Pixel Art Parry: Pixel art parry: an overhead crimson slash stops dead on a raised blade, the picture freezes grey for a beat with a ring and a gleam, then gold sparks burst and the attacker's sword spins away and sticks in the floor.

Pixel Art Parry

Pixel art parry: an overhead crimson slash stops dead on a raised blade, the picture freezes grey for a beat with a ring and a gleam, then gold sparks burst and the attacker's sword spins away and sticks in the floor. Use it for perfect parries, deflects and disarms in action games and soulslikes; it plays once, then loops.

Pixel Art Parry 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 18 particle emitters and 9 glowing strokes. Most layers blend additively, so it glows on dark backgrounds.

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 Parry at 8 moments, from 0 s to 1.4 s

HOW IT'S MADE

Pixel Art Parry is drawn with 9 glowing strokes, lines with a hot core and a soft glow traced along their shapes, plus 18 particle emitters. Techniques worth a look: sub-emitters set off by other particles, collisions, particles stretched along their motion, keyframed parameters and post filters (bloom and colour grade). 4 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 17 of its layers fire in bursts, so it pulses instead of flowing evenly. Start times are staggered from 0 s to 1.01 s, so the layers arrive one after another. To recolour the line, select "Slash a glow" 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.

Layers, in draw order

  1. Floor lightparticles / additiveA single particle at 0.31 s. Colour: gold.
  2. Attack tellparticles / additiveA single particle at 0.1 s. It swells and then shrinks away. Colour: pale red.
  3. Attack tell glowparticles / additiveA single particle at 0.1 s. Colour: red.
  4. Slash a glow, Slash a line 1, Slash a line 2 +3stroke / additiveA glowing line traced along a path. Its start and end are keyframed, so it writes itself on and off.
  5. Freeze ring, Release ring, Landing ringstroke / additiveA glowing line traced along a circle.
  6. Blade smearparticlesRings set off by "Blade in flight". Colours range between pale blue and blue.
  7. Blade in flightparticles / additiveA single particle at 0.43 s. It spins. Colour: white.
  8. Blade stuckspriteA placed image. Extras: keyframed motion.
  9. Parry gleamparticles / additiveA single particle at 0.31 s. It shrinks as it ages. Colour: white.
  10. Gleam turnedparticles / additiveA single particle at 0.43 s. It shrinks as it ages. Colour: pale gold.

11 more layers are in the studio.

DETAILS

Length
1.6 seconds, seamless loop
Canvas
384 x 384, pixel art at 3x
Layers
18 emitters and 9 glowing strokes
Blend
Mostly additive (glows)
Colours
whitegoldredpale gold
Sprites
Kenney Smoke Particles by Kenney (CC0), Heroes by SpriteLab micro mode (Free to use)
Tags
pixel art, parry, perfect parry, deflect, block, disarm, sword

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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