Pixel Island

Browser-only prototype for a shared pixel-art island.

Run

Open index.html in a modern browser. No build step or third-party dependency is required.

Refactor layout

• app.js remains the browser bootstrap and main UI coordinator.
• js/core-utils.js, js/state-index.js, js/rotation-policy.js, and js/lighting.js hold reusable logic shared by the app.
• js/editor-actions.js is lazy-loaded when Pixel Studio opens; the app keeps inline fallbacks for first-use safety.
• Server rotation defaults can be supplied with server/rotation_policy.json and --config.
• Server policy tests live in server/test_rotation_worker.py.

Current prototype scope

• Draw pixel assets in the in-browser editor.
• Save assets to the local collection.
• Place static assets and summon dynamic assets onto the island.
• Dynamic assets default to right-facing on spawn; left-facing is rendered by mirroring during movement only.
• Local voting, hiding, remix/copy edit, and collection management are included.

Phase 1 changes

• Asset data is normalized to schema 2+ compatible shape.
• Dynamic left-facing pixels are not stored; faces.left is represented as mirror.
• Empty depth/light metadata is omitted or normalized.
• Editor tools include Draw, Erase, Fill, Pick, Undo, and Redo.

Phase 2 changes

• Local save uses a compact Phase 2 envelope in localStorage.
• Pixel planes are bbox-cropped and RLE-compressed when this is smaller than raw cropped data.
• World snapshots contain placements, dynamic summons, and an asset manifest rather than full asset blobs.
• Local object/asset mutations append small sync events to eventLog.
• IndexedDB asset/snapshot cache helpers are included for future server-backed missing-asset fetches.

Phase 3 changes

• Terrain rendering is chunk-cached instead of using one large terrain canvas.
• Only terrain chunks intersecting the current viewport are drawn.
• Static and dynamic objects outside the viewport margin are culled before sprite generation/sorting.
• Dynamic runtime updates are stepped at 15 Hz and capped per frame to avoid spiral-of-death on slow devices.
• Rendering pauses while the browser tab is hidden and resumes on visibility change.
• Tile/object lookups use a small spatial index for inspect, erase, and nearby-target searches.

Phase 4 changes

• Editor schema is now 5.
• Added Line and Rect tools. Rect supports filled rectangles with Shift; right-click erases line/rect cells.
• Added Select tool. Drag to select a rectangular area, then drag the selection or use arrow keys/buttons to move it.
• Nudge buttons move the active selection; without a selection they shift the whole drawing.
• Added horizontal/vertical flip, palette-colored outline generation, and clear selection.
• Added keyboard shortcuts: B/E/F/I/L/R/S for tools, Ctrl/Cmd+Z/Y for history, arrows for moving selected pixels, Escape to clear selection.

Phase 4 follow-up adjustments

• Depth is now three-state: high, normal, and low. High brightens sprite pixels; low darkens them.
• Right-clicking the world canvas clears the current map selection instead of moving or placing the selected asset.
• Dynamic sprites now pause intermittently instead of walking continuously.
• Night rendering is darker.
• Object picking now uses sprite-sized, per-opaque-pixel hit testing, so transparent pixels are not clickable.

Phase 5 changes

• Editor schema is now 7.
• Fixed the Advanced Draw depth controls so Depth / High / Low / Clear wrap inside the drawer instead of overflowing to the right.
• Added local object reporting from the selection bubble. Reported objects are hidden locally and stored in a local moderation report log.
• Added soft local guardrail limits: 160 assets and 220 world objects. Existing objects can still be moved; new saves/placements are blocked when the local cap is reached.

Phase 5 follow-up changes

• Static sprites now anchor closer to the center of their tile instead of the front corner.
• Object selection is pixel-accurate: transparent sprite cells no longer select the object, and tile inspection does not select hidden/transparent areas.
• Right-clicking the map clears selection silently.
• Hidden panel now lists both hidden library assets and hidden map objects. Objects hidden by Report appear there and can be restored with Show again.
• Report now opens a reason dialog with Cancel and Report + Hide actions.
• Library cards include Place/Move, which makes dynamic human assets easier to reposition.
• Default bundled pixel art was replaced with a new set: Hill Cottage, Pine Cluster, Shell Rock, Wave Skiff, Fisher Kid, Moss Cat, Koi Fish, and Cloud Gull.
• Added a static Ship role/subtype. Ships can be placed on water, float subtly, and periodically emit ring ripples.
• Local storage key was bumped to load the new default set in this prototype build.

Phase 5 polish

• Night lights now draw after the darkness overlay and use fixed bright cores/halos, so lamp pixels visually ignore the night darkening pass.
• The sky color now transitions quickly around dawn and dusk. Day and night remain mostly stable instead of drifting continuously.

Phase 5 Effects

• Nearby objects receive a faint surface glow from adjacent light sources.
• Light cores are less dazzling, while night ambient darkness is lifted slightly.
• Land-moving dynamic sprites emit small terrain-colored step particles.

Visual FX follow-up

• Step particles now vary in hue / saturation / lightness around the terrain color.
• Nature assets shed tiny drifting leaf/petal dots.
• Coast foam uses two slow-rotating porous bluish-white layers.
• Depth now affects phase-aware sprite shading for sun/moon exposure.
• Added toggles for lights, particles, and the day-night cycle.

Phase 5 UI / particle follow-up

• Coastal foam no longer uses cut-out holes.
• Walking particles are less frequent and use more visibly varied colors.
• Remix always creates a new derivative asset; Edit updates the user's own original asset.
• Advanced Draw now includes configurable particle emitter cells for any asset.
• Nudge arrow buttons under the canvas were removed; keyboard arrow nudging remains.
• UI text is larger overall, while palette color-code labels keep their small size.

Rotation policy build

This build adds count-based island rotation.

• Default island display cap: 250 objects.
• The local display cap is adjustable from Settings.
• Objects are not deleted when the cap is exceeded; the effective oldest objects are omitted from the island display.
• Upvotes delay rotation-out by slot adjustment. Downvotes advance rotation-out.
• Local publish / republish quota: 5 objects per author per rolling hour.
• Replacing or republishing a rotation-hidden object updates its publishedAt and consumes one quota slot.

Server-side periodic rotation code is in server/rotation_worker.py.

Example:

python server/rotation_worker.py world.json --write

It performs:

1. Permanent-hide marking for extremely downvoted objects.
2. Randomly samples 50 hidden historical objects.
3. Republishes the top 20 by upvote count.
4. Reapplies the active display cap.
5. Adds permanent-hidden objects to adminReviewQueue for deletion checks.

Local-only rotation note

This build does not call a server from the browser. The island display cap is applied client-side, and objects over the cap are kept in local save but not drawn. Server recirculation / permanent hiding only happens when server/rotation_worker.py is run against exported world JSON.

Exhibition Policy Revision

This build separates Asset and PlacementObject more explicitly.

• Asset: a durable library work. Remix only copies pixels and lineage into the canvas.
• PlacementObject: a temporary island exhibition object. It can rotate out while the Asset remains in Collection.
• Edit has been removed. To revise a work, remix/copy it, save a new Asset, then delete the old one if desired.
• Publishing requires a prototype local account. The first 24 hours allow 5 public placements/hour; day 2+ allows 10/hour.
• The island exhibition has 250 visible slots: 150 newest slots and 100 random revival slots.
• Upvote rank effect is capped at +50 votes.
• Capacity rotation and extreme downvote rotation use the same user-facing explanation: the island exhibition is full, but the work remains in Collection.
• Server moderation can mark permanent_hidden / violation_hidden; these are hidden from authors and viewers. Admins can restore them with the Python worker.
• Particles are disabled offscreen/when zoomed out and capped at 200 active particles.

Server worker

python server/rotation_worker.py world.json --write
python server/rotation_worker.py world.json --restore object123 --write
python server/rotation_worker.py world.json --hide-violation object123 --write

The Python worker is the authoritative production policy. The browser mirrors it only for local prototype use.

Compression lab

python server/compression_lab.py exported_world.json

Use this to compare minified JSON, gzip, zlib, and Brotli when available. Production should use the compact asset codec plus HTTP gzip/Brotli rather than hand-rolled custom compression first.

Phase 5 Exhibition UI polish follow-up

• Compressed the account/name card so the top HUD uses less vertical space.
• Removed the right-side Pan / Place / Erase HUD; placement is guided through Save + Place and Library actions.
• Renamed the liked codex label to Favorite.
• Removed the Advanced Draw depth Clear button; depth can still be cleared with Shift/right-click.
• Normal Erase now removes Light / Particle / Depth metadata on the first click and removes the pixel color on the next click.
• Light rendering and nearby glow are night-only, with subtle random flicker.
• Remix previews hide the nearby source work while checking placement, and final placement nudges away from the remix source to avoid doubled sprites.
• Depth edge shading now reacts to configured light positions or the current sun/moon direction; object silhouette edges are excluded.

v8 polish notes

• Save + Place on Island now auto-generates a local account when needed. The generated account stores an ID, editable display name, and generated password in local storage; users are prompted to change the password.
• Check on Island and New were removed from the finish area. Saved works enter an island placement preview with Place here and Back to canvas.
• Editor Select now clears with right-click. The island also shows the left-click/right-click selection hint.
• Basic draw buttons keep a stable layout even when Advanced is open; advanced tools are placed below them.
• Draw tools now have distinct colors and compact icons.
• Particle editing no longer paints emitter positions. Particle effects emit from the whole sprite, with palette-based color and up/down/left/right direction.

v9 interaction polish and bug fixes

• Removed automatic remix-source avoidance: remix children can now be placed near their source without being forced to a different tile.
• Animated coastal foam with drift, bob, scale, and opacity pulses.
• Removed Collection/Create buttons from the Pixel Island title bar and added a compact cute menu button for the left drawer.
• Added a confirmation dialog before clearing the entire canvas.
• Palette swatches now handle pointerdown directly so the first palette click is applied reliably.
• Particle right-click no longer disables the particle effect; right-click pans/does nothing, while Shift-click can disable.
• Added particle range controls: select an area, then press “Use Sel”; “Whole” resets emission to the whole sprite.
• Swapped Particle and Depth button order.
• Left/Right canvas side buttons no longer mirror the editing canvas view.
• Fixed dynamic animal placement preview so the sprite is visible before pressing Place here.

v10 interaction / lighting polish

• Replaced the title-side menu control with a larger bottom DRAW button.
• Warmed the evening phase with orange/vermilion sky tint and warm darkness overlay.
• Increased lamp reflection bleed radius and light radius so nearby sprites glow more softly.
• Dynamic sprites now save a canvas marked Left by mirroring it into the canonical right-facing asset; runtime facing is driven by the actual movement vector.
• Hidden particle range overlays no longer look like an undeletable blue canvas square; the range overlay is shown only while the Particle tool is active.
• Remix actions are now displayed as a bottom sheet. Report is inside a small Menu section.
• Added teleport-to-remix-source from the selected object sheet.
• Object draw order now uses the rendered bottom/contact line, so lower objects consistently draw in front.
• 8×8 sprites use their whole sprite bounding box for click selection, including transparent cells.
• Coastal foam motion was made more visible.

v12 lighting/compression notes

• Night light reflections are now rendered per sprite immediately after the sprite, preserving front/back draw order.
• Reflection tint affects both depth and non-depth pixels; depth pixels receive stronger directional response.
• Depth no longer uses light-source response unless the night lighting system is actually active.
• Strong compression direction for weak servers: store indexed palette pixels as bit-packed palette indices plus an alpha bitmask and RLE/LZ on top; avoid PNG/base64 as the canonical server payload.

v13 compression and remix lineage changes

• Palette index encoding is the canonical pixel format. Each pixel stores . for transparent or a one-character palette code.
• Compact export now supports bp6, a 6-bit packed plane format. Transparent plus the 62 palette codes fit in one 6-bit value.
• Compact export chooses the smallest representation per pixel plane: cropped raw, cropped RLE, or cropped 6-bit packing.
• Remix delta storage was removed again; remixes are stored as independent packed pixel planes.
• Deleting a source asset now cascades through remix descendants. Their island placements, dynamic summons, votes, hidden flags, and moderation rows are removed together.
• Sync events now include asset.delete; applying that event also cascades to remix descendants on the receiver.

v14 rollback / interaction polish

• Removed remix delta saving and remix-source cascade deletion.
• Particles are cell-based again, like Light and Depth: choose color + direction, then paint emitter cells.
• Selected dynamic sprites bounce too, with a slight deterministic tilt.
• The object speech bubble is kept above the object and away from the DRAW dock.
• Added a compact clock in the upper-right corner.
• Reworked daylight/moonlight shadow transitions so evening fades sun shadows out before night, moon shadows fade in during night, and pre-dawn moon shadows disappear before sunrise.

v14b startup fix

• Restored updateSelectedLabel() so bootstrap no longer throws ReferenceError.

v15 interaction polish

• Restored object speech bubbles above the actual rendered sprite, using sprite draw coordinates instead of tile-center estimates.
• Replaced the numeric clock with a fixed analog day-night clock using a sky-color conic gradient and no numbers.
• Kept selected-object shadows mirrored from the ground line while the sprite jumps.
• Smoothed sky and overlay interpolation across dawn, day, evening, and night.

v16b hotfix

• Fixed the dark/blank world regression caused by using source-in compositing directly on the main world canvas for ship water reflection.
• Ship reflections are now precomposited on an offscreen canvas before drawing, so terrain and sprites are not erased or darkened.

Phase 6 create-layout / authority prep

• The Create tab editor now follows the tighter canvas-first layout: top metadata row, canvas with a vertical palette, large tool buttons, and a full-width Advanced settings panel.
• The palette ramps were rebuilt into cleaner 4-color rows so hue/lightness progression is easier to read.
• Local browser data uses a new storage key so older palette-corrupted art is discarded automatically.
• Shared-world prep now treats publish, object move, day/night time, and spontaneous dynamic motion as server-authoritative concerns.
• The client can keep pending shared publish/move visuals locally while waiting for server validation, and dynamic runtime motion can interpolate toward server-supplied target positions.

Phase 6b server-authority / Create tab correction

• CREATE layout now groups the canvas and primary tools in the left column with the palette as the right column, matching the attached design more closely.
• Save schema was bumped to 15. Existing local art data from older palette mappings is intentionally reset and replaced with new seed artwork.
• Added server-side world.phase and dynamic.move event helpers/tests. Shared clients should treat these events as the source of truth for day/night and autonomous dynamic positions.
• Pending shared object moves now render as temporary local interpolation only; the persistent world state is updated only by server-issued events.
• Depth shading can now use a cursor-local light source on rendered sprites at night.

Custom update 3: colored local light fix + heritage/masterpiece gallery

• Save schema is now 25.
• Fixed the local depth-light wash so the affected area no longer collapses into a mostly gray band; local lights now preserve more of the source color.
• Reworked depth local-light behavior so the source itself and nearby outer/depth corners catch the strongest highlights, while distance has a weaker effect on brightness than before.
• Reduced the selection bubble offset so the bubble sits noticeably closer to the top of the selected artwork.
• Added several new large default works themed around masterpieces, heritage, and artifacts: Smile Portrait, Great Wave Panel, Sunflower Still Life, Rosetta Stela, Pharaoh Mask, Stone Circle, Terracotta Sentinel.

Custom update 4: cursor-light smoothing + gray-bloom hotfix

• Save schema is now 26.
• Fixed the urgent regression where a single local light could wash large parts of a sprite into a gray, low-chroma bloom.
• Reduced local-light body fill on depth sprites so highlights stay concentrated on lit edges / corners instead of flattening the whole silhouette.
• Smoothed cursor-light falloff so in-range / out-of-range transitions are less abrupt.
• Removed the always-on center fallback for the cursor inspection light and softened the visible cursor halo, which eliminates the unwanted blue circular artifact when no pointer light should be shown.

Custom update 5: asset-light gray fix + temporary global delete + more default works

• Save schema is now 27.
• Adjusted asset-mounted local lights again so they no longer wash large depth sprites into a gray body fill; their effect is concentrated much more strongly on lit edges and corners.
• Fixed the analog clock hand offset (it had been visually about 5 degrees early).
• Added a temporary delete override so all collection works can be deleted regardless of owner. This is clearly marked in app.js with comments and can be reverted by setting TEMP_ALLOW_DELETE_ALL_WORKS = false.
• Added many more default works: Rain Bell Tower, Crimson Pagoda, Meteor Forge, Ink Garden Screen, Meadow Totem, Twilight Caravan, Pepper Fox, Glass Manta, Festival Drummer, Bloom Sprite.