Pixel Quarry is a game maker where every pixel is real. Paint the ground, dig tunnels through it, blow it up or set it alight. Drop in a hero, a few villagers and something with teeth, press Play, and you are inside the thing you just drew.
Runs in your browser on a phone, tablet or computer. Nothing to install, and no card needed to try it.
How it works
Pick a material and draw. Grass, stone, sand, water, lava, whatever the level needs. Or let the generator lay down hills, lakes and caves, then carve it up how you like.
Place characters, enemies, chests, doors, lights and checkpoints. Give people something to say, set up a quest, and decide who fights who.
Tap Play to test it straight away. When it feels right, export the whole game as one file that opens in any browser. Email it, post it, put it on itch.io.
The ground is the game
Levels in Pixel Quarry are not tiles stuck to a grid. They are made of pixels with weight and strength. Players can dig a tunnel to sneak past a guard, blow a hole in a wall, or watch a hillside of sand slump into the lake below.
Game modes
Start from a blank level or from one of three small finished games. Pull them apart, see how they work, and make them yours.
A village, a forest road and an old mine. Quests, traders, loot, and random encounters set off as you walk.
Fight across a frozen ridge and into a bunker. Guns, grenades, checkpoints, an alarm that calls in backup, and a boss at the end.
A room by room escape in the style of classic cinematic platformers. Lead the workers out, sneak past guards and possess a warden to ride the lift.
Adds a button to your start menu that builds a brand new world every time: biomes, caves, ore, villages, dungeons and creatures, all from a seed.
Generates a fresh tower of rooms each run. Players climb to the top and every attempt is a different layout.
Send players through a gate to a world grown from a seed, with its own colors, sky, gravity and creatures. Players can learn new seeds and type them in.
Turn on god mode, or let players type a name to spawn characters and items into the world and see what happens.
Give your game its own level editor so players can build and share their own levels, and even write events.
Let the player speak to the characters around them, with choices that pop up as the conversation goes.
World sizes and generation
Levels are measured in chunks of 128 by 128 pixels. Make a tight single screen puzzle, or stretch a level out until it takes real time to cross. A game can hold as many levels as your plan allows, linked by doors and portals.
Choose what you want and press Generate. Hills, mountains, plains and ocean on top. Caves, ore, lakes and lava pools below, all the way down to an underworld that stays dark unless you bring a light.
Generated worlds can be dotted with villages, lone houses, stone towers, buried cabins, floating islands and dungeons with chests inside. Turn each one up, down or off.
Then paint over any of it by hand. The generator gives you a start, not a finished level.
Characters and player abilities
Paint each body part, pick a body plan, add limbs and tune how they move. Start from a template, or let the generator make someone for you. Bodies are physics ragdolls, so a good hit sends them flying.
There are also a few sillier abilities in there. We will let you find those yourself.
Items
Draw any item pixel by pixel, then choose what it does. Items can be crafted from the materials players dig up, and enchanted with extra effects.
Melee weapons, guns, long range rifles that zoom out when you aim, and grenades.
Grappling hook, portal shooter, laser digging tool and a fishing rod.
A physics gun to throw things around, and a hammer that lets players build.
Things to wear, potions and food, readable books, keys, quest items and chests.
Particles, weather and light
49 ready made particle effects to drop straight into a level, or build your own from scratch: shape, color, glow, how they move and whether they bounce off the ground.
Each level gets its own sky, scenery, day and night cycle, music and weather. Rain, thunderstorms, hail, blizzards, dust storms, fog, falling ash, drifting petals and shooting stars. Finish it off with screen effects like vignette, scanlines, film grain and bloom.
Story, logic and sound
Rules that react to the world. When the player walks into this zone, if they are holding the key, open the door. Stack them up and you have puzzles, traps and boss fights.
Dialogue, cutscenes with narration, quests with a quest log, and books you can type or write by hand with a stylus.
Make sound effects with sliders, write songs by picking a mood and style, or bring in your own audio files.
Sound and music makers
No hunting for audio and no worrying about who owns it. Sounds and songs are saved as settings, not audio files, so they add almost nothing to the size of your game.
Sharing your game
Export your finished game as a single HTML file and send it to anyone. It opens in a browser, so there is nothing for them to install. Want it on a website or itch.io? Export a zip instead.
Pricing
Every plan has every tool. Paid plans let you export your games and give you more room to build.
Try everything and see if it clicks.
$0
No card, no account needed
For finishing a game and sharing it.
$10 / month
Billed monthly. Cancel any time.
For big games and people who make lots of them.
$30 / month
Billed monthly. Cancel any time.
Prices in US dollars. Sales tax or VAT may be added at checkout depending on where you live. Games you have already exported keep working forever, even if you stop paying.
Questions
No. Pixel Quarry runs in your browser. It works on phones and tablets with touch controls, and on computers with a mouse and keyboard shortcuts.
Not at all. You paint levels, place things and set up events by picking from lists. If you can use a drawing app, you can make a game.
On your own device, in your browser, and they save by themselves as you work. On Creator and Studio you can also keep projects in the cloud and open them on any device you sign in on. Back up files and GitHub syncing work on every plan too.
Yes. Nothing you make in the free version is wasted. Open the full editor on the same device and browser and your projects are already there. Moving to another device? Back up the project and load the file there.
Yes. Blood and wounds are off by default in every new project and template, so nobody bleeds, nothing gets chunks taken out of it and acid does not melt anyone on screen. Makers can switch it on in Game rules when their game calls for it.
Yes. The games you make are yours. Sell them on itch.io, your own site or anywhere else, and keep every cent. You do not owe us anything.
Yes. On Creator and Studio you can publish games to the games page right from the editor. Each game gets its own page with ratings and comments, and your profile lists everything you have made. Press Publish again to send an update, and switch a game off any time you like. Playing is free for everyone.
Your plan stays on until the end of the period you paid for. After that you go back to the free version. Your projects stay on your device, and any games you already exported keep working.
Yes, any time from your account page. If you move up part way through a month, you only pay the difference.
Try the free version first, it has every tool. If you do pay and change your mind, read the refund policy.
Open the free version, draw some ground, drop in a hero and press Play.