A different name for Minetest

[Zughy]

After a long talk on IRC about whether rename Minetest or not, I thought to open an issue where you can suggest a name.

👉 names outside the "voxel" and "free/open" nature are encouraged (e.g. Krita, Godot) 👈

RULES

1. A comment shall only contain the suggestion and, optionally, a brief description. Nothing else
2. You're allowed to suggest three names top, one comment per suggestion (so choose wisely and don't use your three chances all together)
3. Anyone can take part in it: outsiders, please do!
4. It won't be chosen by likes. If we ever decide to proceed with the renaming, it'll be up to @celeron55 alongside a small group of MT staff to choose the name. This issue only helps us gathering suggestions
5. No insults/trolling/yougotit

Comments not sticking to the rules will be removed

UPDATE: suggesting "Minetest" is not an option, please stop and read the IRC log

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EDIT by SmallJoker: If you are looking for a place to discuss naming suggestions, have a look at the following related topics:

• The best name instead of Minetest is...
• 3 reasons to not rename Minetest
• Should we rename Minetest? (poll) <- oldest topic for the sake of completeness. Please let it rest in peace.

[Zughy]

(posting for pgimeno)
Terraforma

[savilli]

kutiko - from Finnish "kuutio" ("cube") and the Finnish suffix "-ikko", suggesting a small cube or a place of cubes.

[savilli]

luontia - from Finnish "luonti" ("creation").

[marco-acorte]

MineBlockx

[oong819]

CreativeFramework - because Minetest let players modifying almost everything

[valerio-bozzolan]

HackBlock

(Edited: apparently it's also a Bukkit mod)

[RecentRunner]

Fernweh - A German word for the yearning of far away places. I feel a German name is fitting as Minetest is based on the Irrlicht engine. Also the yearning of far away places seems perfect for a procedural game which aims to be whatever game the player wants it to be

[oong819]

DeepFog - Minetest's world are usually very large and covered in fog

[marco-acorte]

LoFiGame :) ironic about the huge weight of the textures

[Montandalar]

Minet - pronounced Minety or min-ette, not sure which I like more yet.

A nod to the old name, catchy, short, and still refers to the "mine" part.

Edit: I have since learned that "minet" can be a dirty word in French, so I'm not sure if I can support the idea with French being such a big language.

[MisterE123]

Remine'd

[Bituvo]

"Voxey" - A fork for children

[Bituvo]

"Fosscraft" - A reference to the open-source nature of Minetest

[lhofhansl]

TerraForge

[lhofhansl]

BlockSmith

[FossFanatic]

Digsmith (Dig ≈ Mine, Smith ≈ Craft)

[FossFanatic]

Luanode (Lua + Node)

[FossFanatic]

Sandblocks (Sandbox + Blocks)

[amreo]

cubollato (or cubellato)

A italian word. It sounds as "made to cube" (cubo + allato)

[amreo]

voxellismo

A mix of english and italian. voxel + ismo. It means a cultural movement of voxel (like modellism)

[oong819]

MeseTest - people will less likely see Minetest as an Minecraft's cheap copy, also this name will not terminate it's history and origin

[MisterE123]

In that vein, MeseBox Engine

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[LizzyFleckenstein03]

Mesetint. See minetest/minetest_game#2077

[Montandalar]

"Cubelite". Rhymes with Bakelite. After the lightweight nature of the unmodded C++ game. Probably doesn't hold up as well for modpacks and featureful games like Mineclone2. But I thought I would add it to the list.

Off-topic:
The current name sucks, so often when I introduce Minetest to people IRL I say "Minetest" then soon after say something like "yeah the name doesn't sell it very well". Minetest as an organisation is usually pretty bad at making marketable names. We don't need to wait for the perfect name, but there are plenty that can be weeded out, too.

[dax-er]

Voxism

short, has voxel in it because thats what it is

[dax-er]

Node Box Platform/Engine

Minetest has 'nodeboxes' as a way to display nodes, maybe it can be used to display Minetest too.

EDIT: There are some other projects out there called nodebox. Montandalar's suggestion is probably better.

[AvnyrTokirawa]

Personally, I think the choice of a name is very complicated. First of all, what horizon do we want for Minetest?
If it's to take a free path, far from the vision of another world-famous game.

Let me give you an example,
When Java was in its golden age, ECMAScript was looking to change its name. No need to go into detail...

ECMAScript -> JavaScript (These are however, two completely different languages)

Should we take inspiration from the name of another game, or can we go in the opposite direction?

Here are the names I'm proposing:

• OpenCube
• Lapsus [lapsys]
• Leaf

Off-topic:

What I find lacking is a document detailing the project's vision and what the community expects from Minetest.
(If I haven't just missed it).

[Montandalar]

I'm going to piggyback one off CallMeDax and suggest instead of just plain NodeBox, which kind of overlaps, something with a "cute" suffix:

NodeBoxen

The inspiration goes back to the entry for Boxen from the Jargon File, where it's a fanciful plural of box, similar to the plural ox -> oxen. It also doesn't omit some kind of reference to cubes or cuboid objects which makes the intent somewhat clearer.

[dez43]

I propose

...

Minetest

[Libretto7]

Universe - you can make everything you want out of it, the name hasn't been used for a game/engine and it sounds ambitious/high-quality. The minetest_game should just be renamed to "default_game".

[cosin15]

Mycraft

[TheCorruptCat]

community game

[Poikilos]

TerraForge

Consider doing a web search before suggesting a name.

• "TerraForged is a world generation mod for Minecraft"
• "TerraForged on Steam" 'You are a skilled smith who seeks to craft the legendary sword "Excalibur"'
• "Terraforge is a fully managed DevOps platform"
• "TerraForge Communities, Inc., one of Virginia's premier developers"
• "The Terraforge is a special crafting station found only in Ancient Vaults" -starbounder.org
• "Stream TERRAFORGE (For 1K Youtube Subscribers) by Xeudo Code on desktop and mobile"
• "Blades of the Terraforge" -Dota 2 wiki
• "Custom Wargaming Terrain & Bespoke Battleboards" instagram.com/terraforge

I hear if you are using a name in a different market it is fine but IANAL and some of these seem to be in the same market.

[rodovia]

I have an idea: Paichnindie. "paichnindi" in greek means "game" (not exclusively videogames) and a play with "indie".

[nonfreegithub]

LibreCraft

[cosin15]

(super)tuxcraft

[ancientmarinerdev]

ProcrastiNation - 4 months after a decision to rename, and no further decision, or guidance.

[Zughy]

Thanks for all your suggestions! It's been a couple weeks since we started an internal discussion about the hypothetical new name (so no, we're not procrastinating). We'll let you know as soon as a decision is taken! Locking

[Zughy]

Update: discussion is still going on and it has developed ever since; we're possibly going somewhere