Pixel Art Stun Stars: Pixel art stun stars: little turning stars and two flapping birds circle the character's head on a tilted ring, passing behind it and in front, with twinkles along the orbit.

Pixel Art Stun Stars

Pixel art stun stars: little turning stars and two flapping birds circle the character's head on a tilted ring, passing behind it and in front, with twinkles along the orbit. Use it for stun, daze and dizzy status effects on players and enemies in platformers, RPGs and brawlers.

Pixel Art Stun Stars is a pixel art effect that loops seamlessly every 1.8 seconds, drawn on a 384 by 288 canvas at 3x pixels. It is built from 10 particle emitters and 2 glowing strokes. Most layers blend additively, so it glows on dark backgrounds. Some particles draw ribbon trails.

Free download with a transparent background, cropped to the effect, 54 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 1.8, 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 1.8 s loop.

Pixel Art Stun Stars at 8 moments, from 0 s to 1.58 s

HOW IT'S MADE

Pixel Art Stun Stars is pixel art, drawn at 3x pixels so it sits on the same grid as your sprites, and built from 10 particle emitters. Techniques worth a look: glowing strokes traced along shapes, ribbon trails, paths, flipbook sprites and post filters (bloom). 3 scene layers (ground and props) show in the studio for context and stay out of every export.

It loops seamlessly every 1.8 s, and 8 of its layers fire in bursts, so it pulses instead of flowing evenly. Start times are staggered from 0 s to 0.34 s, so the layers arrive one after another. To change its colour, select "Star glow (far)" 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.

Layers, in draw order

  1. Daze halosprite / additiveA placed glow.
  2. Orbit line (far), Orbit line (near)stroke / additiveA glowing line traced along a path.
  3. Star glow (far), Star glow (near)particles / additive3 single particles at set times. They travel along a path. Colour: orange.
  4. Star trails (far), Star trails (near)particles / additive3 single particles at set times. They travel along a path. Colour runs from pale gold to orange over each life.
  5. Twinkles (far), Twinkles (near)particles / additiveA steady stream of small shapes along a path. They swell and then shrink away. Colours range between white and pale gold.
  6. Stars (far), Stars (near)particles3 single particles at set times. They travel along a path and play a flipbook animation. Colour: pale gold.
  7. Birds (far), Birds (near)particles2 single particles at set times. They travel along a path and play a flipbook animation. Colour: pale gold.

DETAILS

Length
1.8 seconds, seamless loop
Canvas
384 x 288, pixel art at 3x
Layers
10 emitters and 2 glowing strokes
Blend
Mostly additive (glows)
Colours
pale goldwhiteorangegrey
Sprites
Heroes by SpriteLab micro mode (Free to use)
Tags
pixel art, pixel, vfx, stun, stunned, dizzy, dazed, stars, birds, status effect, debuff, crowd control, 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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All Pixel Art VFX effects or the full library.