I’ve been looking at our current launcher, and while it serves its function well, I believe it’s time for a visual and functional overhaul. As we move further into development (and look toward 2026), the launcher is often the first impression a new player gets of the game. Currently, it feels a bit dated compared to modern standards.
I’ve put together a critique of the current design and a proposal for a cleaner, more social-integrated version.
Why the current launcher feels “Old” (The Pain Points):
Text Overload: The current interface relies heavily on dense blocks of text for both News and Dev Forums. There is very little visual breathing room, making it hard to scan for important updates quickly.
Rigid Layout: The split-pane design with high-contrast borders feels reminiscent of older Windows Forms applications rather than a modern game client.
Buried Navigation: The “Play” button is fighting for attention with the text, rather than being the clear “Hero” element of the UI.
Lack of Community Integration: In 2025, gaming is social. Our current launcher hides community links behind a generic “Links” button, rather than showcasing our active platforms.
What to Improve (The Proposal):
Visual-First News Feed: Instead of full text paragraphs, we should switch to a “Card” system for news. Use a thumbnail image + a headline + a short snippet. This makes the launcher look less like a document and more like a hub.
Clearer Call-to-Action (CTA): The PLAY button needs to be larger, distinct, and centrally or prominently placed. It should be the anchor of the design.
Dedicated Social Media Bar: We need to surface our community channels immediately. I propose adding a dedicated row of icons (Discord, Reddit, YouTube, X/Twitter, Steam) directly on the main dashboard. This encourages new players to join the conversation immediately.
Modern Aesthetics:
Rounded Corners & Soft Transparency: Move away from the harsh, solid cyan borders.
Background Integration: Use the game’s beautiful space aesthetic as a full, immersive background rather than compartmentalizing it behind boxes.
I have been experimenting with some mockups that implement these changes to make the launcher look cleaner and more inviting.
I’d love to hear everyone’s thoughts on prioritizing a launcher refresh!
Yes it is a AI since graphic designing would make me spend lot of time. But this is what I exactly mean by Modernizing the launcher. It’s just a concept art, but I really would like to see what could graphic designers could produce as a prototype.
Any graphics designer on the team is free to take up redesigning things if they want, but our ability to set priorities in this area is limited, since we’re dealing with exclusively volunteer time here.
I think improving the visuals of the launcher would be alright if anyone wants to design it. But the programming resources for actually implementing the change is very limited, because despite my best efforts I think we’ve had a grand total of 1 or 2 contributions to the launcher (whereas Thrive itself sees that many per week).
I think there’s not enough space for community icons, because the launcher window tries to be compact and putting more stuff in it will just steal the little breathing room there is on the bottom row.
Back in the day when the launcher used Electron it displayed images in the news feed. I’ve opened an issue about re-adding that:
If any programmer wants to help out with that.
I think it is quite clearly placed. Without a big overhaul I think about the only thing that could be done is taking focus away from the version selector but I don’t really want to do that as in the past we’ve had issues with players playing an old version without realizing. So the version number selector also needs to have very prominent focus.
I think this has quite a big problem: you’ve removed the DevCenter connection button which is actually a disguised link to getting our Patreon! Because you can only link the devcenter if you are our patron or a developer. So I think that part needs to be kept very visible and not sacrificed for a socials bar.
Also while some elements do make it look more modern here, I also quite distinctively get a 2000s flash game vibe from the play button and the way the feed header bars look.
So if we are going to rework the launcher look, I think we need to do a few more iterations of the design.
But also we need to consider the implementation feasibility of the design because for example that rounded play button is going to be super hard to make with Avalonia or at least my current skill level doesn’t immediately tell me how I could achieve that rounded button placed like that next to the version selector.
