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yzdnn/qiuyeyuanti-16

★ 21Audience · designerComplexity · 1/5Setup · easy

TLDR

A free 16px rounded pixel font for Chinese text, extending a Japanese base font with simplified and traditional Chinese characters for retro games and pixel art.

Mindmap

mindmap
  root((repo))
    What it does
      16px pixel font
      Rounded stroke style
      Chinese characters added
      Fixes base font errors
    Tech stack
      Font files
      Pixel art tooling
    Use cases
      Retro game text
      Pixel art projects
      Chinese localization
    Audience
      Game developers
      Pixel artists
      Indie creators
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Code map

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Things people build with this

USE CASE 1

Add readable Chinese text to a retro-style game that needs a 16px pixel font.

USE CASE 2

Use in pixel art projects where Chinese characters must match a rounded, nostalgic aesthetic.

USE CASE 3

Localize an existing game or tool into Chinese without losing the pixel art look.

USE CASE 4

Replace missing or broken Chinese glyphs in projects that relied on the original Japanese base font.

Tech stack

FontPixel Art

Getting it running

Difficulty · easy Time to first run · 5min

Download the font file and install it or reference it in your project. No build tools required. Font is actively updated, check issues for known missing characters.

Free to use, no license terms explicitly stated in the explanation.

In plain English

QiuYeYuanTi 16 is a free pixel font designed for Chinese text. It is built on top of a Japanese pixel font called KH Dot Akihabara 16, extending it with a large set of simplified and traditional Chinese characters that were not included in the original. The font renders at 16 pixels tall, which is a common size for retro-style graphics and games. The style is "rounded" (yuan ti in Chinese), meaning the corners of each character's strokes are gently curved rather than sharp. The author notes that rounded pixel fonts for Chinese have been rare, and this project was created to fill that gap. Compared to the base font, this version also corrects some incorrect character shapes and slightly adjusts the internal spacing of characters to keep them looking visually balanced. The intended uses are pixel art projects and game localization work, where text needs to fit a retro aesthetic while still being readable in Chinese. The font is still being actively updated, and the author invites feedback on missing or incorrect characters through the GitHub issues page. The project is described as unfinished, so new characters and fixes continue to be added over time.

Copy-paste prompts

Prompt 1
I'm building a retro pixel art game and want to display Chinese text. How do I integrate the QiuYeYuanTi 16 font into my project so it renders correctly at 16px?
Prompt 2
I'm using QiuYeYuanTi 16 for Chinese localization in my indie game. Which characters are still missing or being worked on, and how do I report a wrong character shape?
Prompt 3
Show me how to load QiuYeYuanTi 16 in a simple HTML canvas game so that both simplified and traditional Chinese characters display in the rounded pixel style.
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