Changelog
Major updates across the Studio app, hosted API, generation worker, and agent skill.
October 12, 2026
app 0.4.32–0.4.33skill 1.3.3–1.4.1Smoother animations: every frame of the video, not 8
Animations used to keep 8 frames by skipping most of the video: a walk took every third frame of its cycle and played at 10 fps, a run every second frame at 12 fps. New animations now keep every frame of one walk or run cycle at the video’s 24 fps — typically 18–31 frames for a walk and 13–22 for a run, measured from each video — and jumps, attacks, hurts, and other one-shots keep the whole clip in real time, so motion is far smoother in game. Idles and talks keep their classic frame counts, and so do chunky pixel-art (pixel-snapped) animations, where a limited frame count is part of the look. The frame picker now starts from the same full cycle at 24 fps, and preview GIFs play at the animation’s real speed. Existing runs are unchanged — re-pick frames for free to smooth them, or generate a new animation.
Walk and run loops cover the whole stride
A walk or run cycle is two steps, and halfway through it the other leg leads in an almost identical pose. For a few hours after the change above, some walks and runs with a longer stride kept only one step, so the leading leg swapped every time the loop restarted, or kept a cycle one frame short. Spriterrific now finds the step first and keeps the two steps that make the full cycle. If a walk or run you made earlier today swaps legs or hitches, re-pick its frames for free in the frame picker.
The Quickstart example is ready in seconds for 30 credits
Running the Quickstart’s example prompt — the chubby orange tabby cat in a red hoodie, with walk and idle — as your first character now serves a cached run instead of generating it again. It finishes in about half a minute instead of several, costs 30 credits instead of 290, and is marked “Cached run” on its run page. It is a full run of its own: download it, re-pick frames, make variants, or add animations exactly as with any other character. Change anything about the request, or run it a second time, and it generates fresh at the normal price.
October 5, 2026
app 0.4.31Variants keep the game view of the character they came from
Making a variant of a character — a new outfit or a new facing — without restating its game view used to fall back to the platformer view, so an isometric or adventure character could come back drawn as a side-scrolling platformer one, along with every animation made from that variant. Variants now keep the view of the character they were made from unless you ask for a different one, and their animations follow, including variants of variants made before this fix.
October 4, 2026
Characters no longer turn around mid-animation
Some animations started with the character facing the opposite way from its direction and then swung around partway through the clip, breaking the loop. Diagonal directions and top-down, isometric, and oblique game views were hit hardest — facing wasn’t verified there at all — but it also slipped through on some side views. Every direction with a left or right side is now verified in every game view, far more reliably than before, and a character drawn facing the wrong way is turned around before any frames are made. If a character’s facing still can’t be confirmed, its animations hold the facing it starts in instead of turning to match the requested direction. Existing runs are unchanged — regenerate an affected animation to get the fix.
September 14, 2026
app 0.4.29Subscriptions now keep renewing instead of ending after one cycle
A setting on our payment provider gave every plan a total lifetime of one billing period, so monthly and annual subscriptions quietly ended at their first renewal date instead of renewing — no cancellation, no charge, no credits. Every plan and every active subscription has been corrected and will renew as you signed up for. If yours already ended this way, you will see a notice on the overview and billing pages explaining what happened, with a one-click way to pick the same plan back up at the same price. Nothing is charged unless you choose to resume, and top-up credits were never affected.
July 28, 2026
app 0.4.27–0.4.28The app now works properly on a phone
Studio's top bar used to need a desktop-width window: on a phone the wordmark, section links, credit badge, and account links all fought for the same row. Navigation now collapses into a menu button on narrow screens, with your credit balance still visible next to it, and the rest of the app follows — titles and their actions stack instead of colliding, the footer wraps, step tracks and tab strips scroll on their own rather than stretching the page sideways, and tapping a text field no longer zooms the whole page on iOS. Nothing changes on desktop.
Run animations now use a cleaner stride
Run spritesheets used to be sampled across the whole clip, which pulled in the launch stride before the character reached full speed — the loop could hitch on the first frame or two. Runs now start after the launch ramp and sample a tighter window, so the eight frames you get are one clean cycle. The window was fitted from real hand-picked selections: run was the animation people re-picked most often in the frame picker. Existing runs are unchanged — generate a new one to get the new timing, and the frame picker is still there if you want a different window.
Your first review now earns 100 credits
Leaving your first review of Spriterrific now adds 100 credits to your account — enough for a full animation. The thank-you applies whatever you rate and whether or not you make the review public: it rewards honest feedback, not praise. One grant per account, applied the moment you submit.
July 27, 2026
More credits on every plan, priced in whole characters
Monthly allowances are now 1,500 / 4,000 / 12,000 credits on Starter, Indie, and Studio — enough for about 2, 5, and 17 fully animated six-move characters. Per-credit value improves as you move up the ladder, and every plan is sized to whole characters so the counts on the pricing page match what you can actually generate.
Run more generations in parallel on higher plans
You can now have up to 2 parallel generations on Starter, 3 on Indie, and 5 on Studio, so an agent can fan out a whole cast without waiting on each one. Higher plans are also claimed off the queue first — Studio, then Indie, then Starter, then free — with the oldest job starting after about 15 minutes so nobody waits forever.
The character wizard no longer pre-selects more moves than you can afford
New accounts with 500 trial credits used to open the wizard with all six core moves selected (690 credits) and only learn they were short at submit. The wizard now pre-selects as many core moves as your balance covers — four on a fresh trial — and you can still add or remove any action before generating.
July 24, 2026
app 0.4.25–0.4.26Feature your sprites on the showcase wall
The Spriterrific site is getting a public showcase wall of sprites from real projects. Every finished run page now has a Feature on showcase wall button right next to the result — one click submits that run's sprite, credited however you like: your name, initials only, or fully anonymous, with an optional link to your game or profile. We may also ask once (in-app or by email) after a few generations. Every submission is hand-reviewed before it goes live, and nothing is locked in: the Showcase wall section in Settings shows everything you've shared and lets you take it down anytime, effective immediately.
Tell us how Spriterrific is treating you
After your first thumbs-up (or a few completed generations), we'll ask for a quick review of Spriterrific itself — one rating and a couple of sentences, shown alongside a rolling reel of your own sprites so it's clear the question is about the product, not one animation. Reviews go straight to the founder, and if you tick the box your words may be featured on the site — under your name, initials, or anonymously. Consent is never a one-way door: the Your review section in Settings lets you revoke public use or delete the review entirely, anytime.
July 22, 2026
app 0.4.21–0.4.24A walkthrough for fixing janky animations
If an animation looks off but the raw video is fine, you can pick the frames yourself in about a minute — free, no credits, original kept as v1. The first time you open a finished run with an animation, a short tutorial modal with a 2-minute video walks you through it. There’s also a Watch how link next to Pick frames, a rescue tip when you mark an animation Needs work, a new Guides section in the nav, and a Fix your animation link in the first-generation email.
The frame picker confirms what you just did
Two quiet moments in the frame picker now speak up. Setting a start or end frame used to change nothing visible — the button now flashes “✓ Start set” and the START/END badge gives a little bounce on the frame itself. And creating a new spritesheet version used to just increment the button label — now a toast confirms the build kicked off, the page scrolls to the versions panel, and a prominent “Building v3…” callout tracks it until the finished version lands in the dropdown.
Spritesheet versions are easier to find and switch
Hand-picked spritesheet versions used to be easy to miss: the frame picker buried them at the bottom, and nothing on the run page said which version an animation was actually using. Each animation now shows its default version (v1, v2, …) as a badge right next to its title, and a hint by the Pick frames button points you at the picker when an animation looks off. Inside the picker, versions moved to the top with a dropdown to switch between them, a Set as default button right beside it (it reads Current default while you're viewing the active version), and an expandable spritesheet preview — and Create from selection now sits next to Clear selection instead of below the full frame grid.
July 21, 2026
app 0.4.16–0.4.20skill 1.3.0–1.3.2Run animations now contain a full stride cycle
Run animations could come back with both arms pumping forward together instead of alternating, and the loop hitching to a standstill mid-cycle. The culprit was the 1-second video behind each run: the model often produced a short burst of motion with only half a stride cycle, so no frame selection could recover a proper run. Runs are now generated from 2-second clips — the same fix walk cycles received earlier — at the same credit price.
No more green tint bleeding into your characters
Animations of dark-costumed characters could come back with the green screen's color smeared onto gloves, boots, and clothing — the video model paints the background tint deep into the character, past where the old edge cleanup could reach. The cleanup now checks whether your character genuinely uses the background color anywhere deep in its body: if not, the tint is removed everywhere (deliberate details like green eyes are detected and preserved); if your character really is green, the conservative edge-only cleanup still applies so the art is never washed out. Runs on magenta backgrounds get the same green-ring cleanup, since video compression can leave a green fringe regardless of background color.
Animations keep the character's background color
If a character was generated with a non-default background color (like magenta for green characters), follow-up animations quietly fell back to the green default and got keyed against the wrong background. Action and remix jobs now inherit the original character's background color automatically — you can still pass chroma explicitly to override.
Remix a character: new outfit, same character
You can now edit an existing character without losing them. Every finished character run has a Remix panel: describe only what should change (“replace the robes with a white hoodie”) and the new run uses the original anchor as its base — face, skin tone, hair, proportions, pose, and art style stay put while the outfit changes. Agents get the same power on the HTTP API by passing referenceJobId plus an editPrompt on a character job; the same combination without an editPrompt re-faces a character in a new direction while preserving the design. Costs the same as an image-sourced character (60 credits for anchors, plus animations).
Content-filter rejections explain every reason, not just one
When a generation is rejected by a content filter, the run page used to assume the reason was explicit content — confusing if you were animating something innocent. The message now explains that the filter checks both your text and the reference image, and can trigger on adult content, recognizable copyrighted or celebrity characters, or graphic violence — with a pointer toward original character designs when a likeness is the problem. Failed steps still auto-refund.
July 20, 2026
app 0.4.15Archive finished runs and page through the gallery
The Runs page used to stop at the newest 25 jobs with no way to clear old ones. It now loads more on demand, and finished runs can be archived (or unarchived) so the Active list stays focused on what you’re still using. Archived runs stay open by direct link, keep their artifacts, and still count toward lifetime stats — they just drop out of the default gallery, Home’s latest list, and the HTTP job listing.
Side-view anchors no longer get flipped the wrong way
Certain body shapes — long trailing tails, oversized ears — could fool the automatic facing check into confidently reading a correct side-view anchor as facing the wrong way, flipping it and mirroring every animation built on it (first frames facing the wrong side, then swinging around mid-clip). Every side-view facing read is now double-checked visually before any flip, so correct anchors stay put and genuinely mirrored ones still get fixed.
July 19, 2026
app 0.4.13–0.4.14Side-view characters hold their facing more reliably
Some side-view characters — especially ones with big, rounded heads — couldn't be automatically verified as facing the right way, which occasionally let an animation twist or mirror the character mid-clip. Facing verification now resolves these characters too, so animations like hurt and jump keep a clean, consistent side profile. Runs that previously completed with a “facing could not be verified” warning should now come out locked to the correct direction.
Quickstart follows your agent's runs
The agent flow used to leave you parked on Quickstart after copying the prompt — the run happened somewhere you weren't looking. Your very first run now opens its live run page automatically so you watch anchors and animations appear as they finish, and later runs surface a “generating now — watch it live” banner right on Quickstart.
Running out of credits is caught in the moment
Hitting zero credits mid-session used to fail silently until your next page load. Now the app reacts live: the low-balance prompt appears the moment your balance drops below one animation (wherever you are), finished runs show a persistent panel with your character and the ways to keep going, and API calls that fail for insufficient credits return the exact billing link so your agent can pass it straight to you.
Rate each generated result
Completed anchors and animations now have a quick Yes / Needs work rating on the run page. A negative rating can include optional issue tags and a short note, so you can flag identity drift, motion, looping, alignment, or visual artifacts without opening a support request. Ratings stay attached to the exact active result, including hand-picked spritesheet versions.
July 18, 2026
app 0.4.10–0.4.12skill 1.2.6Long action notes no longer overflow the video model
Some actions — especially diagonal-facing transitions like jump or celebrate — built a video prompt so close to the model's length limit that even a one-line actionContext pushed it over and failed the job. Generation now automatically compacts the prompt when it would exceed the limit (every quality constraint stays), leaving plenty of room for your action notes. If a note is still too long, the error tells you the exact character budget instead of asking you to trim blind.
Failed runs now explain themselves
Generation failures used to surface as a raw exit code pointing at a server log you can't open. The run page now tells you what actually happened — a prompt rejected by a content filter (Spriterrific is built for all-ages game art), a temporary provider error worth retrying, or generated media that couldn't be retrieved — along with the reminder that failed steps auto-refund.
Share-page image links are caught before they break a run
Reference image URLs that point at a share or preview page (tmpfiles.org download pages, Google Drive or Dropbox share links) used to be saved as-is and crash generation with a cryptic image error. The worker now checks that the link actually serves an image file and, when it doesn't, fails fast with a clear message: use a direct link to the image itself, or upload the image instead.
Sign-in warns you inside in-app browsers
Opening app.spriterrific.com from inside the X, Instagram, or another app's built-in browser could dead-end Google sign-in with an “Unauthorized request” error — Google blocks OAuth in embedded webviews. The sign-in page now detects in-app browsers, names the app you're in, and offers a one-tap link copy so you can finish signing up in Safari or Chrome.
July 17, 2026
app 0.4.2–0.4.9skill 1.2.4–1.2.5Plan changes show tax and total before you confirm
Upgrading or switching plans no longer asks you to confirm blind. The dialog asks Dodo for a live estimate first — line items, tax, any account credit applied, amount due today, and the new recurring price — and the confirm button shows the real total (or stays disabled until the estimate loads).
Coupons on plan upgrades
The plan-change confirm dialog now accepts an optional coupon code. Apply it to re-estimate tax and total with Dodo, then confirm — the same code is what gets charged, so the button total matches what you saw.
Clear rejection for cross-direction action jobs
Action jobs animate an existing anchor and can't change a character's facing — but requesting a direction the reference character didn't have used to be accepted, debited, and then failed on the worker. It's now rejected instantly at enqueue with the fix spelled out: run a new character job with the desired direction, passing the existing anchor's image URL as sourceImageUrl to keep the design consistent. The spriterrific-api skill (v1.2.5) documents the recipe.
Safari pricing buttons open checkout again
Subscribe and top-up on Safari now open Dodo Payments reliably. Checkout used to open only after an async round-trip, which Safari treats as a blocked popup; we now open the tab on click and send it to Dodo once the session is ready (or continue in the same tab if popups are blocked).
Plan upgrades wait for payment before celebrating
Upgrading a subscription no longer shows “Upgraded” before Dodo has finished charging. You’ll see a processing state while payment confirms, and the new plan and credits appear only after the upgrade actually goes through. Failed charges leave your current plan unchanged.
Upgrades now stick after Dodo confirms them
Changing plan on an existing subscription sometimes left Studio showing the old plan even after Dodo had moved you — checkout metadata from the original subscribe was winning over the new product. Webhooks now trust Dodo’s product id first, so upgrades and downgrades match what you’re actually billed for.
Reference image links from imgur now work
Character jobs that pass a reference image URL (sourceImageUrl) no longer fail on hosts like imgur that block anonymous fetches — the worker now identifies itself properly when downloading your image. If a link still can't be fetched, the run reports a clear message about making the link public (or uploading the image instead) rather than a raw HTTP error.
Generation now rides out provider hiccups
Hosted runs retry momentary video-provider rate limits and media CDN errors with backoff instead of failing the step — so a brief 429 or a flaky download after a successful generation no longer costs you a partial run. Genuinely stuck downloads also time out quickly now instead of stalling a run for most of an hour. Failed steps continue to auto-refund.
No more characters swinging around mid-animation
Side-facing characters sometimes came out mirrored the wrong way and then rotated mid-clip to reconcile the pose with the prompt. Hosted generation now verifies the anchor's facing before animating, flips a wrong-way anchor to the canonical facing, and — when it can't be sure — locks the animation to match the reference image instead of forcing a screen side. Runs now also warn you when an anchor's facing looks off.
Steadier idles from the agent skill
The spriterrific-api skill (v1.2.4) now teaches agents a field-tested full-body freeze recipe for idle animations — freezing only the feet lets motion sneak into arm swing and hip sway — and warns that actionContext conditions every action in a job, so idles should be generated separately from walks and runs (it costs the same in credits).
July 16, 2026
app 0.4.0–0.4.1skill 1.2.1–1.2.3Tighter default frame picks for walk cycles
New walk animations (and the frame picker's Distribute seed) now start from a compact early 8-frame window — roughly every third dense frame in the first half of the clip — matching the curated walk versions that looked best in practice.
Hosted video model switched to Grok Imagine 1.5
Action animations now use Grok Imagine 1.5 image-to-video as the hosted default (was Grok Imagine v1). Override with videoModelAlias only for explicit model comparisons.
Public system status page
Operational status for generation, the HTTP API, and Studio is now at /status, with a floating notice in the app when an incident is active. Footer links include Status.
Open signup — start free
Spriterrific is now open to everyone: create an account with any valid email and get 500 free trial credits, no invite required. Founding members from the original invite list keep an extra 1,000-credit grant.
Sign in with Google, GitHub, or email
Replaced the old email one-time-code login with Clerk. Sign in or sign up with Google, GitHub, or an email address; existing accounts link automatically by verified email, so your credits and runs carry over.
Annual plans and a clearer pricing page
Plans can now be billed annually as well as monthly, with a redesigned pricing page, in-place plan changes, and pricing that animates as you switch between billing intervals.
Annual plans drip credits monthly
Annual subscriptions now release their credits month by month across the year instead of all at once up front, matching how the credits are actually used.
July 15, 2026
app 0.3.0skill 1.0.3–1.2.0Custom action names
The standard actions are no longer a hard ceiling: API action jobs can request a custom move (kick, sliding-tackle, cast-spell, …) by pairing the name with a standard baseline via actionBaselines, e.g. { "sliding-tackle": "attack" }. Artifacts and progress steps carry the custom name, so moves built on the same baseline never overwrite each other.
Full standard action vocabulary via the API
The API now accepts the engine's full 23-action preset set — including talk, interact, pick_up, walk_forward/backward, block_high/low, knockdown, get_up, and light/heavy attacks — not just the core 8. The core set remains the best-assured default.
Action jobs inherit the reference facing
Follow-up action jobs now default to the reference character's direction instead of always west, so east-facing characters no longer fail with a missing-anchor error when direction is omitted.
Terms of Service and Privacy Policy
Clear terms for the hosted service — third-party AI model providers, artifact storage on unlisted public URLs, credits, and acceptable use — now published at /terms and /privacy. Signed-in users are asked to review and accept them once (and again after material changes).
Studio facelift with shared branding
The app now wears the spriterrific.com brand: the pixel logo (with the app version badged on its corner) and Pixelify Sans wordmark in the navbar, matching favicons, and the logo as the way home.
Tabbed artifacts on run pages
Each action's artifacts are organized into Result, Contact sheet, and Raw video tabs, with videos at a sane size and the frame picker behind a clear "Pick frames" button.
Structured run cards
Run cards on the overview and runs pages now show labeled rows — anchors first, then each animation's preview and spritesheet — instead of a flat pile of thumbnails.
Clearer account overview
Stat cards link to their pages, and the credits card breaks down Subscription (remaining / monthly total) and PAYG credits explicitly.
Frame picker on run pages
Pick and reorder frames from a run's generated video directly on its run page, preview the resulting animation live, and save new spritesheet versions — no local tooling needed. Also available to agents via the HTTP API (skill v1.1.0).
Watch videos while the run is still going
The worker now uploads the raw video and contact sheet as each step finishes, so run pages can play them mid-run instead of waiting for the whole job to complete.
Version stamps on finished runs
Every finished run records the engine and worker versions that produced it, so results are traceable and reproducible.
Steadier idle animations
Idle actions use near-still video prompts (engine 0.17.2), so idle loops no longer drift or wander off-pose.
July 14, 2026
skill 1.0.0–1.0.2Per-run pages with live progress
Each run now has its own page with a step-track progress bar, shimmer on the active step, and artifact previews that appear progressively as steps finish.
Agent skill and API-first quickstart
Launched the spriterrific-api agent skill: install it in your coding agent, mint an API key from the Quickstart page, and drive sprite generation through the HTTP API with a single prompt.
Video mode by default
Every hosted action now defaults to video generation for smoother, more coherent animation frames.
Warnings in the run gallery
Non-fatal step warnings (like pixel-snap contract notices) are surfaced on runs instead of being silently swallowed.
Admin credit grants
Admins can grant credits to any account from Settings.
July 13, 2026
Spriterrific Studio launch
First release of the hosted platform: invite-only email sign-in, a character generation quickstart, a live runs gallery, credits and billing, and a cloud worker that runs the full Spriterrific engine — no local setup required.