Alicorn Launcher

Note

The developers behind Alicorn have shifted since early 2023. We're now planning to commit major changes to Alicorn for new features, improved stability, optimized code and better user-experience.

That launcher of the block game, once with the magic of friendship.

Our Goal

The development of Alicorn is based on the following vision:

• Game First

  Craft your game experience and click to play. Leave the technical jobs to us.

• Free as in Pricing

  You're paying for playing, no more for launching.¹

• Free as in Freedom

  Things related to your game really shouldn't be touched by something you can't control.

• Cross Platform

  Play on any computer regardless of its OS.²

• Fast

  Spend time in your world, not entering your world.

• Space Utilization

  Create hundreds of game experiences while storing only one copy of game assets.

• Not Opinionated

  Play the game in the way you like. It's never a crime to fly in your own world.³

• Privacy Aware

  We collect no data for analysis. There's no option to enable it.

Supported Platforms

Note

Platforms that do not have corresponding LWJGL artifacts are unsupported.

Important

Certain game experiences may not be available on platforms that Alicorn runs on.

Systems:

• Microsoft Windows 10 / 11
• Apple macOS (Big Sur or later)
• GNU/Linux
  • There are no detailed compatibility metrics, but recent releases should work.

Architectures:

• x64 (amd64)
• arm64 (aarch64)

Build

Note

You may not need to build Alicorn yourself. For production usages, use stable releases can help to avoid potential bugs and pitfalls. To access the latest features, update from the beta channel to get tested builds. Only build from source for development.

Alicorn can be built from any platform it runs on. The following tools are required:

• Node.js >= 22 (LTS)

  The Node.js version for building will not affect the copy bundled with Electron.

• Git

1. Get the code:

   git clone --filter=tree:0 https://github.com/Andy-K-Sparklight/Alicorn.git

2. Install dependencies:

   corepack enable
   pnpm i

3. Build and run:

   • For production:

     pnpm prod
     pnpm start

   • For development:

     pnpm dev

     This command builds the main process modules and starts a development server (with HMR) for the renderer. Changes made to the renderer will be reflected immediately once saved.

4. To create packaged binaries:

   pnpm dist

   The output files are placed at out.

Certain features can be toggled or adjusted during the build process. Check and edit config.ts for details.

License

GPL-3.0 (or any later version)

Footnotes

1. We as developers follow the EULA of the game and advocate copyright protection. A valid account is required to enter the game session. ↩

2. When supported by the game. ↩

3. Cheat clients are forbidden in certain servers and are protested by the community. Use them at your own risk. ↩