Some of you might remember me 'cause of that pixel art book I wrote, and the rest of you are probably better off if you don't...

But I'm here to admit another pixel fetish I harbour: 8x8 arcade fonts.

Over the last four weeks or so I've been ripping and collating arcade fonts, and I hacked up a little Font Engine tool so you can create and play with the thing.

Each font has a complete alphabet, often with lower case and most with at least a functional set of punctuation. In addition, if you're bored, you can read my commentary on most of 'em. Sadly it's mostly me gushing about how awesome giant pixels and small fonts are...

if that sort of thing excites you like it does me, I've released the PHP code for your free use and abuse. You can keep up to date with new fonts and changes to the code here.

Here's a mostly-complete sampler of the fonts I've assembled so far:



Edited by NFG - 05 March 2009 at 5:52pm

WTF happened there? Thanks for pointing that out, zennext. I've fixed the original post.

Also, since posting that, I've put up a list of all fonts for your quick reference.

Namco did use the same font for most of their games, but they're not alone: Atari, Konami Taito, Capcom, SNK and pretty much everyone has used it as well. Even on newer, modern or 3D games you'll find the same font with more pixels.

A couple of big upgrades to the script today. I worked out a method for listing every font in a row, as well as a counter for tallying up the current font total. And Twystneko put together a word-balloon mod for his shmups scene generator, and it's all available now:



(EDIT: fixed the images. Hotlinking to the fine pixeljoint establishment is now allowed. =))

So, the current font count is amazing fonteroonies. Here's the list!





Edited by NFG - 20 March 2009 at 12:22am

Fantasy Zone, Raiden Figthers & Armored warriors, my favorites so far.

I'm still at it. =)

The German game mag GEE mentioned the font machine recently, much to my happiness.

Also, Added three... five... nine new fonts:

*

That's the alien-looking font from Taito's Bubble Memories.

<- Great game!

And two more from the same game. Sadly the non-alien 8x8 font is just the regular arcade font everyone uses, so I didn't bother.

*
*

Finally, worked out support for large fonts in a way that doesn't break the font machine, and re-added two Alien vs Predator fonts:

*
*
*
*
*

As always, you can download the code if this sort of thing excites you as much as it does me. =D

So that's 111 8x8 fonts and counting. <3 them pixels.

Very nice Font Engine tool... I bookmarked it, I might spread the word with some of my friends, since it's pretty cool. I hope this keeps getting further updates, I'm curious to check what comes up next.