Pixel Planet

Inspiration

We were inspired by r/Place, the idea of people coming together to create something bigger than themselves. But instead of just pixels on a board, we wanted players to build entire worlds. A place where anyone even beginners could shape living, breathing pixel realms and share them with others.

What it does

Pixel Planet lets players create, share, and explore living pixel worlds together. You can start by using globally shared assets or craft your own from scratch using simple creative tools like the pencil, eraser, line, and eyedropper. Every asset can be saved locally or shared with the entire community, helping others build faster and inspire new creations.

Once you’ve built your assets, you can bring your world to life adding depth through light, shadow, and atmospheric elements that change how your world feels over time. Whether it’s a calm evening scene or a glowing sunrise, every player’s world tells a unique story.

You can also explore worlds made by other players, appreciate their creativity, and see who’s rising on the global leaderboard. Pixel Planet turns collaborative creativity into an ever-evolving universe shaped by its community.

How we built it

We built Pixel Planet using Devvit and SvelteKit, with a fully canvas-based rendering system for the pixel worlds. We implemented chunking to handle performance efficiently, allowing large worlds and smooth interactions even on mobile devices.

Challenges we ran into

Performance was our biggest challenge. Handling real-time drawing, weather effects, and lighting in a canvas environment required a lot of optimization. Managing responsive controls and UI for both desktop and mobile took additional fine-tuning.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We’re proud that we managed to make the entire system from the editor to world interaction responsive, fast, and intuitive within such a short timeframe. Every part, from the pixel tools to environmental effects, was built from scratch with care.

What we learned

We learned how to balance creativity with performance building expressive features like shadows, lighting, and weather while keeping everything lightweight. We also learned how powerful Devvit can be for creating interactive multiplayer experiences right inside Reddit.

What's next for Pixel Planet

Next, we want to gather feedback from the community and expand the creative toolkit. We plan to add more features to help users express themselves making each world richer, more interactive, and truly reflective of its creators’ imagination.