How to play
Codeland
One giant map that everyone builds on together, live, free in your browser. Draw pixel art, bring it to life with code blocks, build signs and screens in HTML and CSS, paint the ground, and wander around seeing what everyone else made. Anyone can change or smash anything, so it's a world of building and wrecking, beauty and destruction.
Controls
- Walk: WASD or the arrow keys, or tap the ground to walk there. On a phone, use the stick in the corner. Jump: Space or the arrow button.
- Look around: drag the map. Zoom with the mouse wheel, the + and − buttons, or pinch.
- Keys: B build, P paint, X smash, M world map, L lists, Ctrl K find, Enter chat, Esc to cancel.
Building a sprite
- Tap Build and pick a sprite: start blank or from an example like the jump pad, the talking robot or the firework.
- Art: draw with the pen, fill, line and box tools, pick colours from the palette, mirror as you draw, and add up to 8 frames for animation. You can even turn a picture into pixel art.
- Code: snap blocks together like in Scratch. Start with an event (when the world runs, when tapped, when a player touches me, when a key is pressed nearby, when I hear a message), then add motion, looks, sounds, effects and player blocks. Make it bounce players, play music, talk, glow at night or shoot fireworks.
- The test stage runs your code as you build it. Drag the little builder around to test touches.
Building a screen
Screens are panels written in HTML and CSS: signs, menus, banners, pixel art in SVG, little info boards with folding sections. CSS animations work. Screens can't run scripts, open links or load anything from the internet, so they're always safe to look at; anything like that is removed, and the editor tells you what it took out. Paste pictures in as data:image.
Try it before you publish
Tap Try it on the map and your creation appears where you're standing, already running, only for you. Drag it where you want it, go back and edit more, then Publish and everyone can see it.
Edit, move, remix, smash, rebuild
- Tap anything to see who made it. Anyone can edit it, move it, remix it into a copy of their own, or smash it.
- A smashed thing turns into ruins for an hour, and anyone can rebuild it. After that it's gone for good.
- Give hearts to the things you love. The lists show what's happening live, the most loved builds, the newest, and the top builders, wreckers and fixers.
Painting the ground
Pick Paint to change the ground: grass, meadow, sand, water, lava, stone paths, wood floors, brick, marble and more, with three brush sizes. Painting with Natural puts the land back the way it was.
Staying safe
Chat and every word in a build go through a strict filter: no rude words, names, numbers, places or ways to contact someone. Report anything that isn't OK; three reports hide it until the Hiro team checks. Builders who break the rules can be stopped from building and chatting.
Always on
The world never resets. What you build stays until someone changes it, and sprites run their code for everyone who walks by. A day lasts 20 minutes, and night falls for everyone at once.