Pixel Art Arcane Missiles: A pixel art volley of arcane missiles: a charging orb launches three curving bolts with sparkling trails that strike one point and burst into rings and bouncing sparks.

Pixel Art Arcane Missiles

A pixel art volley of arcane missiles: a charging orb launches three curving bolts with sparkling trails that strike one point and burst into rings and bouncing sparks. Use it for mage auto-attacks, wand spells and homing projectile skills in RPGs and roguelikes.

Pixel Art Arcane Missiles is a pixel art effect that loops seamlessly every 2 seconds, drawn on a 384 by 240 canvas at 3x pixels. It is built from 27 particle emitters and 3 glowing strokes. Most layers blend additively, so it glows on dark backgrounds. Some particles draw ribbon trails.

Colour

Recolours the preview and the free downloads.

Free download with a transparent background, cropped to the effect, 60 frames at 30 fps. Use it in commercial games, no credit needed.

Licence: use it in any project, including paid commercial games such as a game sold on Steam. There is no per-project licence to buy and no credit needed. Terms.

Roblox: the download is a flipbook for a ParticleEmitter. Set FlipbookLayout to Grid8x8, FlipbookMode to OneShot and Lifetime to 2, then emit one particle per cycle. Roblox setup.

REMIX WITH AI

Try:

Left empty, it just opens in the agent, free. Each change is one AI build, and you start with free builds.

Engine data for Unity, Godot, GameMaker and Aseprite comes with a plan: open it in the studio.

OPEN IN THE STUDIO

Change the colours, timing or size, or export for Unity, Godot 4, GameMaker, Phaser, PixiJS and Aseprite.

Try variations: new colours, motion and shapes of this effect, free in the studio.

FRAME BY FRAME

8 evenly spaced moments across the 2 s loop.

Pixel Art Arcane Missiles at 8 moments, from 0 s to 1.75 s

HOW IT'S MADE

Pixel Art Arcane Missiles is pixel art, drawn at 3x pixels so it sits on the same grid as your sprites, and built from 27 particle emitters. Techniques worth a look: glowing strokes traced along shapes, magnets, ribbon trails, sub-emitters set off by other particles and post filters (bloom). A scene layer (ground or a prop) shows in the studio for context and stays out of every export.

It loops seamlessly every 2 s, and 16 of its layers fire in bursts, so it pulses instead of flowing evenly. Start times are staggered from 0 s to 0.84 s, so the layers arrive one after another. To change its colour, select "Launch pops" in the studio and edit Colour A and Colour B. Size on the same layer sets how big its particles are. Pixel size in the Pixel art panel sets how chunky it looks. The colour swatches by the downloads recolour every layer at once.

Layers, in draw order

  1. Orb floor light, Impact floor lightsprite / additiveA placed glow.
  2. Orb glow, Orb body, Orb hot glow +1sprite / additiveA placed glow. Extras: keyframed motion.
  3. Orb rune ring, Orb outer ringstroke / additiveA glowing line traced along a circle. It is drawn as dashes.
  4. Charge streaksparticles / additiveA stream of streaks from a disc, its rate keyframed over the loop. They are swallowed by a magnet at its centre. Colour runs from violet to white over each life.
  5. Orb coresprite / additiveA placed shape. Extras: keyframed motion.
  6. Orb glintsprite / additiveA placed shape. Extras: spin and keyframed motion.
  7. Launch popsparticles / additive3 single particles at set times. They grow as they age. Colours range between white and pale magenta.
  8. Target markstroke / additiveA glowing line traced along a polygon. It is drawn as dashes.
  9. Missile 1 trail, Missile 1 glowparticles / additiveA single particle at 0.6 s. It travels along a path. Colour: magenta.
  10. Missile 1 core trailparticles / additiveA single particle at 0.6 s. It travels along a path. Colours range between white and pale magenta.

22 more layers are in the studio.

DETAILS

Length
2 seconds, seamless loop
Canvas
384 x 240, pixel art at 3x
Layers
27 emitters and 3 glowing strokes
Blend
Mostly additive (glows)
Colours
whitemagentapale magentaviolet
Sprites
Built-in shapes only
Tags
pixel art, pixel, vfx, arcane missiles, magic missile, projectile, spell, arcane, homing, trail, impact, loop

USING IT IN YOUR GAME

Phaser, PixiJS
The PNG sheet is a plain grid of frames that both can slice. A TexturePacker JSON atlas comes with a plan, from the studio.
Unity
Import the PNG sheet as a Sprite with Mode set to Multiple and slice it, or open the effect in the studio for a ready-made grid.
Godot 4, GameMaker, Aseprite
Open it in the studio and pick your engine in Export: with a plan, it writes the files that engine imports.
Web and chat
The GIF plays anywhere; the APNG keeps soft edges on any background.
Blend mode
This effect is made of light. For the same glow in your game, draw the sprite with additive blending, or export it on black from the studio for additive shaders.

Step by step: Unity, Godot 4, Roblox, GameMaker, Phaser and PixiJS, Aseprite, Web games (live runtime). Drawn with additive blending: see glow effects without a black box.

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