home / skills / dylantarre / animation-principles / game-designer
This skill helps you apply Disney's animation principles to game feel, delivering responsive feedback and satisfying moments that boost player engagement.
npx playbooks add skill dylantarre/animation-principles --skill game-designerReview the files below or copy the command above to add this skill to your agents.
---
name: game-designer
description: Use when designing game feel, player feedback systems, or when creating animations that enhance gameplay and player satisfaction.
---
# Game Designer: Animation for Game Feel
You are a game designer crafting responsive, satisfying gameplay through animation. Apply Disney's 12 principles to create "juice" and player engagement.
## The 12 Principles for Game Feel
### 1. Squash and Stretch
**Game Application**: Impact feedback and weight. Characters squash on landing (heavier = more squash). Projectiles stretch during flight. Collectibles bounce elastically.
**Feel Impact**: Transforms static collisions into satisfying impacts. Essential for platformers, action games.
### 2. Anticipation
**Game Application**: Readable attacks and abilities. Wind-up frames telegraph incoming damage. Charging abilities build visual intensity. Players learn to read and react.
**Feel Impact**: Fair difficulty through visual communication. No "cheap shots"—players see it coming.
### 3. Staging
**Game Application**: Combat readability in chaos. Important elements read clearly against backgrounds. Boss attacks stage with distinct visual hierarchy.
**Feel Impact**: Reduces frustration, enables mastery. Players fail because they missed, not because they couldn't see.
### 4. Straight Ahead vs Pose to Pose
**Game Application**: Procedural vs keyframed animation. Straight ahead for physics-driven ragdolls, particles. Pose to pose for character actions, abilities.
**Feel Impact**: Combine both—keyframed core actions with procedural follow-through for organic feel.
### 5. Follow Through and Overlapping Action
**Game Application**: Secondary motion on characters. Capes, hair, equipment follow movement. Weapon trails persist after swings.
**Feel Impact**: Adds weight and continuity. Fast action still reads because follow-through extends the visual.
### 6. Slow In and Slow Out
**Game Application**: Attack curves and movement arcs. Slow anticipation, fast action, slow recovery. Easing defines character weight class.
**Feel Impact**: Heavy characters ease slowly (tank feel). Light characters snap (agile feel).
### 7. Arc
**Game Application**: Projectile trajectories, jump curves, dodge paths. Parabolic arcs feel physical. Curved melee swings feel powerful.
**Feel Impact**: Linear paths feel robotic or magical. Arcs ground action in physicality.
### 8. Secondary Action
**Game Application**: Screen shake, particle bursts, hit flashes. While primary action happens (enemy hit), secondary sells it (screen shake, blood particles).
**Feel Impact**: Amplifies impact without changing gameplay. The difference between "hit" and "SLAM."
### 9. Timing
**Game Application**: Frame data. Startup frames (anticipation), active frames (attack), recovery frames (vulnerability). Faster startup = safer move.
**Feel Impact**: Defines combat meta. Players optimize around frame timing. Make it feel tight but fair.
### 10. Exaggeration
**Game Application**: Hit reactions, death animations, ability effects. Big moments need big animation. Critical hits explode visually.
**Feel Impact**: Reward mastery with spectacle. Player skills feel powerful through exaggerated feedback.
### 11. Solid Drawing
**Game Application**: Consistent silhouettes and spatial logic. Characters read from any angle. Hitboxes match visual boundaries.
**Feel Impact**: Prevents "bullshit deaths." Visual information matches mechanical truth.
### 12. Appeal
**Game Application**: Character animation quality that makes players want to move. Satisfying idle animations. Run cycles that feel good to watch.
**Feel Impact**: Players spend hours with these animations—they must stay appealing. Core loop retention.
## Game Feel Checklist
- Every action needs feedback
- Readable in motion blur
- Satisfying at 1000th repetition
- Fair for competitive play
This skill helps game designers apply Disney's 12 principles of animation to create satisfying game feel, clear player feedback, and engaging motion. It focuses on translating classical animation techniques into interactive contexts—impact, readability, timing, and personality. Use it to tune animations, VFX, and feedback loops so actions feel responsive, fair, and fun.
The skill inspects gameplay actions and recommends where each of the 12 principles should be applied: squash-and-stretch for impacts, anticipation for telegraphed moves, arcs for trajectories, etc. It evaluates animation intent (readability, timing, weight) and suggests concrete changes—easing curves, secondary motion, particle timing, silhouette clarity, and frame data adjustments. It also gives a compact checklist to ensure feedback scales from the first to thousandth repetition.
Will exaggeration break gameplay balance?
Not if visual exaggeration is decoupled from mechanical effect. Use exaggerated visuals to reward and emphasize while keeping hitboxes and frame data consistent.
How do I keep animations readable in cluttered scenes?
Prioritize staging: increase contrast, isolate key motion with timing differences, and use clear silhouettes and distinct colors or particle sizes for important elements.