@tellandshow/game-assets

A starter pack of CC0-licensed sprites, sounds, music, and theme palettes kids can drop into their games without thinking about licensing. Curated to pair with the design profiles in @tellandshow/game-skills.

Status

Seeded — 9 starter sprites (3 hero archetypes + 3 enemy archetypes + 3 pickups) authored as inline SVGs that work in any browser without a build step. Sounds, music, and themes are still empty; the manifest schema documents what they need to look like when they land.

The seed proves the wiring end-to-end: compose/import-sprite lets a kid pick from the library, the validator script catches manifest drift, and the schema covers cross-track design-profile matching via fitsProfiles.

Layout (planned)

@tellandshow/game-assets/
├── sprites/           PNG/SVG, 32×32 or 64×64, transparent background
│   ├── characters/      hero, enemy, NPC archetypes per design-profile
│   ├── pickups/         coin, key, heart, power-up, gem
│   ├── tiles/           grass, stone, wood, metal, ice — per biome
│   ├── projectiles/     arrow, fireball, spear, bullet
│   └── ui/              button, panel, cursor, icon
├── sounds/            WAV, < 1 second, mono
│   ├── hits/            thwack, slash, bonk, crunch
│   ├── pickups/         coin, key, heart, level-up
│   ├── deaths/          standard, dramatic, comedic
│   ├── steps/           grass, stone, wood, metal
│   └── ui/              click, hover, confirm, cancel
├── music/             MP3/OGG, looping, < 200KB
│   └── (organized by design-profile id: cozy-farming/, anime-action/, etc.)
├── themes/            JSON theme presets that go beyond design-profiles' palette
│   └── (organized by design-profile id)
└── manifest.json      index of everything available + tags

How kids use these

When the AI partner is wiring up add-sound or create-character, it checks @tellandshow/game-assets/manifest.json for matching content before inventing something. If a kid asked for "a goblin sprite" and the pack has sprites/characters/goblin-green.svg, the AI uses that:

<img src="node_modules/@tellandshow/game-assets/sprites/characters/goblin-green.svg" />

If nothing matches the kid's ask, the AI falls back to procedural drawing (canvas shapes — what the existing manga library does for achilles / icarus / orion).

Curation principles

1. Style coverage: at minimum 1 sprite/sound per design profile per category. A cozy-farming kid should never have to use a cyberpunk pickup chime by accident.
2. Public domain only: CC0 1.0. No attribution required, no commercial restrictions. Sources: Kenney.nl, OpenGameArt.org public domain section, and original Tell and Show creations.
3. Kid-safe: no realistic violence, no copyrighted likenesses, no text-on-sprite that says anything (so the AI can compose freely).
4. Web-friendly: small files, formats every browser handles. SVG preferred for scalability; PNG when the art demands raster.

Contributing

To add a new asset:

1. Drop it under the right subfolder.
2. Append to manifest.json with id, file path, tags, source/license, and (recommended) fitsProfiles.
3. Run npm run validate (or node scripts/validate-manifest.js from the package root) — it checks file refs exist, ids are unique, licenses are CC0, and fitsProfiles references real design profiles.
4. Open a PR. Cohort-ops reviews license + style fit before merging.

Updates

| Date | Change | Author | |------------|-----------------------------------------------------------------------|--------| | 2026-05-07 | Seeded 9 sprites (3 hero, 3 enemy, 3 pickup) + validator + entry schema. | jim | | 2026-05-07 | Initial stub. Package skeleton + import paths + manifest schema. | jim |