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Mineverse

evanw.github.io

116 pointsmemalign30 comments

What is this? It looks like a voxel renderer with a hexagonal grid on it? There doesn't seem to be any explanation of what it means or what it's showcasing.

The repository[0] isn't too enlightening either, although an interesting footnote is that it's written in "Skew"[1], a programming language I've never heard of, but that seems to have been created by the same person. Somewhat interesting.

[0]: https://github.com/evanw/mineverse

[1]: https://github.com/evanw/skew

It's notable mostly due to who created it, Evan is the cofounder of Figma and the creator of ESBuild.

Based on the fact he's noted "A little experiment, please ignore" and the language he created and it's written in (Skew) hasn't been touched since 2021, reduce is significance in my view. But it's always interesting to see what these incredible creators have built in the past.

More recently he's been playing with CRDTs with some interesting experiments: https://madebyevan.com/algos/

I'm curious to know why OP wanted to post it. I've seen dozens of voxel landscape demos - running in a browser, running on a Raspberry Pi, running on a refridgerator. It would be great to have some insight into why this one is worth my attention.

I just think it’s a fun little project! I love interesting programming projects that people share the source code for. I keep a note filled with links to things like this.

Sometimes I have a programming idea and I’ll go back to this list to see if I’ve already found something similar that I could build on top of.

One example where I did that: I remixed a few projects by other people to create this graphing tool that works on formulas that don’t have to be solved for y:

https://memalign.github.io/m/formulagraph/index.html?f1(x,t)...

Learn more about that here:

https://memalign.github.io/p/formulagraph.html

Now this is cool.

Definitely admiring how he finds motivation to keep creating value. He has excellent discipline. Many will still not know who he is or what he created.

I know voxel (not technically true voxels but thats not important) demos seem like a dime a dozen, but having tried to write a few in the past I'd say any successful attempt is worthy of a deal of respect, it can be a right pain

I believe there is opportunity for a Minecraft-like in the browser (including multiplayer, mods, etc.). I've been wanting to make it (open source of course), but I have been waiting for the WebRTC ecosystem in Rust to mature. That's where you could really get into teleporting across servers and other federated mechanics.

Minecraft itself ran in the browser officially 12+ years ago when Java applets were still supported by most browsers.

That was then, over a decade ago. Doesn’t help anyone now so is kind of a non-sequitor

Minetest has a working browser build, client and server! https://github.com/paradust7/minetest-wasm

https://classic.minecraft.net/

I wanted to go this route with a game I'm working on, but the poor implementation of mobile browsers kept it from being viable for me. Technically it's all possible on the web, it's just being held back by those who want to funnel people to their walled gardens IMHO.

I built this, kind of a mix of YouTube and mini Minecraft spaces: https://entervspace.com

krunker.io has done something really impressive in this space. I’d love to learn how their engine works and how it loads so fast.

I checked it out, didn't seem anything special.

Tried to climb the highest hexagonal level, but it seemed impossible. Raced across the second-highest but no mountains were reaching high enough.

Finally I let myself fall. Realized the underside of the hexagonal level was sticky and kept me flying attached to it for a while. With a little twist I could even lift myself up to the surface.

Found a high mountain, jumped to the underside of the highest hexagonal level, and voila. I was stuck and able to get to its surface.

Then I just glided at high speed on top of the world. Nice.

Shift acts like god-mode so you can look up with shift and w and just fly.

I'm on mobile, can someone describe what this is?

It's some sort of first-person voxel renderer, like the classic versions of Minecraft, but with godrays and ambient occlusion. It doesn't look like you can modify the world at all, it's just some basic terrain with some sort of hexagonal structure built over it (?).

It also renders on 30fps, you can go around the world, smoothly.

I wouldn't say 30fps is "smooth" per se, but it's very consistent with no stuttering or lag, so at least the frame times are smooth. :)

(To clarify: it's locked to 30fps, it doesn't only perform at 30fps.)

Unfortunately for me, this falls in a bucket with 99% of other web-based games and piloted experiences that can't handle a non-QWERTY keyboard layout.

It loaded very quickly on mobile but there are no controls.

Toggling godrays doesn't do anything for me.

I thought so too at first, but the godrays are only really visible when looking up into the "sun".

Nice work. Reminds me of the old Minecraft Classic that ran in-browser. I used to spend hours playing the Lava Survival gamemode.

Runs at consistent ~37/fps on my M1 MacBook Air, with any of the features ON or OFF, impressive!

Reminds me of "Hover!"

This is sort of liminal. Really cool!

Cool

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