UIIntermediate

Damage Direction Indicator

A red arc around the player pointing at where the hit came from — pain with a compass.

uihudcombatfeedback

Examples

Captured from this page's own interactive demo below.

Overview

A damage direction indicator answers the question every player asks the instant they take a hit: 'from WHERE?'. A red arc flashes on a ring around the player (or screen center), rotated toward the damage source, then fades out over about a second.

The math is a bearing: the angle from the player to the attacker, converted into the player's view space — in a top-down game that's one atan2, in first-person it's the angle relative to the camera's forward. The indicator must track that bearing while visible; an arc that stays put while the player spins is worse than none.

Pair the arc with a directional flinch — nudge the player or camera a few pixels AWAY from the source — and the hit gains physicality on top of information. Stack multiple indicators for multiple attackers; their arrangement instantly communicates 'surrounded'.

Interactive Demo

the arc points at the shooter · press Hit repeatedly to get surrounded

Fade Time900ms

Arc Size70°

Use Cases

ShootersSurvival gamesTop-down actionBattle royale

Best Practices

Do

✓Rotate the indicator toward the source every frame it's visible — it must survive the player turning.
✓Show one indicator per source and let them stack; three arcs at once IS the information.
✓Add a small flinch away from the hit so the direction is felt in the body, not just seen on the HUD.

Don't

✕Don't fade out too fast — players need time to react; under half a second the arc is subliminal.
✕Don't use it for damage the player initiated or can see; reserve it for off-screen and behind-the-back hits.
✕Don't make the arc so wide it stops being directional — beyond ~120° it just says 'ouch, somewhere'.

Common Mistakes

⚠Computing the angle in world space and forgetting the camera rotation, so the arc points the wrong way in first person.
⚠The indicator anchored to the screen edge with linear coordinates instead of a ring, so diagonals look wrong.
⚠One shared indicator re-used for every hit, teleporting mid-fade when a second attacker fires.

Implementation

Paste this into your AI assistant (Cursor, Copilot, Claude) to add the effect to your project.

Prompt

Add the "Damage Direction Indicator" game-feel effect to my project: A red arc around the player pointing at where the hit came from — pain with a compass.

How it works: A damage direction indicator answers the question every player asks the instant they take a hit: 'from WHERE?'. A red arc flashes on a ring around the player (or screen center), rotated toward the damage source, then fades out over about a second.

Guidelines:
- Rotate the indicator toward the source every frame it's visible — it must survive the player turning.
- Show one indicator per source and let them stack; three arcs at once IS the information.
- Add a small flinch away from the hit so the direction is felt in the body, not just seen on the HUD.

Avoid:
- Don't fade out too fast — players need time to react; under half a second the arc is subliminal.
- Don't use it for damage the player initiated or can see; reserve it for off-screen and behind-the-back hits.
- Don't make the arc so wide it stops being directional — beyond ~120° it just says 'ouch, somewhere'.

Implement the effect in whatever engine/stack the project already uses and follow its existing code style. Wire it up where it makes sense.