A few weeks ago, we open-sourced the Pixels client. Then, a little more quietly, we open-sourced the backend too.
Since then, community builders have been deep in the code, digging through the tools and cooking up ways to build alongside us. And all that work deserves somewhere to live - one place where everyone can see what everyone else is making.
So we built somewhere to put it all.
The new home for Pixels community development is live at community.pixels.xyz!
Play community-built Pixels worlds, quests, tools and experiments - then vote for what should come to Pixels next!
What this website actually is:
Think of it as the front door to everything the community makes.
Builders upload what they’ve made: a mod, a tool, a quest, a whole fork of the game.
The Pixels team reviews it for safety and for whether it plays nicely with the rest of the game.
Players play it - it’s not a screenshot gallery; you can actually go and try out the projects the community has built!
Players vote on what deserves to come into the main game.
And, anyone can request something they want built, and a builder can pick it up!
Why we’re doing this:
Pixels has always been made with you - we’ve just never had a proper pipeline for it. Ideas lived in Discord threads and AMA chats; great ones got lost, and the only way anything got built was if it made it onto our roadmap.
The Pixels Community site changes the order of operations. Instead of the Pixels team being the only people building, players can now build things, everyone can try them, and the community decides what’s worth making official. We’re going from running one game to running an ecosystem - and this is the piece that makes that real.
It also means the people doing the work get seen. Mixyero, Hontex, Mnemonicpunk, to name a few, were building within days of the code going up. That shouldn’t live in a reply chain - it should have a front page.
How to Participate:
There are three ways in: build, vote, or request!
⚒️ If you want to build:
Decide what you want to build!
We’ve talked a lot about building new features, games, or UI improvements for the Pixels game. However, this new website is for anything built by the Community. Some examples are mixyero.online, a wiki for all things Pixels, or Wen Mint, an integrated NFT avatar customizer.
Below, we’ve added all the steps to setting up your own instance of Pixels (Realms!!), and using our dev-free system to build: Reforge. You can now build a standalone version or fork of Pixels. Better yet, you can build on top of the existing framework and modify things in-game with our Reforge tooling.
Build your thing!
The sky is the limit! Build new wikis, tools, or complete forks of the game.
Tweak the game:
The client covers character behaviour, items, achievements, cosmetics, tile placement, camera, event handling and minigames. People are already working on farming timers, accessibility improvements, control reworks and full visual overhauls. You don’t need to build a fork - a small quality-of-life fix is a completely valid submission, and some of the most-wanted things on the site are tiny.
Build around the game:
Not everything has to run inside Pixels. Wikis, calculators, market trackers, planners, bots, guides - if you’ve ever had a spreadsheet open next to the game, that’s a tool waiting to be built!
Build your own Pixels!
With the backend open, you can spin up your own instance and run it however you want - your own rules, your own world, your own economy. Or, use Reforge to access your own Realm!
⚒️ Building your own Pixels: the non-technical way
Welcome to Realms! You don’t need to be a developer for this one. Realms are the non-technical way to build with Pixels - no code, no server admin.
Open Reforge: our dev-free tooling system
Click on Realms Management in the top left to get started
Click on Deploy Realms and follow the steps for setup!
Just like that, you have your very own instance of Pixels to play with! And the best part is: you can easily share the link to your Realm with anyone.
⚒️ Building your own Pixels: the technical way
Here’s the repo to install manually:
https://gitlab.com/pixels-online-oss/pixels
If you prefer, there’s a one-click solution. You’ll need two things installed first:
Run the command for your operating system.
Mac / Linux:
curl -fsSL https://pixelscdn.xyz/install | bashWindows (PowerShell):
irm https://pixelscdn.xyz/install.ps1 | iexAnswer the questions. The installer asks you a few things as it goes. Just follow along.
Log in to Reforge when it asks. You only have to do this once.
Run the final command. When the installer finishes, it hands you one last command. Run it, and it starts everything for you: Reforge, the game, the server, the database, the lot.
Open the URLs it gave you. Just above that final command, the installer prints the URLs for everything it just started. Those are your way in - worth bookmarking them.
And that’s it. You’re running your own Pixels! 🎉
Done building? Submit it on the community site!
Head to community.pixels.xyz, click on the Build Tab, and share what you built!
You’ll need:
A title, tagline & description that will explain your tool to users
Links to the repo, playable links, and the merge request URL
Pictures, videos, etc. Anything that can quickly get users excited to see more!
We review it, then everyone sees it! 🎉
Every submission gets looked at by a moderator or someone on the Pixels team. We’re just checking that it’s safe and doesn’t go against community guidelines.
Once it’s approved, it’s live on the site for the whole community to see - and that’s where the fun starts. Everyone gets to see what everyone else has been making!
For Pixels mods: it goes live for voting!
Built a feature, fix or improvement for the live Pixels game? Your submission also goes up for a community vote - that’s what decides which builds we merge into the main game.
Standalone projects and forks don’t need votes. They’re already live for everyone to play the moment they’re approved!
*Note that we will only merge a handful each month, and have the final say in what goes in.
How to vote on Pixels projects:
Go to community.pixels.xyz and connect your Pixels account.
Play the submissions! Voting on something you haven’t tried is how bad ideas win. Go play them.
Cast your votes!
Voting is weighted by what you hold in the ecosystem, not one-vote-per-account, and resets on the first day at 00:00 UTC of each month:
$PIXEL in your wallet
Land NFTs
$PIXEL staked through the game contract
This ratio will change! We want to have your input on how everything is weighted. Let us know in Discord or during our weekly live streams.
⚠️ Keeping yourself safe
Nothing changes in the official Pixels game. Our servers still check every action, exactly as they always have - nobody can mod themselves free $PIXEL or walk off with your items.
But now that the client and the backend are open, community projects can run their own clients and their own servers. So the usual third-party rules apply: only connect your wallet to a build you’re willing to trust, and read every transaction before you sign it. Our review checks that a submission works and isn’t obviously malicious - it is not a security audit. And anything outside the community site hasn’t been reviewed by us at all.
Winning builds are considered for merge! 🎉
A strong vote tells us what the community wants, and that carries real weight. It isn’t a guarantee, though. Final say on what goes into the live game stays with the Pixels team. To start, we’re aiming to merge one or two features a month. We’d rather ship a couple of things carefully than a pile of things badly!
If your build doesn’t make it in, we’ll tell you why. We may also come back asking for changes first. The usual reasons are code quality, knock‑on effects for the game economy, or design choices that don’t sit right with the rest of the game. None of that means the idea was bad, and reworking and resubmitting is always welcome!
Not a builder? Request something!
Head to the Requests page, and post what you want to exist. A tool you wish you had. A quest idea. A UI fix that’s been annoying you for years.
Requests are visible to every builder on the site, and can be upvoted by users! Note: these votes don’t count towards your allotted votes. These ones are free!
And… there are bounties!
When there’s a request we all want built, the Pixels Team or any community member can attach real $PIXEL to it.
To claim it, submit your merge request along with a payout wallet. If we accept the claim, the $PIXEL goes to that wallet. Nothing shows as paid on the site until the payment is verified on‑chain, so a bounty marked paid is actually paid, not just promised.
Come talk to us about it!
We’re happy to answer all the questions you have on our upcoming live stream:
🗓️ Wednesday, August 19th at 4pm UTC
📍 YouTube or X!
Build something. Or vote on something. Or ask for something. All three count!
Go take a look: community.pixels.xyz