Deluxe Pixel
A modern Deluxe Paint for retro game developers. Draw within the real limits of the ZX Spectrum, Next, C64, Amiga, CPC and more — their palettes, pixel shapes and colour clash — with the tools and feel of DPaint III, at the speed of a modern PC.
Buy · from £15 Free demo Guide KeysThe free demo is the full program with limits: every tool works, but with 3 layers, one palette set and no native machine exports until you register. Your files are always yours to open and save.
Latest version: 2.18
Deluxe Paint, for retro game developers
Deluxe Pixel brings back the tools and the feel of Deluxe Paint III, the painting program a generation of game artists grew up with, and makes them aware of the machine you're drawing for.
Choose a ZX Spectrum, a Spectrum Next, a C64, an Amiga, an Amstrad CPC, an Atari ST, a Mega Drive or a Master System, and a screen mode. Your palette, pixel shape and colour rules follow the real hardware, so what you draw is what the machine can show.
Bring in any picture (PNG, JPEG, BMP, GIF, IFF, or the machines' own files) and convert it to any machine, colour clash and all, with a live preview. Or export straight to the machine you need: the Export window shows every format and converts as it goes.
And when you want to paint freely, true-colour pictures give you 16 million colours and real translucency, with every tool, ready to fit to a machine when the art is done.
It's fast, Windows-native and light: one program file, light and dark themes that follow Windows, dockable panels, and drawing that feels instant.
Everything you know from DPaint, and more
The DPaint toolbox
Freehand, lines, curves, rectangles, circles, ellipses, polygons, fill, airbrush and text — with the same keys.
Real machines
Spectrum, Next, C64, Amiga, CPC, ST, MSX, Mega Drive and more, with real palettes, pixel shapes and colour cells — or define your own.
Colour clash, handled
Spectrum and C64 attribute cells: clashes highlighted live, paint that clashes like the hardware, and a one-click fixer.
Palettes and cycling
A colour mixer that mixes like real paint, a colour editor in hardware steps, a palette library, and colour cycling.
Paint modes and filters
Shade, blend and smear, gradient fills and dithering, plus live filters: outlines, auto-shading, clean rotation, Scale2x.
Brushes
Pick up any part of the picture as a brush, flip, rotate, outline, stretch, shear — or tile it as a pattern fill.
Layers and animation
Up to 32 layers, frames with onion skins, Deluxe Paint's animated brushes, GIF export, and sprites built from hardware pieces, on a Timeline.
Tiles, consoles, exports
Tile maps with parallax layers, tile sets from pictures up to 16,384 wide, a palette per tile, and exports for the Spectrum, Next, C64, ST, Amiga, Mega Drive and SNES.
3D models to sprites
Turn STL, OBJ or glTF models into sprite frames in 4, 8 or 16 directions, lit, dithered and animated, the way classic games pre-rendered theirs.
Print and PDF
Print or save as PDF: the picture, every frame, numbered tiles, a storyboard sheet, a whole map or the palette.
Scripts and plugins
Record macros, write Luau scripts with a real editor and debugger, and add your own menus, panels and filters as plugins.
AI access
Ask your own AI assistant (Claude, OpenAI, Gemini or a local model) from inside Deluxe Pixel, or let MCP assistants drive it: the same commands as scripts, your say on what it may do, and every change undoable.
Read the full guide every tool, every key
Buy Deluxe Pixel
Introductory price: buy now and your licence is for life. The price and the licence terms may change for future buyers; what you buy now stays yours.
Try it first: download Deluxe Pixel for the Windows PC — a demo until it's registered: every tool, with limits (3 layers, one palette set, no native exports), then the full program.
Digital edition
A registration code by email, the moment you've paid. Worldwide.
Prices include VAT where it applies; the checkout shows your local price.
A personal licence: for individuals, and companies of up to 10 people. It can't be used for work for a larger organisation, even if you bought it yourself. Larger organisations.
Our order process for digital orders is conducted by our online reseller Paddle.com. Paddle.com is the Merchant of Record for all our digital orders. Paddle provides all customer service inquiries and handles returns for them.
Boxed edition UK only
A boxed copy of Deluxe Pixel with its registration card, posted by Royal Mail Tracked 48.
plus £5 postage · UK addresses only · dispatched within 14 days (usually within 3 working days)
Boxed copies are sold by Kage Games Limited, paid through PayPal. See the terms for delivery and returns.
For studios and companies
One licence covers everyone who works for your organisation, employees and regular contractors alike, wherever they work, on as many PCs as they use. It's one code, tied to your email domain: each person registers it with their own work address (we add contractors' own addresses on request). It renews each year until you cancel, and you can cancel at any time: it then runs to the end of the year you've paid for. Paddle sends your invoices. Organisation copies check in with us about once a month.
Studio licence
For organisations of 11 to 50 people.
Plus VAT where it applies; the checkout shows your local price.
Company licence
For organisations of more than 50 people.
Plus VAT where it applies; the checkout shows your local price.
Education licence
For students and staff of a school, college or university, for teaching and learning. Not for commercial work.
It registers only to a school, college or university email address.
Your institution's address isn't recognised, or you're a code club? Contact us and we'll sort it out.
What you get
- A registration code that unlocks the full version of Deluxe Pixel: a lifetime licence, at the introductory price.
- The full version: every native export retro developers ship (Spectrum .scr; Next .nxi, Layer 2, .pal, .spr, .map and .til; C64 Koala and Art Studio; Atari ST Degas; Mega Drive and SNES tiles, maps and palettes; sprites for 12 machines; raw data and source; tile maps), up to 32 layers, 256 palette sets, as many views as you like, tile sets of any size, and AI access (Claude and other MCP assistants can use Deluxe Pixel).
- Deluxe Pixel itself is one free download, DPixel.exe: a demo until it's registered, then the full program. Nothing to install.
- The full guide, online: Deluxe Pixel guide, the scripting reference and a printable keys cheat sheet.
How it works
- Try the free demo first, to make sure Deluxe Pixel runs on your PC.
- Buy above. The digital edition's registration code is emailed to you; the boxed edition's is on the card in the box.
- In Deluxe Pixel, open Help > Register and enter your email address and the code. Click the link we email you, and the full version unlocks by itself. Offline? Register here and paste in the unlock code we give you.
You'll need
- Windows 10 or 11, 64-bit.
- A graphics card with Direct3D 11 — any PC from the last ten years.
- No installer: one program file (DPixel.exe). Copy it anywhere and run it.
- A mouse, ideally with a wheel and a middle button.
The first time you run DPixel.exe, Windows may say "Windows protected your PC", because the program is new and isn't yet known to it. Choose More info, then Run anyway.
DPixel.exe (version 2.18)
SHA-256 (to check your download is the real one):
690604b4c4d9cfa55cca07c1125480f4f5b042895fa46b81656aedfd9ebe22c2
In Windows: certutil -hashfile DPixel.exe SHA256
See our terms of sale and refund policy.