An open-source, self-hostable voxel sandbox. Custom engine, custom client, custom server — nothing forked or ceiling-limited from an existing project.
Sovereignty first. You own your world, your identity, and the server it
runs on. Play solo, self-host with friends, or run a public server — the
game is fully playable, and fully fun, with no money involved at all. The
focus is building, exploring and owning what you make. See docs/vision/
for the full thinking behind that ordering.
| Home | axenstax.com |
| Play in your browser | play.axenstax.com |
| Download the desktop app | docs.axenstax.org/download |
| Player guide | wiki.axenstax.com |
| Learn | learn.axenstax.com |
| Specs and design docs | docs.axenstax.org |
| Project | axenstax.org |
| Privacy | axenstax.com/privacy |
The code for every site above lives in tools/sites/ (see "Building it yourself" below).
There are two ways to play:
- Web taster (
play.axenstax.com) — an anonymous, local, single-player sandbox that runs entirely in your browser (WASM + WebGPU, Chromium-based browsers for now). No sign-in, no account, no multiplayer, nothing saved or sent anywhere beyond your machine. It's a taste of the game, not the full platform. - Native — the full desktop build. Sign in with a self-sovereign Signet identity, run or join a self-hosted world, and keep your own keys. Nothing about the game requires money, and the platform never holds your keys.
Both come from the same engine and the same codebase — the web build is a restricted subset, not a separate product.
sudo apt install libudev-dev # required by gilrs (gamepad support)
# rfd's xdg-portal backend needs xdg-desktop-portal at runtime — standard on
# any desktop Linux, nothing extra to install.You'll also need a stable Rust toolchain (cargo) on the host — builds run
on the host, not in a container or VM.
cd game/engine && cargo build --releaseThe binary lands at build/release/axenstax-engine (relative to your
CARGO_TARGET_DIR, or game/engine/target/release/ if you didn't set one).
Six small FastAPI apps make up the web side (game, docs, marketing, wiki,
learn, project). Each has its own tools/sites/<name>/start.sh (first run
sets up its own venv), or bring them all up together:
tools/sites/start-all.sh # tools/sites/stop-all.sh to stopNative builds check for updates over a Nostr-based release channel (see
tools/release/). The signing key for that channel is kept manual and
local to the person cutting a release — it is never added as a GitHub
Actions secret, so a compromised workflow or a malicious PR can never
forge a release signature.
./check.sh # clippy (-D warnings), build, full test suite, WASM
# bundle build + size gate, every site's Python tests
./check.sh --smoke # + a Playwright smoke test against a running sitecheck.sh is the single regression gate. Run it locally before you open a PR;
the same script can be run on a hosted runner on demand (Actions -> Check -> Run
workflow), but it is not yet triggered automatically on pushes or PRs, so green
on your machine is the bar for a change being done.
The code in this repository is MIT-licensed — free to use, modify, self-host, and build on.
The AxeNStax name and logo are not covered by that licence. They're unregistered trademarks used to identify this specific project and the official builds/services published under it. You're welcome to fork, run, and modify the code — including for your own server or your own project — but please don't present a fork, a modified build, or an unrelated service as "AxeNStax," or reuse the name/logo in a way that could be mistaken for an official release.
The art Gallery is an optional external world pack (a .axeworld loaded
through the normal world import); its artwork is not in this repository and is
not MIT-licensed.
This project is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or associated with Mojang, Microsoft, or Minecraft. Any mention of Minecraft in this codebase or its docs is nominative reference (compatibility, comparison, or import tooling), not a claim of affiliation.
See CONTRIBUTING.md, including what we won't merge, and the Code of Conduct.
See SECURITY.md for how to report a vulnerability.