The level, presented or published, with keyboard and touch controls.
PRESS
START!
One game week, one tiny platformer. Draw the sprites, give every layer a job, press Present and play it. Then the menus, the sprite sheets and a trailer, all from the same file.
The SPROUT QUEST platformer template in Present mode. Holding the right arrow runs Sprout on the run cycle drawn in its pixel canvas while the hills slide by slower behind; the up arrow jumps over a patrolling slime, over the pit, and up the one-way planks, collecting coins on the way. Letting go stops the hero.
PLAYER 1!
THE PROJECT
Bramble Run ships Sunday
Here is the brief. A seven-day game sprint, a team of two, and a theme announced on Monday morning. One of you codes, the other does everything that is not code: the hero, the enemies, the tiles, the title screen, the pause menu, the store page and the trailer that convinces strangers to click. That second person usually lives in four apps and a folder called exports_FINAL_v3.
This page follows that second person through the week, building a small platformer we will call Bramble Run. Every step uses things that ship in PopCraft today, starting from real templates, and the clips are the real editor. Where PopCraft stops and your engine takes over, we say so.
11
game UI templates to start from
11
roles a layer can play in a level
4
state machine screens in Mossy Hollow
1
file from first sprite to trailer
GAME WEEK
Seven days, seven worlds
The plan, as a level select. Nobody follows a week's plan exactly, but it helps to know which boss is on Sunday.
- MONWORLD 1-1Steal a levelOpen SPROUT QUEST, press Present, play it twice. Then take it apart.
- TUEWORLD 1-2Redraw the heroEdit pixels on Sprout. Idle, run and jump frames, onion skin on.
- WEDWORLD 1-3Build the levelBricks, planks, coins and slimes, each with a role in the Game section.
- THUWORLD 2-1Teach the enemiesA state machine per critter, borrowed from Mossy Hollow.
- FRIWORLD 2-2Menus and HUDTitle, pause and game over screens, wired like the EMBERFALL menu.
- SATWORLD 2-3Ship the buildPublish the playable level, export sprite sheets for the engine.
- SUNWORLD BOSSCut the trailerFourteen seconds, a chiptune, three sizes. Post it. Sleep.
MONDAY · WORLD 1-1
Steal a level that already works
Blank files are for people with more than seven days. Open SPROUT QUEST from New file, select the level and press Present. Hold the right arrow and the little sprout runs; tap up and it jumps the slime, clears the pit, climbs the planks, grabs coins and reaches the flag. LEVEL CLEAR! No build step, no export, no second app.
That is the most useful hour of the week. You now know how fast the hero runs, how high it jumps and how mean a slime is, and you have a working level to bend into yours.
The SPROUT QUEST platformer template in Present mode. Holding the right arrow runs Sprout on the run cycle drawn in its pixel canvas while the hills slide by slower behind; the up arrow jumps over a patrolling slime, over the pit, and up the one-way planks, collecting coins on the way. Letting go stops the hero.
TUESDAY · WORLD 1-2
Redraw the hero, frame by frame
Every piece of SPROUT QUEST is a pixel canvas: hero, slimes, coins, bricks, hills, even the title lettering. Double-click the run cycle and the editor turns into a sprite editor, with the frames along the bottom. Turn on onion skin to see the frames either side as ghosts while you draw the in-between.
The hero is three canvases inside one frame: idle, run and jump. Each is a Player pose, so the game shows whichever matches what the hero is doing. Draw a bramble crown on the idle pose, press Done and Present, and the hero waiting at the start is wearing it. The Pixel Studio page has every tool and palette.
The SPROUT QUEST platformer template. The Sprout run sprite, a four-frame run cycle, is opened with Edit pixels and the editor becomes a sprite editor with the frame timeline along the bottom. The frames are stepped through with the arrow button, onion skin is turned on so the frames either side show as ghosts, and Play runs the cycle.
TUESDAY, LATER
Draw it, then play it
The loop you will run fifty times this week: change a sprite, press Present, see it in the game. Indexed palettes make the night level a one-click job too, because every pixel stores a slot, not a colour.
The SPROUT QUEST platformer template. The Sprout idle sprite is opened with Edit pixels and a few pixels are drawn over its head with the pencil. Done closes the sprite editor, Present plays the level, and the hero standing at the start wears the new pixels.
The SPROUT QUEST platformer template, zoomed in on the Sprout idle sprite, an indexed pixel canvas. Its palette swatches are in the inspector. Choosing a preset palette from Load preset replaces the swatches, and because every cell holds a palette index rather than a colour, the sprite recolours at once. A second preset recolours it again.
WEDNESDAY · WORLD 1-3
Every layer gets a job
Here is what makes a picture a level. Select any layer and the inspector has a Game section with one question: what is this layer in the game? Sprout is the Player, with its speed and jump. A slime is a Hazard that patrols and can be stomped. A plank is a one-way platform. A coin is a collectible.
Building the level is then just design work. Duplicate bricks and coins (they are component instances, so redrawing the brick once redraws them all), drag planks into a staircase, widen the pit. Press Present to test the jump. Too hard? Lower gravity on the Player and try again.
The SPROUT QUEST platformer template. The hero, Sprout, is selected and the Game section of the inspector shows its role, Player, with its speed and jump strength. Then a slime is selected: a Hazard that can be stomped and patrols back and forth. Then a plank: a one-way platform. Then a coin: a collectible.
THE CAST
Who does what in SPROUT QUEST
The roles in the template, as it ships. Copy the pattern: anything you draw can take any of these jobs.
SproutPlayer
Speed 440, jump 1250. Its idle, run and jump canvases are Player poses.
Ground, bricksSolid
Walls and floors. The ? Block bumps from below and pays out a coin.
PlanksOne-way platform
Jump up through them, land on top.
CoinsCollectible
Touch one and it is gone for the rest of the run.
SlimesHazard
Patrol 180 px and back. Stompable from above, deadly from the side.
FlagGoal
Reach it and LEVEL CLEAR! appears: that banner is Shown on winning.
Hills, skyParallax scenery
Slide slower than the player runs, so the world has depth.
‹ › JUMPOn-screen button
The touch controls. Phones can play it too.
THURSDAY · WORLD 2-1
Enemies that notice you
SPROUT QUEST’s slimes walk back and forth. Fine for world one. For the boss, open the Mossy Hollowtemplate and look at Gloop: it patrols until the pointer enters its sight, turns Alert and chases. Flit the bat roosts until you come into its cave. A ? Block counts hits in a Number input and empties at three.
None of that is code. It is a timeline with markers, and a state machine that picks which stretch plays when an input changes. Draw your boss’s idle, wake-up and charge on one timeline, mark them, draw the arrows. The interactive motion page takes a machine apart piece by piece.
The Mossy Hollow platformer in present mode. Holding RUN switches Pip from Idle to its Run loop and letting go switches back; JUMP plays the Stomp one-shot, SLASH the Slash one-shot, and the outlined pill shows which state is playing. The Gloop tab opens the slime’s own machine: the pointer entering its sight makes it spot you and chase, and a click squashes it.
THURSDAY, DEBUGGING
Watch the machine think
When the boss refuses to charge, you do not need to guess. Click Play under the graph and the machine runs on the canvas. The state it is in lights up, so does the arrow that brought it there, and every input shows its value. Usually the answer is boring: the input never flipped, so the condition never held.
The Like button template in Animate with its state machine graph open. Play under the graph starts the machine on the canvas. The pointer moving onto the heart makes it grow, and the Hover state and the arrow into it light up green with the hovered input showing true. A click fills the heart and the Like state lights up; Escape stops the preview.
FRIDAY · WORLD 2-2
Menus, HUD and everything around the game
A week-old game with no title screen feels like a tech demo. The Game UI templates are full front ends: a match-3 puzzle, a roguelike deckbuilder, a farming sim, a fighter, a real-time strategy, a racer, a rhythm game, a shooter, and EMBERFALL, a fantasy RPG with a lantern boot, a burning title, save slots, settings, a HUD whose bars drain as a wraith strikes, an inventory, a skill tree, dialogue, pause and two endings.
You are not making an RPG, but EMBERFALL’s main menu is the one to steal. It is driven by the keyboard: the arrows move a focus variable, and Enter runs a conditional that opens the screen the focused item names. Rebuild that in Bramble Run’s pixel style and you have a title, a pause and a game over in an afternoon. The prototyping page covers variables, conditionals and Present.
The new file gallery, searched for “game”: the Game UI templates are listed, from a match-3 puzzle to a racing HUD. EMBERFALL, a fantasy RPG interface, is picked and opened on its boot screen; the layers panel lists every screen of the game, from the title and main menu to the victory screen.
The EMBERFALL game UI with its main menu selected. Present fills the screen with the menu. The down arrow moves the highlight from item to item (each press sets the menu’s focus variable to an expression), and Enter runs a conditional that opens the screen the focused item names.
SATURDAY · WORLD 2-3
Sprite sheets your engine can read
If your teammate is building the real game in an engine, this is the hand-off. Select a sprite, add an export, pick Sheet, and lay the frames out by rows, by columns or packed. You get a PNG of every frame and a JSON file of the frame rectangles and durations, in the array form Aseprite writes.
Because the sprite is still a layer in your file, fixing a frame on Saturday night is one change and one re-export. No hunting for which PNG is the latest.
The SPROUT QUEST platformer template with the Sprout run sprite selected, the hero’s four-frame run cycle. In the inspector, Add export adds an export at 4×; its format is changed to Sheet and its layout to Packed, which writes a PNG of every frame and a JSON file of the frame rectangles and durations. Export downloads both.
SATURDAY, ALSO
A build anyone can play
The playable level does not have to stay on your machine. A SPROUT QUEST-style screen plays the same physics on a published site, with the on-screen arrows and JUMP button for phones. Publish the file as a site and drop the link in the week’s submission form as a playable teaser while the engine build uploads. See publish a website for addresses, versions and the plan limits.
SUNDAY · BOSS LEVEL
Cut the trailer
Nobody clicks a game entry with a still screenshot. Open the Arcade high score reel: fourteen seconds of a swarm marching over a starfield, NEW HIGH SCORE typing on, a score ticking up on the beat, a chiptune, and square and 4:5 cuts beside the 9:16 one. Swap its invaders for your slimes and its score for your title.
For a longer cut, put your frames on a composition as scenes, add the music on a lane, and export MP4 or WebM with sound. The make a trailer page walks through a 53 second one.
The PopCraft launch trailer template in Animate. Its composition fills the timeline: ten scene clips in a row, named by markers, with the Pop Drop music loop on the audio lane under them. The playhead is set in the modes scene and Play runs the film on the stage: the circle wipes from Design to Draw to Pixel.
A logo reveal in Animate. The download button in the transport bar opens Export animation. MP4 shows frame rate, range, resolution and quality with a summary of the size; GIF switches to palette, dither and loop settings; Lottie lists what the file can carry. The frame rate is set to 120 fps for MP4.
THE OLD WAY
Four apps and a folder of stale PNGs
| THE OLD WAY | IN POPCRAFT |
|---|---|
| Sprite editor, export, import into the mockup | The sprite is a layer next to the menu it appears in |
| Wait for a build to see if a jump feels right | Press Present and play the level now |
| Hand-pack sheets or write a packer | Sheet export with Aseprite-style JSON |
| Mock the menus in a design tool, rebuild them | Game UI templates with working keyboard menus |
| Screen-record gameplay for the trailer, edit elsewhere | Motion templates, compositions and MP4 export in the same file |
FROM ZERO
Your own game week, in six moves
- 1
Open a game template
New file, search Sprout Quest. Press Present and play it, so you know what you are taking apart. - 2
Redraw the cast
Double-click a sprite to edit its pixels. Keep the canvas size, keep the frame count, change everything else. - 3
Lay out your level
Duplicate bricks, coins and planks, which are component instances. Each one keeps its role in the Game section. - 4
Wire the smarter stuff
Enemies that notice you, blocks that count hits: a state machine on the screen, with markers and arrows. - 5
Wrap it in menus
A title screen, pause and game over from a game UI template, linked with prototype interactions. - 6
Ship it three ways
Publish the playable build, export sprite sheets with JSON for your engine, and cut a trailer.
WHAT YOU HAND IN
The Sunday checklist
SPRITE SHEETS
PACK!Every animated sprite as a PNG sheet with its JSON, for the engine build.
MENUS & HUD
PAUSE!Title, pause and game over screens, exported as PNGs at whatever scale the engine wants.
TRAILER
ROLL!A short reel in 9:16, square and 4:5, as MP4 with sound or a looping GIF.
STORE ART
SHINY!Capsule art and screenshots, drawn next to the sprites they show, so they never go stale.
ONE FILE
DONE!Your teammate opens the same file to grab a frame. Nobody asks which zip is the latest.
INSERT COIN
Play it before you change it
In PopCraft, click New file, search for Sprout Quest, select the level and press Present. Reach the flag once. Then select the hero, open the Game section, and turn the jump up until it is silly. The pixel art docs and the state machine docs cover every control.
ASKED & ANSWERED
Questions, answered
Is PopCraft a game engine?
No, and it does not pretend to be. A screen with a Player plays as a side-on platformer, with running, jumping, solids, one-way platforms, coins, hazards and a goal. That is the one kind of game it plays by itself. For anything else, PopCraft is where you draw the art, design the UI, prototype the feel and cut the trailer, and you export sprite sheets for the engine you build in.
Where does the playable level run?
In Present mode in the editor, and on a published site, with on-screen buttons for touch. The keyboard controls are the arrows or A and D to run, and the up arrow or W to jump.
What can I tune about the platformer?
On the Player: running speed, jump strength and gravity. On a hazard: whether it can be stomped and how far and fast it patrols. On a solid: whether it bumps when hit from below, how many coins it gives and which layer it reveals. On scenery: its parallax depth. A screen can be Pixel-perfect, so sprites move on their own pixel grid.
Are the enemies in Mossy Hollow the same physics?
No. Mossy Hollow is a different template that shows state machines: its characters switch animations when you hold keys or point at them, but they are timelines, markers and arrows, not the physics. SPROUT QUEST is the one with gravity. Use whichever teaches what you need.
What does the sprite sheet export give my engine?
A PNG with every frame, laid out by rows, by columns or packed, and a JSON file of each frame’s rectangle and duration in the array form Aseprite writes. Engines and tools that read that format can load it.
Can I make the trailer in the same file?
Yes. Motion templates like the Arcade high score reel open as frames with timelines. Sequence frames into a composition, add a music lane, and export MP4 or WebM with sound, or a GIF. GIF and video exports on the free plan carry a small PopCraft watermark.
THE MANUAL, FOR THE DETAILS
PLAYER 1! YOUR TURN.
Sprites, game UI and state machines you can actually play. Free to start, in your browser or on your Mac.