Today we are looking at Bitmelo, a free and open source browser based game engine for creating simple pixel art games. It contains all of the tools you need to create a complete game including a graphics editor, map editor, sound creator and programming environment, all in one place.
Bitmelo is described as follows:
Bitmelo is a game editor and engine for making small pixel art games right here in your browser. This editor has everything you need to develop a game in one convenient location. You can code, draw tiles and tilemaps, design sound effects, view the documentation, and playtest your game, all without having to break focus by switching applications. Once complete you can then export your game as a single HTML file.
Bitmelo is currently in early access. Right now it has everything you need to make a minimal game, however many more features are planned for the future.
The underlying JavaScript game engine is available on GitHub under the MIT license, while the editor is available in a different GitHub repository under a different license, described as such:
The Bitmelo editor is licensed using a source available license. This license allows you to download the source for personal use, but does not allow you to distribute it to third parties. In addition, three years after the release of each version of the editor, that version is dual licensed to use the GNU Affero General Public License.
In addition to being able to run it directly in your browser, you can also download the editor as an Electron application on Itch.io. Learn more about Bitmelo and see it in action in the video below.