VFX

VFX (visual effects) are the small animations that tell the player what just happened: a choice was accepted, a move was refused, a front struck, a process touched its target. The lead's brief asked for "quiet, tactile pixel feedback".

Rules#

These rules come from the user's reviews and are binding on every group.

• No words, no popups. VFX carries meaning by animation alone. There is no outcome text, chip, toast or receipt, and there are no dark popups. The user said: "THE PLAYER IS NOT STUPID. THE PLAYER IS NOT BLIND." Words live only in hover titles (see Icon labels).
• Refusal = the box shakes. A small, whole-pixel shake of the refused box. In the world, a blocked walk shakes the body; nothing is drawn on the obstacle.
• Success = the slot lights up.
• Corners on hover. Selection corners appear on hover and keyboard focus, never on click. Overworld objects get no corners; an E keycap floats over the nearest interactable instead.
• Real results only. A cue plays only from a result the game has already committed, or a refusal it returned. An animation ending never implies success.
• Reduced motion. No entrance or exit motion; the same settled result. A moving unit never jumps from tile to tile: the user rejected a jump as "too much like teleporting". The still version shows a dotted path trail and a faint ghost on the start tile.
• Pixel craft. Integer pixels, whole-step timing, no blur or sub-pixel tweening, colours from the B08 palette.
• Game rules shown honestly. Ward is a partial 60% share, never immunity. A lost neuron or segment looks different from a temporary overload.

Groups#

Development#

• First slice (31 October, 5a55c2834): six studies with a glyph language (tick, cross, dash) and words. The user's later no-words ruling replaced the words with marks only (001647be4).
• Catalogue groups (1 November): a registry (aa26877d) and eleven parallel agents, each on its own claude/vfx-<group> branch. The five overworld groups merged into claude/vfx (76b3afbe). The six encounter groups paused when the game went turn-based, then were rebuilt for turns, with a new Vessel group.
• 24×20 boards: all eight turn groups split tile width and height and read Claude B's foot point.
• User approval: every turn group was approved on 2 November, with three looks redone (astro-2 removed, Pull reduced motion, Vessel colours).
• In the alpha: the turn groups are pinned in the encounter host at each group's tip. The overworld groups are vendored unchanged from claude/vfx a0ba90a7a. The lead reports "transaction-driven menu/trade/home/movement VFX". A fresh full event review was not claimed.

Gallery#

See also#

• Tendrils
• Run HUD
• Review process

Sources#

1. a0ba90a7a:docs/vfx/groups/BRIEF.mdcopy
2. a0ba90a7a:docs/ops/agent-messages/2026-11-01-claude-vfx-catalogue-groups.mdcopy
3. a0ba90a7a:docs/vfx/VFX_FIRST_SLICE.mdcopy
4. b89f778c2:src/main-game/game/INTEGRATION.jsoncopy
5. b89f778c2:docs/ops/agent-messages/2026-11-02-lead-reconciled-game-integration.mdcopy
6. docs/ops/agent-messages/2026-10-31-lead-claude-vfx-and-cast-handoff.md (working copy, not in Git)
7. docs/ops/agent-messages/2026-11-01-claude-workstreams-todo.md (working copy, not in Git)