2d-assets-mcp

Design your game's feel before you design its art.

Just like wireframing helps designers visualize user flows before start sketching, 2d-assets-mcp helps game developers visualize timing, frames-per-second (FPS), collision boundaries, and UI layouts before spending hours on final artwork.

This MCP (Model Context Protocol) server lets any AI assistant (Antigravity, Claude Code, Codex, Devin, or any of them as long as it's MCP-compatible) generate advanced 2D mock/placeholder assets in PNG format right into your project folder. Save time and prototype faster, nail your game's feel with 2d-assets-mcp, and then replace the mockups with original artwork when you are ready.

This MCP is engine-agnostic and it works flawlessly with any game engine that supports PNG import, like:

• Godot
• Unity
• Unreal Engine
• GameMaker
• Construct
• RPG Maker
• And many more!

Save time and create placeholder health bars, spritesheets, and whatever UI elements you can think of with full support for gradients, patterns, transparency, text rotation, and auto-scaling, all via chat and without ever opening an image editor. The idea behind it is to help you test and iterate how your game feels first by prototiping scale, jump arcs, and animation timing without waiting on final art assets, and also with zero friction: Need that placeholder button to be 20% larger? Just ask your AI client to regenerate it.

[!TIP] 2d-assets-mcp has AI-Friendly Metadata → meaning each generated PNG embeds rich JSON metadata (dimensions, color, shape, gradient properties, pattern details, text properties, stroke properties, description) directly in its EXIF data, so AI models without vision can still understand what an asset contains.

Generated Assets Examples

Here are some example assets generated by this MCP server:

Character Sprites & Animations

Hero Idle Animation (8 frames, 512x64)

8-frame idle animation spritesheet with effect

UI Elements

Attack Button (128×48)

Button with red gradient, rounded corners, and "ATTACK" label

Health Bar (200×24)

Health bar at 75% fill with green color and dark gray track

Game Items

Gold Coin (32×32)

Circular coin with radial gradient, dot pattern overlay, and "COIN" label

Grass and water

Trees

Animation Spritesheets

Fire animation (4 frames, 192x48)

4-frame spritesheet

Security Considerations

Asset Content

• Generated assets are pure placeholder graphics and they do not contain malicious code.
• Embedded metadata is plain JSON and is not executable.

Because this MCP server writes files directly to your machine to save you time, please review these security best practices:

File System Access

• The server can write files to any path specified by the AI assistant.
• Recommendation: Configure your AI client to restrict access strictly to your game's project directories.
• Warning: Be cautious when asking the AI to generate assets outside your project directory.

Path Traversal

• This server validates paths, but you should always be aware of potential path traversal attempts when dealing with MCP servers, and review generated file paths before confirming operations.

Overall Best Practices

• Use absolute paths in configurations to prevent ambiguity.
• Restrict AI access to your game project directory only.
• Review generated assets before committing to version control.
• Keep your Node.js dependencies updated.

Core Features

• Instant asset generation: one tool call, one PNG, full visual configuration.
• Spritesheet & Batch mode: generate multiple frames or composite them into a single animation-strip spritesheet in one request.
• Rich visuals: support for solid fills, linear/radial gradients, stripe/dot/grid pattern overlays, rounded corners, circles, opacity, and stroke control.
• Dynamic UI Elements: create partially filled progress/health bars using fillPercent and trackColor for partially-filled assets.
• Auto-scaling labels: text automatically scales to fit the asset, or you can override it with explicit fontSize if needed.
• Non-vision AI friendly: embedded JSON metadata readable back via read_image_metadata, without loading image pixels, ideal for non-vision AI workflows.
• Smart naming: output files are automatically named with their dimensions (e.g. player_idle_128x128.png) to help models with no vision know the dimensions when using the asset.

Tools Reference

This MCP server equips your AI with 3 tools to generate and read 2D asset metadata.

1. generate_mock_asset

Generates a single PNG asset and writes it to the disk. It supports gradients, patterns, transparency, text rotation, and embedded metadata.

[!NOTE] Output filename format

The server automatically appends the dimensions to the filename before writing:

player_idle.png  →  player_idle_128x128.png

2. generate_mock_asset_batch

Generates multiple assets in one request. Supports individual PNGs or a single composed spritesheet.

[!NOTE] Spritesheet layout

All assets are arranged in a single row (traditional animation strip). Each frame cell is sized to the largest asset in the batch; smaller assets are centered within their cell. The output filename includes the total sheet dimensions:

player_run.png  →  player_run_648x136.png

3. read_image_metadata

Reads the JSON metadata embedded in the EXIF ImageDescription field of any PNG generated by this server. Useful for AI models that lack vision, because they can understand what an asset contains without decoding the image.

How metadata embedding works

Metadata is stored as a JSON string in the PNG's EXIF IFD0.ImageDescription field using the sharp library's withMetadata API.

Reading it back uses a deliberate bypass of standard TIFF byte-walking: instead of parsing the binary TIFF structure, the raw EXIF buffer is scanned as a UTF-8 string for the known "generator":"2d-assets-mcp" key, then the surrounding JSON object is extracted. This makes the reader immune to TIFF padding, byte-order variations, and unusual IFD layouts across different PNG writers.

{
  "generator": "2d-assets-mcp",
  "type": "asset",
  "name": "player_idle",
  "width": 128,
  "height": 128,
  "color": "#4A90E2",
  "shape": "rounded-rectangle",
  "fillMode": "linear-gradient",
  "fillPercent": 100,
  "trackColor": null,
  "pattern": "none",
  "secondaryColor": "#2E5A8A",
  "gradientAngle": 45,
  "textRotation": 0,
  "textPosition": "center",
  "strokeColor": "#000000",
  "strokeWidth": 4,
  "description": "Player idle placeholder, blue rounded rectangle 128x128",
  "createdAt": "2025-01-15T10:30:00.000Z"
}

{
  "generator": "2d-assets-mcp",
  "type": "spritesheet",
  "totalWidth": 648,
  "totalHeight": 136,
  "columns": 4,
  "rows": 1,
  "frameCount": 4,
  "frameWidth": 128,
  "frameHeight": 128,
  "margin": 8,
  "spacing": 8,
  "frames": [
    {
      "index": 0,
      "x": 8,
      "y": 8,
      "width": 128,
      "height": 128,
      "name": "frame_0",
      "color": "#4A90E2",
      "shape": "rounded-rectangle"
    }
  ],
  "createdAt": "2025-01-15T10:30:00.000Z"
}

Example Prompts for Your AI

Once connected to an AI coding assistant, try these prompts to speed up your workflow:

Single asset

"Create a 128×128 blue rounded-rectangle placeholder for my player character at C:\Users\me\project\assets\sprites\ (Windows) or /home/me/project/assets/sprites/ (Linux) or /Users/me/project/assets/sprites/ (macOS). Label it 'Player' and give it a radial gradient."

Health bar

"Generate a health bar PNG at 200×24 pixels, filled 65%, thin stroke, red fill color, dark gray track, at your project's UI folder. Call the file health_bar.png."

Spritesheet

"Create a 4-frame run cycle spritesheet for my player. Each frame should be 64×64, different shades of blue, labeled Frame 1 through Frame 4. Save it to my project's sprites folder."

Read metadata

"Read the metadata from my project's sprites folder, file player_idle_128x128.png."

Installation

Option 1: Use directly with npx (no install required)

The fastest way to connect it to any AI coding assistant:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "2d-assets": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "2d-assets-mcp"]
    }
  }
}

Option 2: Manual installation with package manager (pnpm, npm, yarn)

1. Clone the repository

git clone https://github.com/crony-io/2d-assets-mcp.git
cd 2d-assets-mcp

2. Install dependencies

pnpm install   # recommended
# or: npm install
# or: yarn install

3. Build the project

pnpm run build
# or: npm run build
# or: yarn run build

4. Configure your MCP client

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "2d-assets-mcp": {
      "command": "node",
      "args": ["/absolute/path/to/2d-assets-mcp/dist/index.js"]
    }
  }
}

Option 3: Install globally with pnpm or npm

This project works with any Node.js package manager. Choose your preferred one:

npm

npm install -g 2d-assets-mcp

pnpm

pnpm add -g 2d-assets-mcp

Then reference the installed binary:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "2d-assets": {
      "command": "2d-assets-mcp"
    }
  }
}

Claude Code / Claude Desktop

Add to your Claude Code/Claude Desktop MCP settings:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "2d-assets-mcp": {
      "command": "node",
      "args": ["/absolute/path/to/2d-assets-mcp/dist/index.js"]
    }
  }
}

Devin

Add to your Devin MCP settings (mcp_config.json):

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "2d-assets-mcp": {
      "command": "node",
      "args": ["/absolute/path/to/2d-assets-mcp/dist/index.js"],
      "disabled": false
    }
  }
}

Cursor

Create .cursor/mcp.json in your project:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "2d-assets-mcp": {
      "command": "node",
      "args": ["/absolute/path/to/2d-assets-mcp/dist/index.js"]
    }
  }
}

Development

Prerequisites

• Node.js 18 or later
• pnpm 8 or later or npm 9 or later (any package manager works)

Setup

git clone https://github.com/crony-io/2d-assets-mcp.git
cd 2d-assets-mcp
# Choose your package manager:
pnpm install   # recommended
# or
npm install
# or
yarn install

Scripts

Adding a new tool

1. Create src/tools/yourTool.ts and export a registerYourTool(server: McpServer) function
2. Import and call it in src/server.ts
3. Add any new Zod schemas to src/schemas.ts and types to src/types.ts

License

MIT — see LICENSE for full text.

Contributing

Issues and pull requests are always welcome. Just please, before you open a PR make sure to:

1. Run pnpm run check or npm run check (zero errors required).
2. Keep new tools in their own file under src/tools/.
3. Export new types from src/types.ts and schemas from src/schemas.ts.
4. Update this README's Tools Reference section for any new or changed parameters.