sneak/walk slower

Gameplay

See this video for the basics about Minetest. It is a bit out-dated, however.

Here is a little tutorial: How to build your first house.

The following wiki pages explain some basic Minetest concepts more or less in-depth:

If you want to play online, you should read the gameplay notes for multiplayer servers.

As soon as you grasped the basics, you may want to look up which blocks and items are available an get an overview about farming.

Just want to build? Try creative mode!

If you want more, don’t forget to try new mods and games.

Advanced topics:

Groups
(more to come)