Damage numbers
Also said as Floating combat text, Hit numbers, Pop-off numbers
Numbers that jump off an enemy each time you hit it. They turn a hidden sum into feedback: how hard, and whether it was a critical hit.
In games about upgrades, they are the proof that the upgrade worked. In a fast game, though, a stream of equal-sized numbers is just noise, so size and colour need to do the reading for you, and small rapid hits should add into one.
Say it
“Scale damage numbers with the size of the hit, between 18 and 60 px. Crits go red with a short pop. Hits within 300 ms of each other add into one number.”
Where you’ve seen it
Borderlands fills the screen with floating numbers that burst from enemies as you shoot them. They are as much a part of its look as its art.
Not to be confused with hit stop
Hit stop makes a blow feel heavy. A damage number tells you how heavy it was. One is a sensation, the other a measurement.