Alternatives to Playscii

Open-source ASCII and tile art editor for games and animation. The listings below can replace it for an important use case. Each note says what changes if you switch.

Replacements

Listings that take over the same core job as Playscii.

  • REXPaint

    Grid-based ASCII art editor popular for roguelike tiles and text-mode UI mockups.

    FreeProprietaryWindowsLinux

    REXPaint is a free grid-based editor popular for roguelike tiles, but it is closed source and has no macOS build listed.

  • Moebius

    Desktop ANSI and ASCII art editor with a half-block drawing brush.

    FreeOpen sourceWindowsmacOSLinux

    Moebius is an open-source desktop ANSI and ASCII editor for Windows, macOS and Linux with a half-block brush, focused on static art rather than animation.

  • PabloDraw

    ANSI and ASCII art editor for classic BBS-style text art workflows.

    FreeOpen sourceWindowsmacOSLinux

    PabloDraw is an open-source cross-platform ANSI and ASCII editor with multi-user editing for BBS-style art, without Playscii's animation and game-asset focus.

  • lvllvl

    Browser-based character and tile art editor for retro text-mode layouts.

    FreeProprietaryWeb

    lvllvl runs in the browser with no setup and supports retro formats such as C64 and PETSCII, with no offline version mentioned.

  • TextPaint

    Browser-based ASCII and ANSI drawing editor with color and shareable output.

    FreeProprietaryWeb

    TextPaint is a free browser-based ASCII and ANSI editor with color and emoji and shareable output, lighter in features than desktop editors.

Similar software

Related functionality, not a direct replacement.