What is rustcraft-public?

RustCraft is an experimental attempt to rebuild the Minecraft Java Edition 1.8.9 client from scratch, written in the Rust programming language instead of Java, with its own custom rendering engine built on Vulkan, a low-level graphics technology. It is still under active development, so the README is upfront that many features are experimental, incomplete, or likely to change. Importantly, this project does not run inside or reuse the original Minecraft client. The networking, rendering, game logic, and everything else are written independently in Rust, only speaking the same network protocol version that Minecraft 1.8.9 used so it can connect to matching servers. Listed features include rendering the game world and its blocks and entities, connecting to multiplayer servers, logging in with a Microsoft account, loading resource packs, a custom interface and audio system, and support for scripting and modding through the Lua language. It currently runs on Windows and Linux, with automated builds and a packaged Linux AppImage. Shader pack support is listed as still in progress. Because Minecraft's original game files, textures, and other assets are owned by Mojang and are not RustCraft's to redistribute, they are deliberately left out of this repository. To actually run RustCraft, you need your own legally purchased and installed copy of Minecraft Java Edition 1.8.9, from which you copy over the asset files the official launcher downloads, plus some resources found inside the official 1.8.9 game file itself. The README is explicit that these should only come from your own official installation, never from unofficial mirrors. Building it from source needs a recent Rust toolchain, the Cargo build tool, a Vulkan-compatible graphics card with current drivers, and the Vulkan development libraries or SDK installed, after which a single build command produces the runnable program.