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Woodlanders-Launcher

💬 Status: Earliest Alpha Phase
🔁 Updates: Daily / Evening incremental builds
📥 Installer: Single download – auto-update enabled
🗺️ Story Mode: Not yet implemented
🧪 Your Role: Explorer, tester, trail maker

Woodlanders Launcher is a JavaFX desktop app for the Woodlanders game. It automatically checks for updates, downloads the latest client from GitHub releases, caches it locally, and launches the game with a single click.

Features

  • ✅ Automatic Updates — checks GitHub for the latest game version
  • ✅ Smart Caching — downloads and caches game files locally
  • ✅ Version Detection — compares local and remote versions with SHA-256
  • ✅ One-Click Launch — simple, intuitive interface to play
  • ✅ Cross-Platform — Windows, macOS (Apple Silicon), and Linux (Snap/Flatpak/TAR.GZ)

See docs/QUICK_START.md for more.

About the Game (Early Alpha)

You wake beneath a quiet pixel sky—no prophecy to follow, no quest log to obey—just wind over grass, rain that sometimes drifts in, birds crossing the horizon, and a compass that remembers where you began. This is Woodlanders in its earliest form: an open, living sandbox still knitting itself together night by night.

What Doesn’t Exist Yet

  • No scripted lore
  • No story campaign
  • No endgame arc

Instead: a procedural world, emerging systems, trees that fall and return, hunger that presses forward, bamboo that begins as a promise and grows if you give it time.

Every mechanic you touch is a foundation stone. Every small imperfection is an invitation.

How Builds Work

  • 🧩 Minimal installer: one download
  • 🔍 Auto-checks for new versions
  • 🌒 Evening + daily pushes: sometimes subtle tuning, sometimes new possibilities
  • 🧭 You’re ahead of the map — your feedback carves the path

What to Expect

Don’t Expect Do Expect
Polish Potential
Finished loops Change
Full narrative Emergence
Packed world Quiet moments

Moments where the world feels sparse—and others where sudden rain or a line of birds makes it feel briefly alive. That contrast is the frontier.

Your Impact

If you explore, plant, test, nudge the edges, and tell us what you felt—you help shape what comes next:

  • 🔨 Crafting
  • 🏗️ Building
  • 🌅 Day/Night cycle
  • 🐾 Creatures
  • 🔊 Sound & ambience
  • 📖 Future story arcs

Woodlanders isn’t finished — it’s becoming.

Join early. Wander freely. Grow it with us.

Tagline: Woodlanders — not a story yet, just the dawn before one.

🐦 Optional share: “I’m playing Woodlanders in its alpha dawn—no story yet, just systems waking up. Exploring while it learns to become a world.”

Quick Start

Get it from the Snap Store

Windows

  1. Download the latest launcher from Releases
  2. Extract the ZIP file
  3. Run woodlanders-setup-launcher.exe or right-click install.ps1 → Run with PowerShell
  4. Launch from desktop shortcut or Start Menu

The installer automatically downloads Java if needed.

macOS (Apple Silicon)

  1. Download the latest DMG from Releases
  2. Open the DMG file
  3. Drag Woodlanders Launcher to your Applications folder
  4. First Launch: Control+click (or right-click) the app → Open to bypass Gatekeeper
  5. Subsequent Launches: Double-click normally

System Requirements: macOS 11 (Big Sur) or later, Apple Silicon (M1/M2/M3/M4)

No additional Java installation required — JRE is bundled!

Ubuntu / Debian (Snap)

sudo snap install woodlanders-launcher

Available in the Snap Store.

Linux (Flatpak)

  1. Download the latest Flatpak from Releases
  2. Install: 
    flatpak install --user woodlanders-launcher.flatpak
  3. Run: 
    flatpak run io.github.gcclinux.woodlanders.launcher

No additional Java installation required — JRE is bundled!

Windows Uninstall

  • Preferred: Double‑click woodlanders-uninstall.exe (included in the installer ZIP)
  • Alternative: Right‑click uninstall.ps1 → Run with PowerShell
  • Manual cleanup (fallback): 
    Remove-Item "$env:LOCALAPPDATA\Woodlanders" -Recurse -Force -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue
Remove-Item "$env:USERPROFILE\Desktop\Woodlanders Launcher.lnk" -Force -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue
Remove-Item "$env:APPDATA\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\Woodlanders" -Recurse -Force -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue
Remove-Item "$env:USERPROFILE\.cache\woodlanders-javafx" -Recurse -Force -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue
Write-Host "Clean uninstall complete" -ForegroundColor Green

The installer will automatically download Java if you don't have it installed.

Windows (Manual — Java Required)

  1. Download: Manual ZIP from the latest release
  2. Require: Java 21+ from adoptium.net
  3. Extract and double-click launcher.bat

Linux (TAR.GZ — Manual)

# Install Java if not already installed
sudo apt install openjdk-21-jre  # Debian/Ubuntu
# or
sudo dnf install java-21-openjdk  # Fedora

# Extract and run
tar -xzf woodlanders-launcher-linux-0.1.2.tar.gz
cd woodlanders-launcher-linux-0.1.2
chmod +x launcher.sh
./launcher.sh

System Requirements

Windows

  • OS: Windows 10 or later
  • Java: Not required (installer auto-downloads Java 21)
  • Disk Space: ~200 MB (including Java runtime)

macOS

  • OS: macOS 11 (Big Sur) or later
  • Architecture: Apple Silicon (M1, M2, M3, M4)
  • Java: Not required (bundled in app)
  • Disk Space: ~250 MB (including Java runtime)

Linux

  • OS: Any modern Linux distribution
  • Java: JRE 21+ (not needed for Snap package)
  • Disk Space: ~200 MB

How It Works

  1. Launch the launcher application
  2. Launcher checks GitHub for the latest Woodlanders client release
  3. If a new version is available, it's automatically downloaded
  4. Click "Launch Game" to start playing
  5. Game files are cached locally for faster subsequent launches

Building from Source

See docs/BUILD_GUIDE.md for detailed build instructions.

# Build all distribution packages
gradle :app:buildAllPackages

# Run locally for testing
gradle run

Configuration

Game files and cache are stored in:

  • Windows: %USERPROFILE%\.config\woodlanders\
  • macOS: ~/Library/Application Support/Woodlanders/
  • Linux: ~/.config/woodlanders/
  • JavaFX Cache (Windows/Linux): ~/.cache/woodlanders-javafx/
  • JavaFX Cache (macOS): ~/Library/Caches/woodlanders-javafx/

Troubleshooting

Windows: "Java is not recognized"

  • The installer package automatically handles Java installation
  • For manual installation, download Java from adoptium.net

macOS: "App can't be opened because it is from an unidentified developer"

  • Control+click (or right-click) the app and select Open
  • Click Open in the security dialog
  • This only needs to be done once on first launch

macOS: App won't start

  • Verify you're running macOS 11 (Big Sur) or later
  • Ensure you have an Apple Silicon Mac (M1/M2/M3/M4)
  • Check Activity Monitor to see if the process is running
  • Try removing the app and reinstalling from the DMG

Linux: Application won't start

  • Ensure Java 21+ is installed: java -version
  • For Snap: Check permissions with snap connections woodlanders-launcher

Game won't download

  • Check your internet connection
  • Verify GitHub is accessible
  • Check logs in the application console

Contributing

Contributions are welcome! Please read the build guide and submit pull requests.

License

See LICENSE file for details.

Links

About

Woodlanders Launcher is the launcher for an ambitious experiment in AI-assisted game development - a fully functional multiplayer 2D adventure game built entirely through conversational AI within the Kiro IDE.

gcclinux.github.io/woodlanders/

Topics

game game-development java-game 2d-game java-game-development game-launch

Resources

Readme

License

MIT license
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Releases 3

v0.1.2-alpha Latest
Dec 4, 2025
+ 2 releases

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