Playscii

Playscii

Playscii is a free and open-source ASCII art editor that allows you to create pixel art and animations using text characters. It has a simple interface with drawing tools and supports exporting creations as animated GIFs.
Playscii image
pixel-art animation gif text-art

Playscii: Free ASCII Art Editor for Pixel Art and Animations

Create pixel art and animations using text characters with Playscii, a free and open-source ASCII art editor. Simple interface with drawing tools and GIF export.

What is Playscii?

Playscii is a free, open-source ASCII art and pixel art editor for Windows, Mac and Linux. It allows users to create both static and animated ASCII art by arranging different keyboard characters into grid-based drawings and animations.

Some key features of Playscii include:

  • Simple and intuitive drawing interface with tools like pencil, fill, select, zoom, etc.
  • Supports different text fonts like block characters, smooth fonts, retro fonts, etc. for unique ASCII styles
  • Layers system to separately work on foregrounds and backgrounds
  • Onion skinning tool to preview animations
  • Export animations as GIFs or frame-based image sequences
  • Undo/redo to easily fix mistakes
  • Completely free and open-source software

With its easy learning curve and flexible export options, Playscii is great for hobbyists and developers to get started with making ASCII/text based art for websites, games, digital art or live visuals.

Playscii Features

Features

  1. Drawing tools to create ASCII art
  2. Supports multiple fonts and custom characters
  3. Onion skinning for animation
  4. Export animations as GIFs

Pricing

  • Free
  • Open Source

Pros

Free and open source

Simple and easy to use interface

Cross-platform (Windows, Mac, Linux)

Cons

Limited features compared to paid software

Can only export small GIF sizes

Limited font options


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