awesome textmode

A curated list of awesome textmode resources - tools, fonts, libraries, archives, and communities for creating and enjoying textmode art.

New to textmode? Start with the What is textmode? article by Polyducks for a great overview, or watch the What is ‘TEXT MODE’ art? introduction by Brandon James Greer on YouTube.

Contents

• Archives
• Discord Communities
• Fonts
  • Free
  • Paid
• Font Collections
• Libraries
• Editors and Tools
  • Web
  • Desktop GUI
  • Terminal
• Software Collections
• Applications and Playgrounds

Archives

• 16colo.rs
  • Online archive preserving ANSI and ASCII artpacks from the BBS era through today, with artist profiles, group histories, and an active forum.
• ASCII Art Archive
  • Large archive of ASCII art with in-browser drawing tools, games, animations, and a searchable mirror of 128,000 Usenet newsgroup messages from 1993 to 2013, maintained by Joacim Wejdin.
• Demozoo
  • Comprehensive demoscene production database hosting 62,000+ graphics (including ANSI, ASCII, and PETSCII art), artpacks, and textmode releases across all platforms, with scener profiles, group histories, party listings, and active forums - all open source and community-maintained.
• CSDb
  • The Commodore 64 Scene Database with 250,000+ releases and extensive PETSCII art, C64 graphics, group histories, scener profiles, events, and BBS listings dating back to the early 1980s - active since 2001 and community-driven.
• C64GFX
  • Dedicated Commodore 64 pixel art gallery showcasing 33,000+ graphics from the demoscene - loading screens, logos, PETSCII art, and more.
• pouët.net
  • The iconic demoscene portal hosting 100,000+ productions including textmode graphics, demos, and intros across all platforms, with group profiles, party results, an active community BBS, and user voting - open source since 2000.
• Lospec textmode gallery
  • Curated collection of user-submitted textmode art.
• Mistigris
  • Long-running textmode and outlier computer arts collective, also active through its current mistfunk identity across social platforms.
• FUNGI
  • Fairy digital forest blending ASCII art, pixel aesthetics, and surreal visuals by Polyducks & friends.
• text-mode.org
  • Curated archive of text graphics spanning ASCII, PETSCII, teletext, and lesser-known formats, maintained by Goto80.

Discord Communities

• aSCIIaRENA
  • Discord for the ASCII art archive and colly community rooted in BBS and demoscene traditions.
• GlyphDrawing.Club
  • Discord for the browser-based text art and modular type design editor.
• Lospec
  • Discord for the low-spec art platform covering pixel art, voxel art, textmode, and more.
• Mistigris computer arts
  • Discord for the long-running underground computer arts collective founded in 1994.
• PETSCII WORLD
  • Discord for PETSCII art enthusiasts worldwide.
• Sixteen Colors
  • Discord for the ANSI and ASCII artpack archive community.
• textmode.art
  • A friendly hub for all things textmode, from art and fonts to libraries and tools, centered around the textmode.art ecosystem.

Fonts

These fonts are shared under various licenses. Always review a font's license before including it in public work.

Free

• ATASCII
  • An 8x8 pixel font based on Atari ASCII and Atari ST characters.
  • By Dmian - CC0.
• BESCII
  • An 8x8 pixel font based on PETSCII for BASIC Engine.
  • By Dmian - CC0.
• C64 Pro Mono
  • Commodore 64 monospaced font family with strong PETSCII compatibility.
  • By Style64 - License.
• CHUNKY
  • Bold 8x8 pixel font with a wide range of shapes and symbols for expressive textmode compositions.
  • By Batfeula - see license on project page.
• CPC464
  • An 8x8 pixel font based on the Amstrad CPC 464 font.
  • By Dmian - CC0.
• DUNGEON.mode
  • An 8x8 retro textmode font for the rogue in all of us.
  • By datagoblin - CC0.
• FROGBLOCK-V2.1
  • Compact 8x8 text-art font designed for games and playful retro compositions.
  • By Polyducks - see license on project page.
• jgs font
  • Monospaced font family honoring ASCII art pioneer Joan G. Stark, with styles for continuous-line text art.
  • By Adel Faure - SIL OFL 1.1.
• Kitchen Sink
  • Dense 6x8 monospaced font with special symbols for compact interfaces and art.
  • By Polyducks - see license on project page.
• Microbe-2
  • All-purpose 1-bit 6x6 tileset/charset for low-fidelity textmode art and experimentation.
  • By Mrmo Tarius - see license on project page.
• OG-DCM-Emoji
  • Nostalgic 12x12 pixel emoji font recreated from the original DoCoMo emoji set.
  • By Monica Dinculescu - MIT License.
• PetMe64
  • Faithful Commodore 64 font with substantial Unicode and box-drawing extensions.
  • By Kreative Korp - License.
• Pixel Dingbats-7
  • Pixel dingbat font with icons, patterns, and symbols useful for retro interfaces and ornamentation.
  • By Style-7 - Freeware.
• Public Pixel Font
  • Monospaced 8x8 pixel font with 1324 glyphs and support for 98 languages.
  • By GGBotNet - CC0.
• Rook
  • Rescued textmode pixel font originally created by Quintin Stokes, revived and converted to TTF.
  • By outer spec - Public domain.
• Schmuck Symbols
  • Ornamental and decorative symbols font for textmode editors like REXpaint and Playscii.
  • By migmoog - see license on project page.
• UNSCII
  • Bitmapped Unicode font collection based on classic system fonts, in 8×8 and 8×16 variants suitable for terminal, programming, and textmode art.
  • By viznut - Public domain (unscii-16-full variant is GPL).
• UrsaFont
  • Two-part 8x8 monospaced family covering the ANSI standard and extended symbols for art and games.
  • By UrsaFrank - CC0.

Paid

• MRMOTEXT ($5 USD or more)
  • All-purpose 1-bit 8x8 tileset/charset with shape and specialized tiles for textmode art, level, and creature design.
  • By Mrmo Tarius - see license on project page.
• Oh no, more goblins! ($5 USD or more)
  • Goblin-themed 1-bit 12x12 tileset/charset for top-view, side-view, roguelike, and platformer textmode projects.
  • By Mrmo Tarius - see license on project page.
• S# (€3 EUR or more)
  • 8x8 textmode pixel font shipped as Playscii and REXPaint charsets, plus TTF and PNG versions.
  • By Shidoengie - see license on project page.

Font Collections

These fonts are shared under various licenses. Always review a font's license before including it in public work.

• littlebitspace's font collection
  • Collection of pixel fonts in multiple formats for retro and textmode projects.
  • By littlebitspace - No license(s) specified/found.
• Multi Platform Amiga Fonts
  • Faithful multi-platform remakes of classic Amiga textmode fonts, including Topaz, P0T-NOoDLE, MicroKnight, and mO'sOul.
  • By rewtnull - GPL with Font Exception.
• The Ultimate Oldschool PC Font Pack
  • Comprehensive catalog of vintage PC fonts.
  • By VileR - CC BY-SA 4.0.

Libraries

These libraries are shared under various licenses. Always review a library's license before including it in public work.

• asciimatics
  • Cross-platform Python library for curses-like terminal control, text UIs, and ASCII art animations.
  • By Peter Brittain - Apache-2.0.
• p5.asciify
  • Real-time ASCII/textmode conversion library for p5.js in WEBGL mode.
  • By humanbydefinition - MIT License.
• textmode.js
  • Framework-agnostic creative-coding library for real-time ASCII and textmode graphics in the browser.
  • By humanbydefinition - MIT License.
• rot.js
  • JavaScript toolkit for roguelike game development with features for map generation, pathfinding, and ASCII rendering.
  • By Ondřej Žára - BSD-3-Clause.
• runal
  • A creative coding environment for the terminal.
  • By emprcl - MIT License.
• thorn
  • Pure, lazy, statically typed functional programming language for making colorful ASCII art animations.
  • By Oleksiy Buell - GPL-3.0.

Editors and Tools

Web

• create.textmode.art
  • Grid-based glyph drawing and textmode art editor.
  • By humanbydefinition
• editor.textmode.art
  • Browser-based editor for live coding ASCII and textmode art with textmode.js.
  • By humanbydefinition
• export.textmode.art
  • Private, on-device studio for converting images, GIFs, and videos into textmode art.
  • By humanbydefinition
• GlyphDrawing.Club
  • Web-based editor for modular type designs and text art with an adjustable grid and any typographic symbol.
  • By Heikki Lotvonen
• lvllvl
  • Feature-rich web editor for textmode art with PETSCII, teletext, layers, animations, and custom fonts.
  • By jaammees †
• PETSCII Editor
  • Browser-based Commodore 64 PETSCII editor for characters, sprites, and screens, with autosave and export to PRG, PNG, SEQ, assembly, and BASIC.
  • By Tóth Krisztián
• Pixel Font Converter
  • Browser tool for converting pixel-font tileset images into standard TTF/OTF fonts.
  • By YellowAfterlife
• Shapecatcher
  • Draw a character shape and find visually similar Unicode glyphs - useful for discovering box-drawing, block, and symbol characters for textmode art. Covers 11,817+ glyphs.
  • By Benjamin Milde
• text0wnz
  • Offline-first progressive web app for drawing and editing ANSI, ASCII, NFO, and XBIN art with real-time collaboration, 100+ vintage fonts, half-block brushes, and full SAUCE metadata support - works on desktop and mobile.
  • By xero - MIT.
• Textmode Overlay
  • Browser extension to render live ASCII/textmode overlays on canvas and video elements.
  • By humanbydefinition - MIT.
• textmode.art
  • Web-based editor to create textmode scenes from various media sources.
  • By humanbydefinition

Desktop GUI

• Marq's PETSCII Editor
  • Cross-platform PETSCII editor for C64, VIC-20, PET, and Plus/4 with animation support and multiple export formats.
  • By Marq - WTFPL.
• Moebius
  • Modern ANSI and ASCII art editor with half-block brushes and multi-user collaboration.
  • By Blocktronics - Apache-2.0.
• PabloDraw
  • Cross-platform ANSI/ASCII text and RIPscrip vector art editor with multi-user collaboration.
  • By Curtis Wensley - MIT.
• Petmate
  • Cross-platform C64 PETSCII image editor with custom charsets, multi-screen editing, and export to multiple formats.
  • By nurpax - MIT.
• Playscii
  • Open source ASCII art, animation, and game creation program.
  • By JP LeBreton - MIT.
• REXPaint
  • User-friendly ASCII art editor for Windows with layers, custom fonts, and export to PNG, ANSI, and other formats.
  • By Grid Sage Games - Freeware.

Terminal

• DarkDraw
  • Unicode art and animation editor for the terminal built as a VisiData plugin, with 256-color support, frame-by-frame animation, a Unicode glyph browser, custom palettes, and scripting via the backing sheet data model.
  • By devottys - License.
• Durdraw
  • Versatile ASCII, Unicode, and ANSI art editor for drawing and animating in the terminal.
  • By Sam Foster - BSD-3-Clause.
• Fontraption
  • Tiny VGA text mode font editor for DOS, written in x86 assembly.
  • By VileR - MIT.
• Textual Paint
  • MS Paint-inspired TUI image editor with ANSI art support.
  • By Isaiah Odhner - MIT.

Software Collections

These are curated directories of textmode software. Always review a project's license before including it in public work.

• Lospec textmode software directory
  • Filterable directory of textmode art software covering editors, converters, viewers, and font and charset tools across web, desktop, and retro platforms.
  • By Lospec

Applications and Playgrounds

• automata.textmode.art
  • Rule-driven cellular automata simulation playground with textmode visualization.
  • By humanbydefinition
• play.ertdfgcvb.xyz
  • Interactive platform for creating ASCII animations and graphics through a scripting interface.
  • By ertdfgcvb
• textmode-collab
  • Collaborative text-based art platform with character-set-restricted drawing rooms.
  • By Cammymoop

Contributing

Contributions are welcome. Read CONTRIBUTING.md before opening a pull request.