Screen shake — the kind version

The good recipe: keep a trauma value 0–1 that decays every frame; camera offset = smooth noise × trauma². Noise (not random jumps) keeps it smooth; the square makes small hits whisper and big hits roar; decay ends it quickly. Press Run, then click the canvas to add impacts.

let trauma = 0;
const DECAY = 1.4;        // how fast calm returns (per second)
const MAX_OFFSET = 14;    // px at full trauma. deliberately modest.

canvas.onclick = () => {
  trauma = Math.min(1, trauma + 0.45);   // impacts ADD, never set
};

// smooth noise from summed sines (no random jumps = no nausea)
function noise(t, seed) {
  return Math.sin(t * 11 + seed) * 0.6 + Math.sin(t * 17 + seed * 3) * 0.4;
}

onFrame((dt, t) => {
  trauma = Math.max(0, trauma - DECAY * dt);
  const shake = trauma * trauma;               // ← the square
  const dx = noise(t, 1) * MAX_OFFSET * shake;
  const dy = noise(t, 2) * MAX_OFFSET * shake;

ctx.clearRect(0, 0, W, H);
  ctx.save();
  ctx.translate(dx, dy);                       // shake the CAMERA, not things

// a little scene to be shaken
  ctx.fillStyle = "#3A3F8F";
  ctx.fillRect(-20, H * 0.7, W + 40, H);       // ground
  ctx.fillStyle = "#5A63C8";
  ctx.fillRect(W/2 - 30, H * 0.7 - 60, 60, 60);// a house-ish box
  ctx.fillStyle = "#D6A878";
  ctx.beginPath(); ctx.arc(W * 0.8, H * 0.22, 26, 0, 7); ctx.fill(); // sun

ctx.restore();

// trauma meter, so you can SEE the decay
  ctx.fillStyle = "#88888844";
  ctx.fillRect(16, 16, 120, 8);
  ctx.fillStyle = "#D6A878";
  ctx.fillRect(16, 16, 120 * trauma, 8);
});

Click once: a polite nudge. Click four times fast: a real quake — because trauma adds up and the square amplifies the top end. The bar shows calm returning.

Try tweaking: remove the square (const shake = trauma;) — feel how small hits get too loud · MAX_OFFSET 14 → 40 (then please come back down) · DECAY 1.4 → 0.3 for a long aftershock. Accessibility stance: keep amplitude modest, keep frequency low, and ship a "reduce shake" toggle — calm defaults cost nothing.

In Godot: apply dx/dy to Camera2D.offset, driving noise from FastNoiseLite — download shake.gd, trauma² and all. In Unity: same recipe on the camera transform in LateUpdate() (or Cinemachine's impulse system, which implements exactly this). In Unreal: a CameraShakeBase class — its oscillation fields are these numbers with different names. Chapter 06.