iNilla is an iOS build of benilla, made to be sideloaded with SideStore (or AltStore / LiveContainer), with everything a phone needs around the unchanged game:
- Touch controls that cost no screen space until a thumb lands — a floating movement stick, jump with a ring of action slots around it (with real icons and cooldowns), switchable views (Combat / Explore / Social / Minimal), a radial menu for every window, drag-to-look, pinch-zoom, and the stock interface usable by finger (tap = click, long press = right click, drag = move items, two fingers = scroll). A layout editor moves, resizes, rebinds and hides every element.
- Controllers — Backbone One, Xbox, DualSense, any MFi pad — in WoW Forever's layout: sticks move and look, LB/RB cycle targets, the triggers switch the face buttons and d-pad between four layers (32 bindings), a radial menu, a virtual cursor that opens by itself with loot, vendor and quest windows. Fully remappable.
- A launcher: server profiles (LAN or internet, with a realm-address override for NAT), accounts with passwords in the iOS Keychain, one-tap login and account switching, auto-login.
- Game data, once: copy your own
Datafolder in with Finder / the Files app, or download it directly from a server with HTTP data hosting (resumable, SHA-256 verified). The companion iNilla server is an optional helper repository (basically standard vmangos bundled with a game-data HTTP endpoint) to easily get a server with data hosting running in Docker. The app contains no Blizzard files. - A fast debug loop without a Mac: a remote console in any browser on the same Wi-Fi (live log, Lua, commands, screenshots, config files), session logs and crash reports in the Files app, and a desktop build that rehearses the touch HUD and controller.
- Download the
.ipa: Grab the latest release package (iNilla-*.ipa) from Releases. - Sideload (iOS 17.0+):
- SideStore / AltStore: In SideStore/AltStore on your phone, go to My Apps → ＋ and select the
.ipa. It will be signed with your Apple ID. - LiveContainer: You can also run iNilla directly as a LiveContainer guest without consuming an app ID slot.
- SideStore / AltStore: In SideStore/AltStore on your phone, go to My Apps → ＋ and select the
- Game Data (One-Time Setup):
- On first launch, the app prompts for the 1.12.1 game files (the app contains no Blizzard files).
- Easiest: Download them over Wi-Fi from your iNilla server (automated, resumable, and SHA-256 verified).
- Alternative: Copy your existing
Datafolder directly into the app using Finder or the iOS Files app (see docs/DATA.md).
Everything is built on Linux except the final link, which is a few minutes on a macOS runner — see docs/IOS-BUILD.md.
| read | for |
|---|---|
| docs/INILLA.md | what iNilla is made of, the controls, the settings |
| docs/IOS-BUILD.md | building and installing the .ipa (SideStore, LiveContainer), CI and its minutes |
| docs/DATA.md | getting the game data onto the phone; the data host |
| docs/DEBUGGING.md | the remote console, logs, crash reports, the desktop rehearsal |
| docs/UPSTREAM.md | syncing benilla, and every upstream file iNilla touches |
Servers: any 1.12.1 core benilla supports — vmangos (what benilla develops against) and cMaNGOS — with Warden disabled (benilla does not implement it). (Tip: use iNilla server if you want a ready-to-run vmangos instance that already serves game data to the app). Clients: English (enUS) 1.12.1, build 5875. iNilla is an independent fan project, not affiliated with or endorsed by Blizzard Entertainment.
Everything below is upstream benilla's README, unchanged.
benilla plays the whole game: character creation, questing and professions, dungeons and raids, battlegrounds and honor, groups, guilds, trade, mail and the auction house, on the stock 1.12 interface and with your addons. It connects to a 1.12.1 server over the original protocol and reads the game's data from your own 1.12.1 install. Every file format, the network protocol and the interface engine are written from scratch, with no original client code, no third-party WoW crates and no bundled game assets.
- Formats: readers for the whole asset stack (the MPQ patch chain, BLP, DBC, ADT, WDT, WDL, M2 and WMO), wired into Bevy as an asset source.
- World: terrain streamed out to the horizon, portal-culled buildings with interior lighting, doodads and ground clutter, swimmable water, sky and weather, and the client's own day/night lighting, fog and gamma.
- Models: GPU-skinned M2s with the full animation controller, particles, ribbons and the spell visuals, and characters end to end: customization, the armor composite, weapons with their enchant glows, forms, stealth and mounts.
- Movement: networked movement in both directions, the server-granted modes from slow fall to roots, a follow camera with collision, boats, zeppelins and taxi flights.
- Networking: SRP6 auth through world-session crypto and the object mirror into the ECS, covering the game from movement and chat through combat, spells, groups and raids, quests, trade, mail, the auction house and battlegrounds.
- Interface: a FrameXML and Lua engine that runs the stock 1.12 interface off your install's patch chain, and third-party 1.12 addons: Questie, pfUI, Bagnon, Bartender2 and most others run. By choice, the options window and the ESC menu follow the Classic Era client's rather than 1.12's.
- Audio: music, ambience and effects under the client's own selection and crossfade rules, with interior and underwater transitions and zone reverb.
The format readers and the UI engine core are plain Rust with no Bevy in them, and the world
renderer runs with no game attached. docs/MAP.md maps every crate and subsystem,
generated from the code.
Complete and fully playable. What is left:
- The long tail of small features that separates a working client from a finished one, tracked as issues.
- Addons, options and performance, ongoing.
benilla is a faithful 1.12.1 client and the foundation people build on. There are no prebuilt downloads: a packaged build, a particular server's changes or anything 1.12.1 never had belongs in a fork, and forks are welcome. GitHub lists every public fork.
Not planned: other expansions or client versions, Warden (anticheat).
benilla builds and runs on macOS, Linux and Windows. You need:
- An English 1.12.1 client (build 5875) for the game data. benilla only reads it.
- A 1.12.1 server with Warden off. vmangos is what development runs against, and it ships with Warden off; cMaNGOS and the other 1.12.1 cores speak the same protocol.
- Stable Rust and a C compiler, because the client's Lua is built from source: on macOS the Xcode command line tools, on Linux the ALSA and udev development packages and pkg-config, on Windows the MSVC build tools that the Rust installer sets up.
WOW_DATA=/path/to/WoW/Data cargo run --release -p benillaOn Windows, in PowerShell:
$env:WOW_DATA="C:\path\to\WoW\Data"; cargo run --release -p benillaEach release is a tag on the Releases page:
git checkout <tag> first runs that release, and main is the development tip.
WOW_DATA names the install's Data folder; a link to the install named WoW at the repo root
does the same (ln -s /path/to/WoW WoW, or on Windows a junction, which needs no admin rights:
New-Item -ItemType Junction -Path WoW -Target C:\path\to\WoW). The server defaults to
localhost:3724, the stock auth port. Point WOW_HOST at another (WOW_HOST=play.example.com, or
play.example.com:5000 for a remapped port), or set it from the Realmlist button on the login
screen, which remembers it. Credentials go in at the login screen, or set WOW_USER and WOW_PASS
to skip it.
Settings, screenshots and addons live in benilla-config/ at the repo root: a 1.12 addon goes in
benilla-config/AddOns/. docs/CONTRIBUTING.md has the rest, from the
player build to the tests.
Issues and pull requests are open. docs/CONTRIBUTING.md says where to
start, what gets in, how a change is judged and what happens to a pull request once it is open.
Bugs, questions and ideas are welcome on the Discord too.
Early inspiration and file format guidance came from the wowemulation-dev community, and warcraft-rs in particular.
benilla is an independent fan project, not affiliated with or endorsed by Blizzard Entertainment.
It ships no Blizzard content: no art, models, sounds, maps, MPQ contents or FrameXML. You
provide your own legally obtained 1.12.1 client, and the stock interface runs off its FrameXML at
runtime. The few files under crates/benilla-app/assets/ui/ are our own, not copies of it:
adapters over stock files, and the settings windows and script error log benilla draws itself.
World of Warcraft is a trademark of Blizzard Entertainment, Inc. Our own code is licensed under
MIT or Apache 2.0, at your option. The two vendored components
under third_party/, the kira audio engine and a Lua 5.1 patched to the 1.12 client's dialect,
keep their own upstream licenses, alongside each.