Introductions to particles

In game development, you may have heard of particles. They are typically small 2D sprites or simple 3D models that are created in order to simulate fuzzy things such as fires, explosions, and smoke trails to add visual flair to your projects. This visual flair is sometimes referred to as juiciness. Made popular by indie developers Martin Jonasson and Petri Purho, making a game juicy makes it more enjoyable to play and increases the feedback the player receives by playing the game.

This is usually something worked on more toward the end of development of titles in order to polish the project and add more feedback, but it's a good example of how we can want to have many things on the screen at one time.

Note

For more information on juiciness and to watch their Martin and Petri's GDC talk on the subject, check out http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/178938/Video_Is_your_game_juicy_enough.php.

The reason that these objects are so simple is because they are spawned hundreds...