Changelog

This page contains the changelog for Principia.

For versions prior to the source code release, please see Old Changelog.

2026.07.15

News article - Release

• Fix new Imgui-based play menu popup not showing up
• Revert to using X11 (using XWayland if on Wayland), fixes crashes on GNOME
• Use Imgui for the "New level" dialog on desktop
• Adjust font size in Imgui dialogs (should be more in line with the medium font size in the rest of the UI)
• Fix plastic polygon being editable while playing a level
• Fix crash in Imgui code when hiding the GUI
• Make sandbox menu appear when ESC key is pressed rather than released
• Remove redundant tooltip for timer objects

2026.07.09

News article - Release

• Update the game to use SDL3!
  • Mostly a technical change, though some things may work slightly better than before.
  • When building from source, you can use USE_VENDORED_SDL3 to download and build SDL3, if you're e.g. on a Linux distro that doesn't have it in their package manager yet.
• Improvements for playing the game with a touchscreen on non-Android platforms (e.g. mobile Linux)
• Adjust the UI scale automatically based on the display density (previously only on Android)
• Allow switching the game to use OpenGL ES based on use_gles setting (most useful on Linux platforms without OpenGL available)
• Use Dear Imgui for the following dialogs on desktop:
  • Sandbox (hamburger) menu popup
  • Sandbox mode selection menu
  • Quickadd menu
  • Game (hamburger) menu popup
• Improve the package level selection menu
• Fix some more issues that occur when the window is resized (but it's still not perfect)
• Remove Luasocket library
• Windows: New redesigned installer!
• Windows: Replace play_community_level.bat in portable release with new register-protocol-handler.exe program
• Android: Fix level solutions for built-in puzzle package

2026.06.19

News article - Release

• Fix community site connectivity issues on some platforms

2026.06.06

News article - Release

• New directory structure for user data
• Location of user data has been moved on some platforms:
  • Windows: Now in %APPDATA%\Principia instead of C:\Users\<User>\Principia
  • Linux: Now in ~/.local/share/principia (or $XDG_DATA_HOME) instead of ~/.principia
• Fix the Gearbox object to no longer crash (see this level)
• Set SDL_HINT_APP_NAME (used for e.g. Pipewire)
• Fix username being shown in the topleft even if you are not actually logged in
• Fix suction cup model being flipped
• Fix scaling of large ore blocks
• Improve the appearance of world borders
• Switch to latest appimagetool for Linux AppImage builds
• Android:
  • Enable LuaSocket library on Android
  • Fix navigation bar obscuring the game on Android 15
  • Fix crash when pressing F11 key on Android
  • Make links outside of the community site be opened in external browser
• Desktop:
  • Add button to LuaScript dialog to open external script folder for convenience
  • Fix game running slowly after logging in on desktop
  • Fix game changing size during load on Windows with a HiDPI display
  • Make Windows installer HiDPI aware
• Technical:
  • Switch from GLEW to GLAD (Principia no longer depends on GLEW)
  • Web version is now pretty usable (but still experimental)

2025.04.05

News article - Release

• Reintroduce puzzles as a level type that can be created in the sandbox!
• The Level Manager object now works again!
• Rework the play menu in the main menu
• Optimise initial model loading on Android
• Move some unimportant files that the game saves into a new cache location
• Increase maximum Max value of Condenser to 32
• Increase maximum Weight multiplier to 2.5
• Increase chunk render limit (means less likelihood of seeing chunk gaps)
• Hopefully make GTK dialogs less likely to appear under the main window
• Make window no longer resizable by default (can be enabled again in settings)
• Bugfixes:
  • Fix RC widget screen breaking on resize
  • Fix various other GUI elements not adjusting to window resize
  • Fix crash when reloading graphics with rubber objects in a level
  • Fix crash when deleting a selected cable object
  • Fix crash when destroying a dead robot's bomb
  • Fix textured pixel not copying properties when using copying command
  • Fix not being able to open older levels in the sandbox
  • Fix Sqrt gate outputting NaN from out-of-bounds values
  • Fix Linear decay output value not being clamped
  • Fix a lot of other signaling objects lacking proper clamping
  • Fix plastic density being incorrectly applied on Android
• Technical:
  • Switch to Clang for Windows and Linux builds (fixes some graphical glitches, otherwise should be unnoticeable)
  • Merge data folders into one
  • Distinguish builds by Git commit rather than build time
  • Source tree cleanups, some things have moved or been renamed when building from source
  • Improvements for the experimental web port
  • Update dependency library versions

2024.07.12

News article - Release

• Fix VSync being disabled on Android (oh no)
• Fix not being able to play levels from the browser on Android
• Fix GLEW crashing the game when running the game with SDL2's Wayland video driver
• Fix orphaned prompts crashing the game when trying to close them
• Fix building Principia on Alpine-based Linux distributions

2024.06.28

News article - Release

• Merge sound data directories across platforms (makes sounds stereo on Android and fixes some missing sound files)
• Fix crash when attempting to save the state of a level with a LuaScript in it
• Revert to old colour picker on desktop (makes it easier to select Pixel alpha)
• Allow changing the community site domain at runtime
• Fix issue when playing from different community hosts during same gameplay session
• Fix some (not all) issues when window is resized
• Fix building with GCC 14
• Various code cleanups
• Lua:
  • Add entity:set_fixed_rotation
  • Add entity:is_fixed_rotation
  • Add entity:apply_force
• Desktop:
  • Allow storing user data portably on all desktop platforms (not just Windows)
  • Show an error message when a segfault crash happens
  • Allow toggling fullscreen with F11
• Windows:
  • Fix installer installing duplicate data-shared folder
  • Fix segfault on very old unsupported OpenGL versions (it gives a more friendly error instead)
• Linux:
  • Don't use Debian's broken SDL2 library for AppImage
  • Allow enabling OpenGL ES at compiletime (USE_GLES)
• Android:
  • Update SDL2 to latest 2.30.3
  • Switch to CMake
  • Fix crash when opening puzzle levels
  • Drop support for Android KitKat (5.0 Lollipop is now minimum)
• macOS:
  • Experimental port to macOS now available

2024.02.29

News article - Release

• Give the Full health command pad a unique texture
• Revamp networking protocol
• Higher quality sandbox menu icons
• Misc. code cleanups and unused code removal
• Android:
  • Now available on F-Droid!
  • Fix x86_64 builds crashing
  • An x86_64 native library is now also provided
• Linux:
  • AppImage builds
  • Fix touchscreen input to work like on Windows (hopefully?)
  • Fix Quickadd dialog messing up on some DEs
• Haiku:
  • Initial port merged and is available to compile in the source tree

2023.12.26 (1.5.2 Beta 2023-12-26)

News article

• Sticky note limit has been raised to 32
• Limit of fluid particles has been increased
• Less risk of the game crashing when changing strength of connections
• Switch to CMake for the build system
• Lua:
  • string and table classes are enabled by default, alongside listening on input
  • bit32 is now available
  • Fix error(nil) crashing the game
  • Block unsafe Lua functions
  • Add entity:is_hidden
  • Add world:set_gravity
  • Add entity:set_angle
• Desktop:
  • Upgrade to GTK3
• Windows:
  • Builds are now linked against UCRT
  • Add portable build (saves user data next to executable, a helper script for running community levels is provided)

2023.03.10 (1.5.2 Beta 2023-03-10)

News article

• Add ability to toggle GUI with F2
• Use in-game ui::message instead of system toasts on Android (fixes failing game:message)
• Fix various bugs and freezes on Windows (Ball pipeline not working, Level chunk freeze...)
• Add ability to toggle object lock on N
• Removed object and item help texts, it will now open the Wiki instead

2022.12.31 (1.5.2 Beta 2022-12-31)

News article

• First open source release!
  • Removed DEMO mode, LITE mode and license verification, now completely free and open source.
• New default community site! (principia-web)
  • Communicates with the community site over HTTPS now
  • The game can now play levels from any domain (e.g. the official community site archive)
• Linux support!
• Previously unused objects now available in the sandbox menu (Angular Damper, Gear, Magnet, Electromagnet and Separator)
  • These objects are partially unfinished and may have bugs or cause crashes. Be careful with them.
• Separator colour can now be configured through config menu
• Items no longer need to be unlocked through the adventure mode
• Object and item help text updates
• 64-bit builds available
• Desktop:
  • Window can now be resized
• Windows:
  • Installer improvements
• Android:
  • Dialog UI update (Holo -> Material)
  • Removed Facebook analytics (yuck)
  • App data now stored in scoped app storage (new API/Google Play requirement)
  • Fixed SFX Emitter dialog