Pixel Art Critical Hit Star: Pixel art critical hit: a red lock-on ring tightens, then a two-frame ink impact frame, an X of slashes, a huge turning gold star, rings, light spokes, red shards and gold sparks.

Pixel Art Critical Hit Star

Pixel art critical hit: a red lock-on ring tightens, then a two-frame ink impact frame, an X of slashes, a huge turning gold star, rings, light spokes, red shards and gold sparks. Use it for critical strikes, weak-point hits and finishing blows in action games and RPGs; it plays once, then loops.

Pixel Art Critical Hit Star is a pixel art effect that loops seamlessly every 1.3 seconds, drawn on a 384 by 384 canvas at 3x pixels. It is built from 9 particle emitters and 5 glowing strokes. Most layers blend additively, so it glows on dark backgrounds.

Colour

Recolours the preview and the free downloads.

Free download with a transparent background, cropped to the effect, 39 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 1.3, 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 1.3 s loop.

Pixel Art Critical Hit Star at 8 moments, from 0 s to 1.14 s

HOW IT'S MADE

Pixel Art Critical Hit Star is drawn with 5 glowing strokes, lines with a hot core and a soft glow traced along their shapes, plus 9 particle emitters. Techniques worth a look: collisions, particles stretched along their motion, keyframed parameters and post filters (bloom and impact frames). 3 scene layers (ground and props) show in the studio for context and stay out of every export.

It loops seamlessly every 1.3 s, and 9 of its layers fire in bursts, so it pulses instead of flowing evenly. Start times are staggered from 0 s to 0.3 s, so the layers arrive one after another. To recolour the line, select "Lock-on ring" and change Core and Glow; Start and End set how much of it is drawn. 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. Floor lightparticles / additiveA single particle at 0.24 s. Colour: orange.
  2. Lock-on ringstroke / additiveA glowing line traced along a circle. It is drawn as dashes.
  3. Crit slash, Crit slashstroke / additiveA glowing line traced along a path. Its start and end are keyframed, so it writes itself on and off.
  4. Crit starparticles / additiveA single particle at 0.24 s. It shrinks as it ages. It spins. Colour runs from white to orange over each life.
  5. Crit star behindparticles / additiveA single particle at 0.26 s. It shrinks as it ages. It spins. Colour: red.
  6. Crit ring, Crit outer ringstroke / additiveA glowing line traced along a circle.
  7. Light spokesparticles / additiveOne burst of 18 streaks from a ring at 0.24 s. They slow down with drag. Colour runs from white to gold over each life.
  8. Crit shardsparticles / additiveOne burst of 10 shards at 0.24 s. They fall under gravity, shrink as they age, turn to face where they move and slow down with drag. Colours range between red and pale gold.
  9. Gold sparksparticles / additiveOne burst of 30 streaks at 0.24 s. They fall under gravity, bounce when they hit something and slow down with drag. Colour runs from white to red over each life.
  10. Hanging glintsparticles / additiveOne burst of 9 sparks from a disc at 0.3 s. They swell and then shrink away. Colour runs from white to gold over each life.

2 more layers are in the studio.

DETAILS

Length
1.3 seconds, seamless loop
Canvas
384 x 384, pixel art at 3x
Layers
9 emitters and 5 glowing strokes
Blend
Mostly additive (glows)
Colours
whiteredgoldpale gold
Sprites
Built-in shapes only
Tags
pixel art, critical hit, crit, impact, damage, star, rpg

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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