8-Bit Pack Stream Deck Screensaver Bundle, 7 Animated Side Scroller GIFs, Elgato MK2 XL Plus

Seven 8-bit side-scrollers, running on your Stream Deck, and not one of them is a video.

This pack is the complete 8-bit shelf — seven animated screensavers, each one a scrolling level generated in code and then played through and recorded. Every design comes with the file for each of the three Stream Decks, so it is twenty-one files in total, 253 megabytes.

They are not loops that somebody animated by hand, and that is the whole point of them. The level is built as a sequence of set pieces laid end to end, and then a character actually runs it: the jumps are solved so the arc clears the pipe, the shot is solved so the bolt and the drone meet in mid-air several tiles later, and the whip connects on the frame the engine says it connects on. There is a check in the build that walks the finished run and fails it if the character is ever inside something he should have jumped. What you are watching is a run that happened. Nothing is keyframed.

WHAT IS IN IT

Seven designs, three deck files each:

Bandolier — a commando runs a moonless jungle ridge over the sea, rifle level, taking the drones down
Blaster Bot — a blue robot runs a factory floor of steel plate and girders, and the arm cannon crosses the gap
Coconut Run — a capped islander sprints the cobbled shore between the palms, hurdling rolling coconuts
Nightwhip — a hunter walks a castle corridor under arched windows and the chain whip cracks out
Pipe Runner — hills, blocks, coins and green pipes, jumped in one continuous run under a bright sky
Star Diver — an armoured diver runs the tunnels of a dead world, arm cannon answering out of the dark
Storm Drain — a shell-backed fighter runs a storm drain of gray brick and cyan pipe, staff coming round

HOW YOU GET IT — PLEASE READ THIS BIT

Your Etsy download is instant, and it is a single illustrated page with your download button on it. One click and the complete pack comes down.

It works this way for a reason worth knowing: Etsy caps a digital listing at five files of twenty megabytes. This pack is 253 megabytes. Delivered through Etsy it would have to be cut down to a fraction of what it is — and that is exactly what most large digital packs on this site quietly do. Hosting it instead is what lets you have all twenty-one files at their real size.

The link does not expire, there is no account to make and there is nothing to sign up for. If it ever fails, message me and I will send the files straight to you, usually the same day.

WHICH FILE FOR WHICH DECK

Unlike a flag, a scrolling level cannot be one universal file. Each one is laid out to the panel it is running on, so every design is rendered three times over and you use the one that matches your deck:

Stream Deck MK.2, or the original 15 key — the 480x272 file
Stream Deck XL, 32 keys — the 1024x600 file
Stream Deck Plus, 8 keys with four dials — the 800x480 file

The name of every file says which it is, and the guide has the same table in it. Not sure which you own? Count the keys: 15, 32 or 8.

WHY BUY THE SET

Because one of these is a novelty and seven is a rotation. They are built on the same engine and to the same rules — fifteen screen rows, flat color, no gradients, the character drawn as a sixteen by thirty-two pixel grid — so they sit together as a set rather than as seven unrelated downloads, and you can change what is on the deck whenever you are bored of it rather than picking one and living with it.

These are also sold individually in this shop. Bought as the pack, the seven come to less than they cost one at a time, and you get all three deck files for every one of them rather than just the deck you own today.

INSTALLING

About a minute. Gear icon, Devices tab, Set Screensaver, drop in the file that matches your deck, click Set Animation. The guide walks it through with pictures, including the one mistake everybody makes, which is clicking "Set Image" and getting a still frame instead.

HONEST LIMITS

These are animated GIFs, so they need the Stream Deck app version 6.6 or newer. The Stream Deck MINI cannot display animations at all — that is a limitation of the hardware, not of these files, and it is better said here than discovered afterwards. Neo and Studio are not covered. On the Plus this covers the 8 keys, not the touch strip. This is a digital download, so nothing ships.

Every design here was written from scratch in code by one person, and that same person answers the messages. These are original works in the style of the 8-bit era — no artwork, sprites or audio from any other game, and nothing traced. If something looks wrong, say so and you will get a real answer.

Not affiliated with, licensed by or endorsed by Elgato. Stream Deck is a product of Elgato.