[Updated] Magic Projectiles v1.1

Magic Projectiles is a bundle of element-themed missile particle effects, try them yourself in the interactive demo!

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Interactive Demo



Main Features:

• A total of 43 particle effects divided into Projectile and Impact types
• 10 unique element-themed effects (Arcane, fire, lightning, wind, light, dark, life, earth, ice, water)
• Over 50 different textures, ranging from 64x64 to 256x256
• Two size-variations for each elemental effect
• Source files for the Interactive Demo is included

Version 1.1 Changes:

• Updated and refined particles
• Updated demo scene
• More understandable path and folder names
• Fixed some bugs in the demo
• Added FPS counter in demo
• Updated readme.txt

Suggestions, criticism and other comments is truly appreciated.

 

Maybe it would take just a few alterations to turn the earth effect into an additional magma effect? A little glowing lava color to the textures would do it, I think.

 

That is indeed possible
Mixing the fire and earth effects together could make it sort of a magma or fiery rock projectile.

Is there any other type of effects that would make this pack more attractive to purchase?

 

I like a lot of it, already. But more is generally better, so here's a few more ideas.

(In particular, I really like the frost and shadow projectiles. I think they're the best in the kit.)

I would probably like the fire projectile more if there was an alternate that didn't have the slightly toon-like star-shaped impact. It's not that big of a deal, though. Same with the lightning ... there is a slight toon-like aspect to the sphere and its aura which would be fine for some games and less good for others. A more serious (realistic) looking lightning effect as an alternate would be better for me.

Are these effects easily recolored? Can they take two colors? Players always like to customize stuff if they can, to make their fire green or pink or something, so if recoloring is easily done at runtime that would be great. And having two custom colors per effect is preferred over just one.

The life projectile could be altered a bit to have a splash impact that would make it suitable as an acid or poison projectile. In fact, for the acid you could borrow the "burning patch on impact" part of the fire projectile. Changing it in a slightly different way, so the impact is more of a lingering cloud (borrowing the cloud from the air projectile), the life projectile could be made into a poison gas or lingering radiation projectile.

Speaking of clouds, if the impact cloud was removed from the air projectile, I could probably re-purpose it for something more abstract, like a time slowing power.

If the earth projectile had less dust in its trail and on impact, and a slightly different look to the "ball," it could be a stone projectile.

I suppose another sort of projectile would be one that comes back from the target to the player, like a leech power.

 

As this is my first asset, I wasn't thinking too much ahead when it came to recoloring particles, so this isn't very easy for most of them, unless you recolor it in Photoshop yourself. I might just add some extra colors for some of the projectiles. And I'm pretty sure I have a clean, grey rock-type version of the earth-projectile included.

I also started fiddling with a more detailed / realistic type of lightning particles. Tell me what you think! And if you have examples of good lightning bolt effects, make sure to send it my way.

 

The new lightning seems more science-y ... even a bit organic. I can see that the trail is more detailed and the lightning ball is less exaggerated. While I haven't seen it in action, I think it will work for me.

I'd put both versions in the set as alternatives.

As for having effects that can be recolored at run time, allowing players to customize their abilities ... I'd say that's a fairly important feature. Whenever and wherever you can reasonably include that, it would be good.

I'd say that in most cases, having the same projectiles rendered in a couple of other colors isn't that helpful. I see it as giving a color option to the game dev, as opposed to the player, as my own inclination would be to pick a single color for inclusion in the game and leave it at that.

 

Although it does give for a lot of extra options, it doesn't let you have things like different color gradients on a single particle, as you would when you paint it yourself in Photoshop. I really do see your point though.

What do you think of having a set of more "generic" extra effects that were easier to change the color on, along with a bundle of varied sprites? There could be some types of pre-built effects to make it easier to build your own.

Edit: And thanks a lot for the feedback, it's very helpful

 

I'm not exactly sure of what you mean with the "generic" etc. idea. A modular approach can be good, if it gives flexibility where it is needed and isn't overly complicated. A common approach for plugins is to combine the two to some degree, where there is a modular system of some sort and then some pre-made examples that are ready to be used.

I think you've got a good kit here, but if it's not too much more work a few things could be added to enrich it. Every little extra bit of quality and usefulness will help your stuff stand out in the store, especially over time.

Another small suggestion: if you do decide to do the acid projectile, it occurs to me you can use the water projectile's trail, with its bubbles and clouds. Maybe recolor the water projectile to green and splice in the burning patch at the end as part of the impact effect.