I want to do effects like these for a 2D game:

https://i.imgur.com/6hP71kU.gif

https://i.imgur.com/FHneUOf.gif

https://i.imgur.com/JNwYSJj.gif​

https://i.imgur.com/wBDbX4a.gif​

https://gfycat.com/tinyimprobableitaliangreyhound

Like this game, i would like to use effects like these for skills.

However, i have no idea where to start and how to even do something like this (specially this one https://gfycat.com/tinyimprobableitaliangreyhound,​ i quite like this effect but dunno how to reproduce it). Looking for books on “effect creation for game development” doesn't give many results, maybe some for unity but i am not using unity.

The answer is probably some graphic software, but even then i have no idea how to find material to do effects like these.

Is there a name for these kind of 2d effects?

Also, any resources recommended to make effects for games like these?

Flonne said:
Is there a name for these kind of 2d effects?

Particles. Also they are generated from Emitters. I'm not sure if your examples are pre-rendered in a program like Maya or Blender or a part of the game/engine itself. Particles can be smaller than smoke particles or larger than butterflies. I can imagine generating the planets and stars of a galaxy from particles.

If this is a newer game that just wants to look like from the 90's, it is likely that they are using common 3D techniques to have everything look good but if this game was made pre-2000, then it is very likely that they just split the effect up in two layers, a background sprite and a foreground sprite to render the caster in between. The effect itself depends on what it is doing, in case of the force-field it is just blended, so a simple alpha transition. In case of the particles, this can also be a a fixed texture that is simply moved through UV-transition to look like if the particles would move. Else you need a sprite animation