Host-authoritative
The world lives on one person's PC. If they're offline, nobody plays.
open sourceAGPL-3.0free
Keep the world
alive.
embersave is an open-source launcher that keeps one shared survival world moving between players, so nobody has to wait for the host to come online.
Your PC becomes the server when it's your turn, and hands the world on when you're done. One shared save, passed around a friend group — no rented box, no 24/7 machine, no waiting on one person.
in development — Working today on Palworld. Not ready to install yet — no public build.
The problem
Co-op survival games come in two shapes, and both are annoying.
Dedicated-server-only
The world needs a machine up 24/7. Someone pays for it and administers it.
So four friends rent a $12/month server, play hard for three weeks, drift apart, and cancel by month two. Everyone has done this.
Hosting should be a role you take, not a machine you own. embersave is that layer, for the games that don't have it.
How it works
Pass the save, not the problem.
One person holds the world at a time. Everything else exists to make handing it over safe.
- 01
Open the launcher
It shows the world: who hosted last, when it synced, and whether anyone is in it right now.
- 02
Claim the world
If nobody is hosting, take it. Only one person can hold it at a time, so two of you clicking at once can never split the world in two.
- 03
Your PC becomes the server
It pulls the newest save, verifies it, and starts the game server locally. Friends join in one click.
- 04
Checkpoints as you play
The world is snapshotted in the background. Older versions stay restorable.
- 05
Pass it on
Quit, and it uploads a final snapshot and releases the world. Someone else hosts tomorrow, from their house.
Your saves
They live in your own Google Drive. Not ours.
The saves sit in an ordinary Drive folder you can open, copy, or walk away with. Adding a friend to the world is just sharing that folder with them — there are no accounts to manage and no invite system to learn.
Save archives
You own them. Sharing the folder is what adds a friend to the world.
Who's hosting right now
A few kilobytes saying whose turn it is. It never holds your save.
The game server
That is where the hardware already is.
The only thing stored anywhere else is a few kilobytes noting whose turn it is. No save data ever touches it — which is why it's free to run, and why nothing of yours is lost if it goes down. You can also run the whole thing yourself if you'd rather not rely on us at all.
What it isn't
A step up from taking turns. Still below a dedicated server.
If you run a public community server, keep renting one. If you and three friends just want your world to still be there next Tuesday, this is for you.
| Why people rent a server | Does this replace it? |
|---|---|
| Nobody has to be online for the world to persist | YesThe whole point. |
| Simple setup | YesOne app. No VPS, no port forwarding tutorial. |
| World joinable 24/7 | NoSomeone has to be hosting to play. |
| Dedicated hardware | NoThough a gaming PC beats a budget VPS for four players. |
| Public servers, 30 strangers | NoBy design. This is a friends system. |
Games
Palworld first. More to come.
Nothing about embersave is specific to one game — each is a thin layer on top of the same core, so new ones don't mean starting over.
Palworld
workingTested end to end — two people alternating as host on one world.
Your game
openAdding a game is a small amount of glue, not a rewrite. Tell us which one you play.
Want your game supported?
Tell us which one you and your friends play. The thing that decides whether a game can work is simple: does your character still exist when someone else hosts? If you already know the answer for your game, that alone is a real contribution.
Request a game →Free. No tiers, no accounts to upgrade.
The only thing we run for you is a few kilobytes per world, so it costs us essentially nothing and it's free to you. If it saves you a server rental, throw a coffee at it. If it doesn't, don't.
Licensed AGPL-3.0. Run it, modify it, self-host it. If you run a modified version as a network service, publish your changes — the intent is narrow: keep a server-rental company from absorbing this and reselling it closed.
Working today on Palworld. Not ready to install yet — no public build.