Cower
Fear in a few lines: the body shrinks down, both arms lift up and out from the sides, and everything trembles.
Use it in a cartoonOpen it in the block editorThe pack file (JSON)
What it is for
Cower is for the moment something frightening appears: a thunderclap, a big dog, the monster from under the bed. It is a reaction, so it works best right after the scary thing, for a second or two, before the character runs off or the scare turns out to be nothing. On the person and the kid the lifted arms are the clearest part; on the dog the front legs take the arm channel and shift, and the tremble does the work.
The principle it shows: staging
A frightened character must read at a glance, even in the corner of the frame. Cower gives it a clear silhouette: the arms lift 46 degrees up and away from the body on both sides, so the shape of the character changes from a column into a startled star, and the whole body gets shorter. Combined with a fast tremble, the outline alone says "scared" before the face is even seen.
The program, line by line
when it starts
sin wave on dx · w 22 · amp 5
abssin wave on dy · w 3 · amp -6
set sy 0.96
sin wave on rot · w 22 · amp 2
sin wave on left arm · w 22 · amp 4 · offset -46
sin wave on right arm · w 22 · amp -4 · offset 46when it starts— begins when the move is put on a character.sin wave on dx · w 22 · amp 5— a fast side-to-side tremble, 5 pixels each way, about 3.5 times a second.abssin wave on dy · w 3 · amp -6— small quick lifts of 6 pixels, about once a second, like a shiver.set sy 0.96— the height drops to 96% at once and stays there: the body shrinks down.sin wave on rot · w 22 · amp 2— a fast 2-degree tilt in time with the tremble.sin wave on left arm · w 22 · amp 4 · offset -46— the left arm is held 46 degrees out from the body (a left arm turns outward with negative numbers) and trembles 4 degrees around that.sin wave on right arm · w 22 · amp -4 · offset 46— the right arm, mirrored.
Try this
Shrink the height to 85% instead of 96%. The character crouches much lower, trying to make itself small, which reads as terror rather than a fright.
In the program:
set · to.sy0.96→0.85Widen the side-to-side tremble from 5 pixels to 15. The fear turns into a cartoon rattle, the knees-knocking kind that suits a ghost story played for laughs.
In the program:
wave · amp5→15
How it differs from Alarmed and Slump
Alarmed is a nervous wait rather than a fright: the arms are only 32 degrees out, the body is pushed off to one side, and it flinches now and then instead of trembling all the time. Slump also makes the body smaller, but slowly and with no fear in it: it is defeat. Cower is the fastest and most frightened of the three.
Works on
| Body | Moves? | What moves |
|---|---|---|
| 2 legs (a person) | yes | whole body, arms |
| 4 legs (a dog) | yes | whole body, front legs |
| no legs (the monster with no legs) | yes | whole body, arms |