Wand and Wit

Wand and Wit is a spell duelling game I'm building: a third-person 3D multiplayer magic duel for 2 to 10 players in a cel-shaded fantasy forest. Players lock on to each other and trade spells, and every spell has a visible wind-up and travel, so the defender can read it and answer with a block or a dodge. Land a hit and your screen plays an anime-style impact frame. The last player standing wins.

It's written in Rust, rendered with wgpu, and runs in the browser on WebGPU. The server is authoritative, and clients predict their own movement and smooth everyone else's over WebRTC. It's still in development.

Impact frames

A hit freezes the caster's view for a few frames while the duel carries on: the world drops to a stark, tinted silhouette, with speed lines converging on the point of impact.

A fire bolt hit: the forest drops to a sepia silhouette with speed lines converging on the burst — Fire bolt

An ice spear hit: a black and white silhouette frame with an icy flash at the centre — Ice spear

A black hole hit: the scene turns purple and black as the target is lifted toward the hole — Black hole

A lightning strike hit: the colours invert as a bolt lands on a witch — Lightning strike

Casting

Seven spells, three to a player, picked in the lobby: fire bolt, ice spear, lightning strike, black hole, light beam, time change and teleport behind.

A lightning bolt lands on a witch inside a glowing ring as a wizard watches — A lightning strike lands

Ice shards erupt around the target at the end of a glowing crack in the grass — An ice spear erupts under the target

A witch in a purple robe charges a spell, sparks crackling round her wand — Winding up a lightning strike

A wizard raises both arms inside a glowing clock face as the sky turns to dusk — Casting time change

Day and night

Matches start at golden hour. Time change moves the time of day for everyone while it's sustained, so a duel can carry on into the night.

A wizard in a blue robe faces an opponent among trees at golden hour — Golden hour

At night, a wizard stands in a ring of light under a starry blue sky — Time change at night

Midday in the arena: bright grass, pine trees and a clear sky — Midday

The same arena at night under a dark blue, starry sky — The same spot at night