What is Lychee?

Lychee is a paint app designed to use code to draw images instead of brushstrokes. Lychee uses Zest, our custom programming language, to draw images. This has many advantages:

• Smaller image files
• More shareability
• More friendship
• More zestiness

You may be asking: why not just use SVG? Our answer: embrace the zest. Live the wild life. Live the Lychee life.

Why is Lychee?

Lychee is useful for a few different applications:

• Simple graphic design work
• Learning to code
• Providing a more intuitive alternative to SVG

Lychee was built in 24 hours by @ix0rai and @goshikito at devhacks 2026, where it won the Rookie of the Year Award (best first-time hackathon participants) and the Master of Devhacks Award (best overall).

Usage

Run using Gradle:

./gradlew run

Commands

line

Draws a straight line from the starting coordinates to the ending coordinates, using the provided width. Can be colored.

line([0:0], [100:100], 5, "red");
line([0:0], [100:100], 5, "#bf3344");

Parameters:

• start: Coordinate
• end: Coordinate
• width: int
• color: String

erase

Erases a straight line from the starting coordinates to the ending coordinates, using the provided width. Cannot be colored.

erase([0:0], [100:100], 5);

Parameters:

• start: Coordinate
• end: Coordinate
• width: int

fill

Fills a rect with the chosen color from the starting coordinates, using the provided height and width.

fill([0:0], 50, 100, "red");
fill([0:0], 50, 100, "#bf3344");

Parameters:

• start: Coordinate
• width: int
• height: int
• color: String

circle

Draws a circle from the starting coordinates, using the provided height and width. Can be colored.

circle([0:0], 30, 30, "red");
circle([0:0], 30, 30, "#bf3344");

Parameters:

• start: Coordinate
• width: int
• height: int
• color: String

text

Draws text from the starting coordinates, using the provided font size. Can be colored.

text([50:50], 30, "hello", "red");
text([50:50], 30, "hello", "#bf3344");

Parameters:

• start: Coordinate
• fontSize: int
• text: String
• color: String

layer

Creates a layer. Commands in higher layers will be drawn over lower layers. Any command not inside a layer block will be drawn on layer 0.

layer(1) {
    //commands go here
}

Parameters:

• layer: int

Notes

• A color can be written as a word or a hexcode, but words have a limited selection of colors (black, white, red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple, pink)
• Coordinates are in [x:y] format
• Zest supports comments on lines beginning with //