pixscii

LLMs can't draw. This MCP can. A pixel art animation toolkit for AI agents.

Sister project of artscii. While artscii provides terminal ASCII art, pixscii gives AI agents a full pixel art workbench — generate characters, animate scenes, draw sprites, and export PNGs. Offline, deterministic, zero latency.

One Call Animation

animate_scene {
  "width": 128, "height": 48,
  "background": { "tiles": [["tree","grass","grass","sand","stone","wall","wall","door"]] },
  "actors": [
    { "seed": "hero", "species": "human", "armor": "plate", "weapon": "sword",
      "motion": "walk", "from": {"x":0,"y":28}, "to": {"x":96,"y":28} },
    { "seed": "mage", "species": "elf", "armor": "cloth", "weapon": "staff",
      "motion": "walk", "from": {"x":-16,"y":30}, "to": {"x":72,"y":30} },
    { "seed": "guard", "species": "skeleton", "motion": "idle",
      "from": {"x":108,"y":28}, "to": {"x":108,"y":28} }
  ],
  "frames": 24, "delay": 150
}

One tool call. 3 characters, tiled background, 24 frames. 9ms.

The LLM translates a scene description into structured input. pixscii executes it instantly.

Quick Start

npx pixscii

Or add to your MCP client config:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "pixscii": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "pixscii"]
    }
  }
}

Tools (19)

High-Level — Full scenes in one call

| Tool | Description | |------|-------------| | animate_scene | Text description → animated scene with characters, background, and motion |

Source — Create or load a canvas

| Tool | Description | |------|-------------| | create | New blank canvas with optional fill color | | get | Load a bundled sprite into an editable canvas | | character | Generate a procedural pixel character | | convert | Quantize any image (URL or base64) to pixel art | | search | Browse the sprite library |

Mutate — Draw on a canvas

| Tool | Description | |------|-------------| | pixel | Set individual pixels (batch up to 512) | | line | Bresenham line between two points | | rect | Rectangle — outline or filled | | fill | Flood fill from a point (with leak detection) | | mirror | Mirror left half to right half | | undo | Revert the last drawing operation |

Observe — Read the canvas state

| Tool | Description | |------|-------------| | inspect | View the canvas as a hex character grid |

Compose & Output

| Tool | Description | |------|-------------| | sequence | Animate actors across a scene with per-frame positions | | compose | Layer multiple canvases/sprites into a scene | | tilemap | Build a map from a tile grid | | spritesheet | Stitch frames into a single PNG (horizontal/vertical/grid) | | animate | Animate a sprite with pixel motion (idle, walk, attack...) | | export | Render a canvas to scaled PNG |

Three Layers of Control

Layer 1: animate_scene     → full scene in one call (fast path)
Layer 2: sequence/compose  → manual frame composition (precise control)
Layer 3: pixel/line/rect   → individual pixel editing (full control)

Start with animate_scene for a fast draft. Drop to lower layers to refine.

Example: One-Call Scene Animation

→ animate_scene {
    width: 80, height: 40,
    background: { tiles: [["grass","grass","stone","wall","door","wall"]] },
    actors: [{
      seed: "hero-girl", species: "human", armor: "cloth",
      motion: "walk", from: {x:0, y:24}, to: {x:60, y:24}
    }],
    frames: 16, delay: 120
  }
← 16 frame PNGs + frame_ids

→ spritesheet { frames: [frame_ids], direction: "horizontal" }
← single strip PNG with all 16 frames

Two calls: one to generate, one to assemble. Done.

Example: Drawing a Sprite from Scratch

→ create  { width: 16, height: 16, fill: "." }
← canvas_id + hex grid

→ rect    { canvas_id, x: 3, y: 5, w: 10, h: 9, color: "1" }
→ fill    { canvas_id, x: 7, y: 7, color: "8" }
← filled: 56 pixels, leaked: false (grid returned — agent verifies)

→ inspect { canvas_id }
← agent reads grid, spots issue, fixes with pixel tool

→ export  { canvas_id, scale: 4 }
← 64x64 PNG

The Hex Grid Protocol

Every pixel is one character. The agent reads and writes in the same alphabet:

0-F = PICO-8 palette colors (0=black, 7=white, 8=red, ...)
.   = transparent

     0123456789ABCDEF
  0: ................
  1: .....111111.....
  2: .....177771.....
  3: .....177771.....
  4: ...1111111111...
  5: ...1888888881...
  6: ...1788888881...

~80 tokens for a full 16x16 sprite. The LLM reads this like source code and reasons about it spatially.

Bundled Assets

22 sprites across 4 categories:

• Items: sword, shield, potion, key, bow, coin
• Tiles: grass, stone, water, wall, door, tree, sand, dirt
• Effects: slash, sparkle, explosion, heal
• UI: heart-full, heart-empty, arrow-up, cursor

648 procedural characters: 4 species (human, elf, dwarf, skeleton) x 3 armors x 3 weapons x 3 helms x 6 skin tones.

3 palettes: pico8 (default), grayscale, gameboy

6 motion types: idle, walk, attack, hurt, bounce, blink

CLI

npx pixscii import sprite.png --id my-sword --category items
npx pixscii export sword --scale 4 --out sword.png

Development

npm install
npm run dev      # Start MCP server (stdio)
npm run build    # Compile TypeScript
npm test         # Run tests

License

MIT