Licence

The Golden Lanthorn

The Golden Lanthorn is licensed to you under this End-User Licence Agreement. The same text is in the app, under About.

End-User Licence Agreement

Version 2, 2026-10-10

This agreement is between you and Marcus Kellerman (“we”, “us”), who wrote and owns The Golden Lanthorn (the “App”). It covers the App however you run it, on macOS, Windows or Linux, or as a Docker image, including the free demo editions and updates we give you. A copy of it comes with the App. By installing or using the App you accept these terms. If you don't accept them, don't install or use it.

The App is licensed to you, not sold. We keep all rights we don't expressly give you here.

1. What you may do

The paid app. If you bought the App, or were given a copy that someone bought for you, you may install and use it for your own personal, non-commercial use on any computers you own or control.

Your other devices. You may use the App's “Let other devices on my network play” feature so that your own phones, tablets and computers, and those of the people in your household, can play through it on your home network.

The Docker image. If you bought the App, you may also run its Docker image on a server or NAS you own or control, for the personal, non-commercial use of you and the people in your household.

Anything else needs permission. Use by a club, school, classroom, library, business or any public or hosted service needs our written permission first. Email us.

The free demo editions. You may install and use a demo edition (such as the Zork I demo) for free, for personal use, and pass on the unmodified download you got from us, free of charge.

Streaming and videos. You may stream, record and share videos of yourself playing with the App, including on channels that earn money. The games you show belong to their own owners, whose terms still apply.

2. What you may not do

Except as this agreement or the law allows, you may not:

copy, share, sell, rent, lend or redistribute the paid App, or give anyone else a copy or a way to download it;
reverse engineer, decompile or disassemble the App, except where the law gives you a right to do so that can't be taken away;
remove or change copyright, licence or attribution notices;
get round the checks that tie a demo edition to its bundled game;
use the App to break the law or anyone else's rights.

3. Games you play

The full App comes with no games. You choose the game files you play, download or add, and you are responsible for having the right to use them. Many games are free to download; others, such as most of Infocom's, are still sold by their owners. We don't own and aren't responsible for any game you play with the App.

A demo edition includes one game, which stays under its own licence. The Zork I demo includes Zork I, built from source code Microsoft released under the MIT licence; that licence is shown in the App under About → Open-source licences.

4. Open-source components

The App is built on Lanthorn, a free, open-source interactive-fiction TUI by the same author, under the BSD-3-Clause licence, and it includes other open-source components. Those components are licensed to you under their own licences, not this agreement, and nothing here limits the rights those licences give you. The full notices and licence texts are in the App under About → Open-source licences. Where a component's licence (such as the Mozilla Public License 2.0) asks for it, the licences page links to where its source code can be had.

5. Your data and online lookups

The App runs on your computer. Your games, saves and settings stay there. It connects to the internet only when you ask it to: for example to search IFDB (the Interactive Fiction Database), fetch a game's details, cover or documents, or download a game or a file from IFDB or the IF Archive. Those sites have their own terms. See our privacy page.

6. Updates

We may offer updates, which you download the same way you got the App. The App doesn't update itself. This agreement covers updates unless one comes with new terms. We don't promise to keep making updates or to keep supporting any version.

7. No warranty

The App is provided “as is”, without any warranty, express or implied, including that it is fit for a particular purpose, free of errors, or will play every game correctly. Back up the saves you care about. Some places don't allow warranties to be excluded; there, this section applies only as far as the law allows.

8. Limit of liability

As far as the law allows, we are not liable for any indirect, incidental, special or consequential loss, or for lost data, saves or profits, arising from the App or this agreement. Our total liability for anything else is limited to what you paid for the App. Nothing here limits liability that the law says can't be limited, or any consumer rights you have that can't be waived.

9. Ending this agreement

You may end this agreement at any time by deleting the App. It ends automatically if you break it; you must then stop using the App and delete your copies. Sections 3, 4 and 7–10 survive the end of this agreement.

10. General

This agreement is governed by the laws of the State of California, USA, without regard to its conflict-of-laws rules. If you are a consumer, you also keep the protection of the mandatory consumer laws of the country where you live. If a part of this agreement can't be enforced, the rest still applies. It is the whole agreement between us about the App, except for any separate written agreement we have made with you. “The Golden Lanthorn” is our name; this agreement gives you no right to use it or our logo.

Contact

hello@goldenlanthorn.com

Built on Lanthorn

The Golden Lanthorn is built on Lanthorn, the free, open-source interactive-fiction TUI, which is available under the BSD-3-Clause licence:

BSD 3-Clause License

Copyright (c) 2026, Marcus Kellerman

Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without
modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions are met:

1. Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright notice, this
   list of conditions and the following disclaimer.

2. Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright notice,
   this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the documentation
   and/or other materials provided with the distribution.

3. Neither the name of the copyright holder nor the names of its
   contributors may be used to endorse or promote products derived from
   this software without specific prior written permission.

THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE COPYRIGHT HOLDERS AND CONTRIBUTORS "AS IS"
AND ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE
IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE ARE
DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE COPYRIGHT HOLDER OR CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE
FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL
DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS OR
SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) HOWEVER
CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT LIABILITY,
OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY OUT OF THE USE
OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE.

Third-party notices

Lanthorn includes code derived from other open-source projects. Their notices are reproduced in full on the third-party notices page.