⚡ Open Source · Decentralized · Real-Time

The Internet's
Graphical Chat Platform
Reborn. Free & Open

A decentralized real-time chat universe with pixel art rooms, custom avatars, live webcams, spatial voice chat, and deep scripting in Lua, Python & IptScrae. Run your own server in 30 seconds.

⬇ Download Server ▶ Try Live Demo
Cowboy in a rocking chair Green snake Person sitting cross-legged Tree frog Surprised cartoon avatar Beware the wizztes sign Bowling pin character

Custom pixel avatars. Your identity, your pixels.

1995 THE PALACE

The Last Time Anything This Revolutionary Happened

In 1995, The Palace blew open the doors of what the internet could be: a living, graphical world where strangers shared pixel-art rooms, wore custom avatars, and scripted their own reality with IptScrae. Millions logged on. It was magic. Then it slowly faded.

Talx picks up exactly where it left off, rebuilt from the ground up in open-source Go, with every original protocol wire-for-wire compatible, every Palace client from 1997 still works, and a whole new generation of features The Palace never imagined: federated servers, WebRTC voice, Lua & Python scripting, webcam presence, and a browser-native client that needs zero installation. The revolution is back. And this time it's yours.

What You Get

Everything a Virtual World Needs

Not a chat app. Not a video call. A world with rooms you can paint, avatars you can wear, and scripts that make it breathe.

🎨

Pixel Art Room Editor

Paint directly on room backgrounds in real time. Every brushstroke is broadcast instantly to everyone in the room. Collaborative pixel art at 60 fps, with no plugins and no installs.

Live Drawing
🪄

Custom Pixel Avatars

Upload or draw multi-frame pixel art avatars, called props, that you wear as your in-world identity. Full Palace prop format compatible; all your old .prp files just work.

Palace-Compatible
📷

Live Webcam Presence

Show your real face alongside your avatar. Webcam thumbnails float over your character's head, making crowded rooms feel genuinely alive. WebRTC-powered, low-latency, optional.

WebRTC
🎙️

Spatial Voice Chat

Full WebRTC voice built into every room. Volume fades with distance from other users. Walk closer to hear someone, step back for privacy. UDP ports 40000–40031 for crystal-clear RTP audio.

Low Latency
💬

Rich Chat & Whispers

Public talk, private whispers, encrypted messages, room-broadcast, god-mode announcements, page messages, and a full wizard/moderation command system. Classic Palace chat with modern polish.

60+ Message Types
🚪

Hotspots & Doors

Rooms are connected through scriptable hotspots and doors. Click a painting on the wall, walk through a portal, or teleport across federated servers. The spatial metaphor runs deep.

Spatial Nav
🌐

Browser-Native Client

No download, no Java plugin, no ActiveX. The Talx client loads in your browser over a standard HTTPS connection. Mobile-friendly, cross-platform, zero friction to get started.

Zero Install
🔧

Wizard & God Tools

Full administrative hierarchy: owners (god), wizards, and guests. Granular permission bitmasks control painting, custom props, member rooms, auto-kick, death-penalty: all from within the world.

Full Moderation
Programmable Everything

Three Languages. Infinite Possibilities.

Script the client. Script the server. The Palace gave the world IptScrae in 1995. We kept it, and added Lua and Python so you never hit a wall.

IptScrae
Lua Plugin
Python
IptScrae
-- Classic Palace IptScrae room script
-- Runs in the browser, triggered by events

ON ENTER {
  "Welcome to the Pixel Lounge!" SAY
  roomBG SETBACKGROUND
}

ON HOTSPOT CLICK {
  USERID GETUSERNAME → name
  name " just touched the orb!" CAT SAY
  42 GOTOROOM
}

Script Anything, Anywhere

Three complementary scripting layers give you complete control over every pixel of your world.

  • ⚡
    IptScrae. The original Palace scripting language, now running in-browser via a JavaScript VM. All your classic scripts still work.
  • 🌙
    Lua Server Plugins. Hot-reloadable gopher-lua VMs sandboxed per plugin. Subscribe to events, register chat commands, set timers, and rewrite messages, with full s-pluginapi.h parity.
  • 🐍
    Python (Pyodide). Write client-side scripts in Python, running entirely in the browser via WebAssembly. No server changes required. Full Python stdlib available.
Decentralized Network

A Network of Worlds,
Not a Single Silo

Any server can federate with any other. Avatars, identities, and chat history travel with you across the network. No single company owns the grid. You do.

🏰
talx.fyi
Main hub · 24/7 live
🌍
YOUR SERVER
Self-host in minutes
🔗
FEDERATED
Identities travel the net
⚖️
WEIGHTED ELECTION
Distributed master election
🛡️
NO LOCK-IN
Open protocol, MIT license
📡
REDIS FANOUT
Sub-millisecond delivery
Under the Hood

Production-Grade Stack

Built with boring, proven technology. Ships as a single static binary. Runs on a $5 VPS. Scales to thousands of concurrent users.

Go (server binary)
Redis (pub/sub fanout)
nginx (reverse proxy)
JavaScript (browser client)
Python/Pyodide (WASM scripting)
Lua / gopher-lua (server plugins)
WebRTC (voice + webcam)
Docker Compose (one-cmd deploy)
systemd (production service)
IptScrae VM (legacy scripts)
C ABI Plugin SDK (native plugins)
Let's Encrypt (auto-TLS)
Self-Hosting

Your Server. Your Rules.
30-Second Setup.

One binary. No database required out of the box. Drop it on any Linux VPS and you're running a Palace server.

Quick Start: Linux amd64
$ curl -LO https://sdist.thepalace.app/linux/latest-linux-amd64.tar.gz
% Total ... 100 12.3M 0:00:01
$ tar xzf latest-linux-amd64.tar.gz
$ ./start.sh
✓ Talx server listening on :9998
✓ Connect any Palace client to palace://localhost:9998

# Or the full Docker Compose stack (nginx + Redis included):
$ git clone https://github.com/palacespace/palacespace
$ cd palacespace && docker compose up -d
✓ Open http://localhost:8080 in your browser ▌
🐧

Linux

amd64 · arm64 · i386
Native plugin support (dlopen)

🍎

macOS

Apple Silicon (arm64)
Native plugin support

🪟

Windows

amd64 zip archive
Runs as service or standalone

🐡

FreeBSD

amd64
Runs fine without plugin CGO

Ready to Build Your World?

Download the server, open the browser client at talx.fyi, or fork the source and make it yours. MIT licensed. Forever free.

⬇ Download Talx ⭐ Star on GitHub ▶ Enter the World