Pixel Art Electric Shock: Pixel art electric shock: a bolt drops onto the enemy, then short arcs crawl over its body while it flickers and shakes and sparks pop off; when the current stops, smoke curls up.

Pixel Art Electric Shock

Pixel art electric shock: a bolt drops onto the enemy, then short arcs crawl over its body while it flickers and shakes and sparks pop off; when the current stops, smoke curls up. Use it for shock damage, stun and electric traps in action games and RPGs; it plays once, then loops.

Pixel Art Electric Shock is a pixel art effect that loops seamlessly every 1.6 seconds, drawn on a 384 by 384 canvas at 3x pixels. It is built from 8 particle emitters and 7 lightning bolts. 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, 48 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 1.6, 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 1.6 s loop.

Pixel Art Electric Shock at 8 moments, from 0 s to 1.4 s

HOW IT'S MADE

Pixel Art Electric Shock gets its crackle from 7 lightning bolts (a new jagged path on every strike), backed by 8 particle emitters. Techniques worth a look: sub-emitters set off by other particles, collisions, turbulence, particles stretched along their motion and post filters (bloom and colour grade). 3 scene layers (ground and props) show in the studio for context and stay out of every export.

It loops seamlessly every 1.6 s, and 4 of its layers fire in bursts, so it pulses instead of flowing evenly. Start times are staggered from 0 s to 0.2 s, so the layers arrive one after another. The bolts strike on their own timers, every 0.1 to 1.6 s. To change its colour, select "Flash glow" 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. Floor lightparticles / additiveA single particle at 0.1 s. Colour: cyan.
  2. Body glowparticles / additiveA single particle at 0.1 s. Colour: blue.
  3. Strike from abovelightning / additiveA lightning bolt striking downward every 1.6 s. It forks into branches.
  4. Body arclightning / additiveA lightning bolt striking sideways every 0.1 s. It forks into branches.
  5. Body arclightning / additiveA lightning bolt striking downward every 0.13 s. It forks into branches.
  6. Body arclightning / additiveA lightning bolt striking sideways every 0.16 s. It forks into branches.
  7. Body arclightning / additiveA lightning bolt striking downward every 0.1 s. It forks into branches.
  8. Body arclightning / additiveA lightning bolt striking sideways every 0.13 s. It forks into branches.
  9. Body arclightning / additiveA lightning bolt striking upward every 0.16 s. It forks into branches.
  10. Spark popsparticles / additiveA stream of streaks across a box, its rate keyframed over the loop. They fall under gravity, bounce when they hit something and slow down with drag. Colour runs from white to blue over each life.

5 more layers are in the studio.

DETAILS

Length
1.6 seconds, seamless loop
Canvas
384 x 384, pixel art at 3x
Layers
8 emitters and 7 lightning bolts
Blend
Mostly additive (glows)
Colours
whitecyanpale goldblue
Sprites
Kenney Smoke Particles by Kenney (CC0), Heroes by SpriteLab micro mode (Free to use)
Tags
pixel art, electric shock, electrocute, lightning, stun, status effect, damage

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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