Game jams

In 2020, the Minetest Discord community ran a mod-making competition with “combat” as the theme. Participants had one week to create a mod with all the code written within the time, but pre-existing art was allowed. I made a Real-Time Strategy (RTS) minigame called Conquer; it received first place.

In this article, I will discuss some of the interesting challenges that Conquer needed to solve. I believe that Conquer is a great example to learn from as it demonstrates best practices for Minetest modding; it is well-structured and unit-tested.

In April 2021, I participated in my first game jam, Ludum Dare 48. Ludum Dare is a popular online game jam; this event received over 3800 submissions. The theme was “Deeper and Deeper,” and I created a game where you manage a tin mine.

The year is 1790, and the Cornish tin industry is booming. You are a businessperson who has just secured investment to build a mine. The area is known to be rich in tin, which is in high demand.

Rather than controlling your workers directly, you drag out plans for tiles to be mined and built. The workers will mine tunnels and build where ordered. They will carry mined resources to the surface to be sold.