PNG-supporting Games and Entertainment Applications

Games and Entertainment Applications with PNG Support

Applications listed here include games and game engines, screen savers, fractal generators, hobby programs, and so forth. Most of them only read or only write PNG images.

As with the other PNG-applications pages, links to home WWW sites or to downloadable versions are provided where known, but if a link is broken, check the location and see if an updated version is available (and please tell Greg!). Relevant operating systems are printed in (parenthesized italics).

These are listed alphabetically, more or less:

AdvanceMAME [Andrea Mazzoleni et al.] (DOS, Win32/SDL, Linux/SDL) - all versions? read/write; MNG support (write-only) as of version 0.58.0; freeware (GPL) with source. (This is a "port of the MAME, MESS, and PacMAME emulators for [fixed-frequency monitors,] arcade monitors and TVs, but also for normal PC monitors." PNG appears to be supported as a format for certain game elements and for screenshots; MNG is supported as a "video" format for recording gameplay. Versions 0.58.0 through 0.61.1 also included the zmng [and probably zpng] recompression utility(ies); they are now known as AdvanceMNG and AdvancePNG and are part of the AdvanceSCAN package, listed on the converters page.)
AdvanceMENU [Andrea Mazzoleni et al.] (DOS, Win32/SDL, Linux/SDL) - version 1.9.0(?) and later; read-only; MNG support; freeware (GPL) with source. (This is a graphical front end for AdvanceMAME, MAME, and other arcade emulators. It displays PNG images and MNG animations as thumbnails for launching various games.)
Aleph One [Jason McGuiness] (Win32) - all versions; read/write; uses libpng and zlib; freeware. (This is a fractal generator with truecolor and multiprocessor support. It can read the images it creates and therefore has some image-viewing capabilities.)
ampsig [Cor and PCheese] (PHP/gd) - all versions; write-only; alpha support; requires gd, libpng, and zlib; freeware with source. (This is a "dynamic signature generator," i.e., a webserver-based tool that can generate a graphical, personalized signature block for attachment to forum postings, etc. It is designed to connect to music players and thus include information about what the owner is currently listening to, but it can also include simple information such as the time/date, the server's uptime, the requestor's IP address, etc.)
Art Wall [Ulead Systems] (Windows 3.x) - all versions; read-only; 1.5MB. (This is a screen saver.)
BeadPlan [3-D Software / Carlos Portela and Anita Coleman] (Win32) - version 2.0 and later; read/write; uses Victor Image Processing Library and zlib. (This is just what it says: a program for planning bead patterns. It can export a final plan as a PNG image or use an existing PNG image as a background for conversion to a bead graph, which need not be an ordinary rectangular grid. This product has been discontinued.)
Blitz3D - see the toolkits and libraries page
Ca3D-Engine [Carsten Fuchs] (Win32, Linux/X) - all versions? read-only? freeware/commercial. (This is an OpenGL-based 3D game engine; PNG is supported as a texture format.)
Circus Linux [New Breed Software] (Linux/X, Win32, BeOS, Mac OS X, Mac OS, QNX, MorphOS, Dreamcast, etc.) - version 0.0.3 and later; read-only; freeware (GPL) with source. (This is a game modeled on an Atari 2600 classic, `Circus Atari.' It uses PNG images for its bitmaps.)
ClanLib - see the toolkits and libraries page
Crystal Space - see the toolkits and libraries page
EasySok [Ralf Schmelter] (Unix/KDE3) - all versions? write-only; MNG support; requires Qt, libmng and zlib; freeware (GPL) with source. (This is a version of the Sokoban puzzle-game. Played games may be saved as a sequence of PNGs [deprecated] or as a single MNG animation [preferred]. A sample MNG is available here [131k], albeit with the wrong MIME type.)
Fandango [Alexander Hildyard / Digital Workshop] (Win32) - all versions; read-only; commercial. (This is a program to create screen savers.)
Fractal Domains [Dennis C. De Mars] (Mac PPC) - version 1.2.2 and later; write-only; shareware.
FreeCraft - see Stratagus below
Fyre [David Trowbridge and Micah Dowty] (Unix/GTK+, Win32/GTK+) - all versions? write-only; requires gdk-pixbuf, libpng, and zlib; freeware (GPL) with C source. (This is a "tool for producing computational artwork based on histograms of iterated chaotic functions," i.e., a chaos visualizer. It was originally known as de Jong Explorer.)
GF1 [Kurt Van den Branden] (Linux, Win32) - version 1.02 and later; write-only; requires gd, libpng and zlib; freeware (GPL) with source. (This is "GIPF for One," a solitaire version of the strategy game GIPF. It allows the player to save the board position as a PNG image.)
gfract [Osku Salerma] (Unix/GTK+) - all versions; write-only; freeware with source. (This is a fractal generator with color-cycling and anti-aliasing.)
Gliftic [Ransen Software] (Win32) - all versions; write-mostly; commercial. (This is a utility to generate abstract images parametrically; it can be used to create tiles, CD labels, or standalone images. Its PNG support is primarily for writing generated images, but it can also read PNGs to the limited extent of extracting color information ["color schemes"] for the generation process.)
Glito [Emmanuel Debanne] (Unix/X, Win32) - all versions; write-only? MNG support; requires FLTK, libmng, libpng, and zlib; freeware (GPL) with source. (This is an "explorer of two-dimensional Iterated Function Systems" [IFSes, one type of fractals]. It can produce both static images in PNG format and animated sequences in MNG format.)
GLtron [Andreas Umbach] (Linux/X, Win32, Mac OS, Mac OS X) - all versions? read-only? requires SDL, libpng, and zlib; freeware (GPL) with source. (This is an OpenGL version of the TRON lightcycle game. All of its textures are PNG images.)
Glulxe [Andrew Plotkin, David Kinder, and others] (Win32, Mac?) - all versions? read-only; freeware with source. (This is the interpreter for Andrew Plotkin's Glulx, a portable, 32-bit virtual machine for interactive fiction [like Adventure or Zork]. PNG is supported as an image resource in at least the Windows version and possibly the Mac version, but, as of September 1999, not the Unix version. See also the Glulx archive and Glk on the toolkits page.)
GNU Backgammon [Gary Wong, Joseph Heled, Jørn Thyssen, Øystein Johansen, Jim Segrave, David Montgomery] (Unix/GTK+, Win32) - versions since 30 November 2002? write-only; freeware (GPL) with source. (This is a backgammon game that can export board snapshots in PNG format.)
Graal [Linux Cyberjoueurs] (Win32, Linux/X, Mac OS X) - version 2 and later; read-only; MNG support; alpha support; uses libmng (version 3 only) and zlib; freeware. (This is a massively multiplayer online role-playing game [MMORPG] that uses PNG images for tiled artwork and widgets and MNG animations for emoticons.)
GraFX Saver [CDH Productions] (Win32) - version 2.5(?) and later; read-only? commercial. (This is a screen saver. It also claims to have MNG support, but reportedly that is limited to reading single PNGs wrapped in MNG headers--i.e., its MNG support is virtually non-existent.)
Hyperplay [Kaz Sasayama] (Unix/GTK+, Win32, OS/2) - version 1.1.11 and later; read/write? freeware (GPL as of version 1.3, LGPL before) with source. (This is a "multimedia authoring engine designed for graphical adventure-style games." Version 1.1 was the final release to support OS/2 and Windows. Version 1.3 and later releases support only POSIX systems, primarily Linux.)
HyperTADS [Iain Merrick and Andrew Pontious] (Mac OS) - version 1.3(?) and later; read-only; requires QuickTime 3 or later; freeware. (This is a Macintosh implementation of the "Text Adventure Development System," a toolkit for creating interactive fiction; see TADS below for details.)
JavaBrot [Thomas Middelkoop] (Java/Win32, Java/Linux, etc.) - all versions; write-only; uses libpng and zlib; freeware with Java/C source.
Juggle Saver [Envision] (BeOS) - all versions; read-only; commercial? (This is a screen saver.)
mapdraw [David Haslam] (Unix, etc.) - all versions; write-only; requires libpng and zlib; freeware with source. (This is a tiny utility to convert Wolfenstein 3D game maps to either text or PNG format. It may also be known as mapdump.)
Murals [PixVision Software] (Win32) - version 2.00(?) and later; read-only; shareware. (This is a multiformat wallpaper-changer. There is also a 16-bit Windows version, but it doesn't support PNG and doesn't seem to be available for download anyway.)
nwrk-matrix [NeuroWork] (Unix, etc.) - version 0.8 and later; read-only; freeware (GPL) with source. (This is a mildly amusing entertainment app for ANSI terminals; it shows the animated green dropping-characters effect from The Matrix. PNG is supported as one of the two formats for the masks it uses, although as of version 0.9.2, the support is still a bit unstable. This product has vanished.)
PilotGOne [Brian Brunswick, Sylvain Soliman, et al.] (Palm OS) - version 0.8.0 and later; read-only; freeware (GPL) with source. (This is a Go [a.k.a. WeiQi/Wei-Ch'i, Baduk] implementation and recording/playback utility for Go games.)
Projector [Nun's Meadow Software] (Win32) - version 1.5f and later; read-only; shareware. (This is a screen saver / slideshow tool.)
Pueblo/UE [Michael Roberts] (Win32) - version 2.60 and later; read-only; MNG support; full alpha support (via the OS--currently Windows 98/ME/2k/XP only); freeware with source. (This is a "multimedia MUD/MUSH/MOO/MUX (MU*) client," i.e., the user end of a multi-user, client-server gaming system. It can also act as a plain telnet client.)
Puzzlemaker [Network Solution Developers] (WWW/CGI) - November 1998 and later; write-only; freeware. (This is a web-based puzzle-generator that now uses PNG format for its automatically created puzzles. Unfortunately the site also uses the Microsoft IIS 4.0 web server, which enforces a very strict HTTP header syntax; since all versions of Netscape Navigator prior to 4.51 have a typo in the PNG part of their Accept headers -- i.e., a missing comma -- the server refuses to return anything to these older versions and the generated images appear broken. Upgrade to 4.51 or later to avoid the problem.)
Pygame [Pete Shinners] (Win32, Mac OS, Mac OS X, BeOS, Unix) - all versions? read/write? full alpha support? requires SDL, libpng and zlib; freeware (LGPL) with source. (This is a Python-based multimedia library/toolkit written on top of SDL. It is primarily used for games, although there are also image viewers and other applications written with it.)
Quat [Dirk Meyer] (Unix/FLTK, Win32/FLTK) - all versions? read/write; requires zlib; freeware (GPL) with C/C++ source. (This is a generator of 3D quaternionic fractals. PNG is its sole image format, and it includes an independent C implementation of PNG-encoding/decoding functions. Development appears to have ceased in late 2002.)
ScreenPaver [Michael Lindell] (Win32) - version 3.0 and later; read-only; shareware. (This is a "make-your-own slideshow screen saver.")
Slides Shower [Chris Doan] (Windows 3.x, Win32) - registered version 2.1a and later; read-only; shareware. (This is a "multimedia screen saver" that can also print to a Windows printer; the link points at the shareware version.)
Sphere [Chad Austin] (Win32) - versions since April 2000; read/write; full alpha support; freeware with source. (This is a role-playing game (RPG) engine "specialized for making 2D, console-style RPGs." The engine uses PNG images for its tiles and sprites and is read-only, but the included sprite/tile editor saves in PNG format. There's also a SourceForge page with CVS access that doesn't appear to be linked anywhere on the main site.)
Spore [Maxis] (Win32, Mac OS X) - all versions; read/write? commercial (coming). (This is a "god game" similar to The Sims or Civilization. PNG support is claimed to be a fundamental part of the "Sporepedia"; all information about each creature will be contained within its PNG file.)
Stereograph [Fabian Januszewski] (Linux) - version 0.17 and later; read/write; alpha support; requires libpng and zlib; freeware (GPL) with source. (This is a "magic eye"-style [or RDS] stereogram generator that can use PNG images as textures for stereograms and can write the finished results as PNG files.)
Stereoptica [Daniel White] (Win32, Unix, etc.) - all versions; read/write; requires FreeImage, libpng and zlib; freeware (for non-commercial use) with C++ source. (This is a 3D anaglyph generator [red/green glasses] that can use pairs of PNG images as sources for stereograms and can write the finished results as PNG files.)
Stratagus [Stratagus developers / Lutz "Johns" Sammer et al.] (Linux, Win32, BSD, BeOS, Mac OS X, etc.) - all versions; read/write; requires libpng and zlib; freeware (GPL) with source. (This is a two-dimensional, cell-based strategy-game engine similar to that of Warcraft or Starcraft, except the sprites and other graphics are in PNG format. The resulting games themselves are read-only [with respect to PNG], but the source archive also contains tools to allow game designers to convert images to PNG format [write-support]. Stratagus is a fork of the [now-dead] FreeCraft project, as are Wargus, ProjectInferno, and Aleona's Tales.)
Strifeshadow: Tournament Edition [Ethermoon Entertainment] (Win32) - all versions; write-only; commercial. (This is a 2.5-dimensional "real-time strategy" game. PNG is supported as a screenshot format.) (coming Q1 2001)
Sympathy Crossword Grid Construction [Bryson Limited / Ross Beresford] (Win32) - version 1.5 and later; write-only; commercial. (This is exactly what its name suggests, a program to create crossword puzzles. It can publish the finished puzzles in PNG format for the Web. A 16-bit Windows 3.x port may also exist, but it wasn't available as of July 2000.)
TaBazar [Peer Smola] (Win32) - version 2.1 and later; write-only; commercial. (This is a "10-track tab[lature] editor and MIDI player for guitar and other string[ed] instruments." Edited sheet music can be exported in PNG format.)
TADS [Michael Roberts] (Win32) - version 2.2(?) and later (HTML TADS only); read-only; transparency support as of version 2.5.4; full alpha support as of version 2.5.6 (via the OS--currently Windows 98/ME/2k/XP only); MNG support as of version 2.5.6; freeware with source. (This is the "Text Adventure Development System," a toolkit for creating interactive fiction similar to Adventure, Zork, etc. There is both a text-only version and an HTML-based version; the latter supports images and animations, including PNG and MNG. Note that the current development version, 3.0.4, does not yet include alpha or MNG support.)
TADSMap [Andrew Pontious] (Win32, Mac OS, etc.) - all versions; read-only; requires a sufficiently recent HTML-TADS interpreter; freeware with TADS source. (This is a dynamic mapping module for text adventure systems. It uses PNG images and HTML to symbolically show a player's immediate surroundings in a game.)
Torque Game Engine SDK [GarageGames.com] (Win32, Mac OS, Mac OS X) - all versions; read/write; full alpha support; uses libpng and zlib; commercial. (This is the Dynamix-developed game engine at the heart of Tribes 2, below, and originally was known as the V12 Game Engine SDK. It supports OpenGL and DirectX, networking, physics, etc. PNG is supported as a texture format [with alpha used for transparency or reflectance maps], as the basis for the GUI, and as an output format for screenshots and the integrated tools. Linux and OpenBSD ports are "under development.")
Tribes 2 [Dynamix / Sierra On-Line] (Win32) - all versions; read-only; full alpha support? commercial. (This is a multiplayer, OpenGL-based 3D game that uses the Torque Game Engine, above, and 32-bit PNG images for textures.)
V12 Game Engine SDK - see Torque Game Engine SDK above
V-Chat [Microsoft] (Win32) - version 1.1(?) and later; read-only. (This is an avatar-based chat system; the avatars are stored in PNG format.)
WallShow [Jim Lawless] (Win32) - version 1.30(?) and later; read-only; shareware. (This is a "wallpaper slideshow"; it can sequentially display various image formats as the desktop background.)
WWplus32 [Arcata Pet Software] (Win32) - version 3.0(?) and later; read-only; shareware. (This is a "wallpaper manager/changer"; it can sequentially display various image formats as the desktop background.)
WWSaver32 [Arcata Pet Software] (Win32) - version 3.0(?) and later; read-only; shareware. (This is a screensaver that displays image archives, including PNG format, optionally with associated audio.)
XaoS [Jan Hubicka et al.] (Unix/X, Amiga, BeOS, DOS, Hurd, Macintosh, OS/2, plan9) - version 3.0 and later; write-only; freeware (GPL) with source. (This is a "fast, portable, real-time, interactive fractal zoomer.")

Here are some related PNG pages at this site:

Last modified 14 March 2009.