The outside review's diagnosis was right — the weak sprites had one
element doing one motion. Now each tells its story: the whiff is
three air streaks sweeping past a dodger with a wobble; the hit is a
contact flash, a compressed ring punched outward, and flying debris;
the streak's head visibly travels, drawing a tapered trail that
collapses into the destination; the sparkle snaps white-hot between
counter-rotating glints and sheds motes; the tacks are drawn
silhouettes now, points up as a tack on the floor menaces, hopping in
sequence; the claw slashes reveal one by one along their length with
a bright leading edge while the whole strike rakes sideways.
The sector ghosts keep their dashed frames but earn motion arcs,
directional chevrons, corner dust, and a grinding shudder as they
settle. The portal opens wide, ripples along its length, and pinches
shut; cell mouths collapse rings of energy inward. The thornbush
springs actual branches with thorn spurs. The slime is an asymmetric
blob that grips, with elastic strands snapping toward the caught.
Dust gains contrast, varied grain, and blows perpendicular to the
wall that shed it.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Eric's fireball lands as the house style — layered construction,
gradient core, glow halo, a directional tail riding rotate="auto" —
with its defs scoped per instance via $props.id(), so simultaneous
fireballs cannot steal each other's gradients. The rest of the
catalog is rebuilt in its image: the waterbolt becomes its cold
sibling (spray tail, no turbulence — one heavy filter stack is
enough); lightning grows a glowing core and branching forks; the
burst blooms through a fire gradient with a shockwave and flying
embers; the splash throws a crown of droplets; the shield raises a
gradient dome with a rim strike; the pow star flashes white and
radiates speed dashes; claws leave tapered gashes; the absorbed card
spirals in along a pull ring; the soul is a proper little ghost with
eyes, swaying as it rises; fireworks ride colored trails; Chaos
catches card slips in its vortex; the pit opens a gradient hole that
swallows a faller; ooze splats and flings blobs; the thornbush sheds
leaves; slime closes over and pops bubbles; masonry dust goes soft
with falling grit. Whiff, tacks, portal, and the sector ghosts keep
their simpler forms on purpose — restraint is part of the style.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
The effects move out of Board.svelte into src/fx-sprites/ — one
component per flourish, markup and animation CSS together, so editing
the fireball means opening Fireball.svelte and nothing else. A
registry (index.ts) maps kind to sprite; Board renders through it.
The event mapping stays in fx.ts.
And a viewer: /?fx opens the Flourish Workshop — every sprite on a
labeled parchment tile, replaying on a 2.2-second beat. Under the dev
server, editing any sprite file hot-reloads the gallery mid-loop.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>