I want to change the direction of individual particles to move away from player as they hit the player or within a range. Is there a way to do this?
don't think you can with particles - I think your only option is sprites (I hope I am wrong)
I thought so as well, but kinda hoped particles would work as family of objects.
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Nope, they are optimized to be as fast as possible, so can't do anything special. It has been pointed out, if they added sprite like features the benefit would be lost as they would be the same as sprites. So yes, you will have to use multiple sprites.
My particle demo: https://www.scirra.com/tutorials/761/particle-demo-capx