🍎 8-Bit Orchard

A pixel-art catalogue of apple cultivars — the Apple Dex. Browse apple breeds as little 8-bit stat cards: origins, sweetness / tartness / crispness meters, best uses, harvest season, and a bit of RPG-flavoured flair.

Python is the data layer; the browser does the pixel art.

Run it

python3 serve.py

Then open http://localhost:8000. That rebuilds the data and serves the site in one step. Press Esc to close a card.

Serve over http:// (not by opening index.html as a file://), otherwise the browser blocks the apples.json fetch.

How it fits together

data/apples.py   ← source of truth (Python dataclasses, one Apple each)
build.py         ← emits docs/apples.json
serve.py         ← build + serve docs/ locally
docs/            ← the site (named docs/ so GitHub Pages serves it directly)
  index.html     ← markup
  style.css      ← the 8-bit theme (small NES-ish palette, scanlines)
  app.js         ← filtering, sorting, and the pixel-apple sprite generator
  apples.json    ← generated; don't edit by hand

Deploy (GitHub Pages)

Pages → Settings → Pages → Deploy from a branch → main / /docs. The docs/ folder is served at the site root, so the app is the landing page.

Sprites

There's no per-apple artwork to draw. app.js holds one 16×16 apple silhouette and recolours it from each cultivar's skin hex — adding a diagonal highlight, a dark outline, and a glint — so every apple renders as its own pixel gem. Adding an apple is just adding data.

Bicolour varieties also set an optional blush hex, layered as vertical striping on the sun side of the fruit; uniform apples leave it None and render solid.

Add an apple

Append an Apple(...) to APPLES in data/apples.py, then re-run python serve.py. Stats are 1–5. build.py validates ids, stat ranges, and colours, so bad data fails loudly.

Ideas for later

• More cultivars (there are always more heirlooms and cider apples)
• A print / export view for a favourite list

Each detail card links out to Wikipedia — a direct article when the data sets a wiki URL, otherwise a name-based Wikipedia search.

Done so far: light/dark theme, bicolour striped sprites, a "surprise me" random apple button, pixel-art country flags, a harvest-season filter, favourites and a "tried it" log (both saved to localStorage), a mutable chiptune blip on card open, shareable #slug links, a two-apple compare view, a back-to-top button, and per-apple Wikipedia links.