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Olivier Dragon edited this page Oct 15, 2023 · 10 revisions

Welcome to the WhyNot? game wiki and documentation for users and contributors alike. For more topics, browse the wiki menu on the right-hand side.

Game features

The WhyNot? game can be enjoyed as both a survival challenge with many goals and different places to explore, or as a creative framework for building amazing things!

Survival

Upon entering the game, the player will see what appears to be a plain Mintetest Game. After a brief moment of exploration, harvesting grass and cutting trees, you may come across some vegetables. Those can be harvested and re-planted to begin farming and be saved from starvation. Paying close attention to the surroundings, sounds and weather effects bring additional ambience.

Before the night falls, you will want to find, create or dig a simple shelter, as well as a light source... or get ready to fight some monsters. Be especially wary of ghosts as they are very strong for beginners. The 'E' key can be held in order to run away faster from your foes. Wielding a torch instead of a tool or weapon will illuminate the immediate surroundings. Craft some basic tools like a wood or stone pick axe to increase your odds of survival. Crafting is similar to Minetest Game and Minecraft, albeit without the need for a crafting table. The shapes can be found in the craft guide.

When the sun rises again it is time resume exploration and find a suitable place for a more permanent settlement. Then one should begin digging deeper to get more and better minerals.

Tracking Progress

The WhyNot? game uses three main mechanisms to track progress: a progressive craft guide, awards/achievements, and tool ranks.

As new materials are discovered, new recipes become visible in the craft guide. Discovering new materials and items also unlocks help documentation to provide assistance when needed. As such, it is one of the goals of the WhyNot? game to find as many materials as possible, and craft all the items available in order to discover the whole crafting tree.

The second mechanism to track progress is the awards. The awards will not only guide you towards your next steps, it will give challenging goals to achieve in completing the game.

Finally, tools and weapons can be repaired which, by itself, doesn't help save materials. However it allows them to level up! This makes them more resistant to wear, and more powerful too. To level up a tool, it must be used many more times than the usual wear and tear cycle. This is where repairing comes in. A repaired tool or weapon will be returned to new, but it's experience (usage counter) remains. Careful not to let them break though, as then the progress is lost.

Tools

Many tools have been added to the WhyNot? game that make life easier, and the game play more enjoyable. For example, those from mods like ccompass, engrave, flyingcarpet, handholds, helicopter, maidroid, orbs_of_time, rainbowswords, subspacewalker, and boost_cart as mesecons-enabled replacement for of MTG-carts. For communication or mini-games a laptop can also be crafted and used.

Monsters

The monsters from mobs_monster and ghosts provide extra challenges, especially deep underground with the dungeon masters.

Exploration

The exploration experience in WhyNot is seemingly very similar to Minetest Game at first. One of the first thing to notice is a deeper dirt and sand layer to dig before getting to rock. Tall mountains also have a novel look with a snowy top. With a bit of patience and hard work, a greater variety of dungeons may be found. While digging underground, ores are not available immediately. Rock, bronze, and steel tools will each need to be used longer and repaired to make it to the deeper layers. Back to top-side again, an airplane can be built to reach floating islands.

Creative Crafting and Building

The WhyNot? game contains many craftable decorative items, furniture, and building materials from mods like like abriglass, homedecor, mydoors, myroofs, princess, ts_furniture, curtain, flower_pot, realchess, campfire, dice2, heads, mtg_plus, plasticbox, slats, and more!

There are many types of armours to build, and clothes to weave with cotton and colored with dyes.

Some but not all of mesecons is also available to build machines.

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