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Palettes and Games

Printed From: Pixel Joint
Category: The Lounge
Forum Name: Resources and Support
Forum Discription: Help your fellow pixel artists out with links to good tutorials, other forums, software, fonts, etc. Bugs and support issues should go here as well.
URL: https://pixeljoint.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=24922
Printed Date: 13 September 2025 at 8:37am


Topic: Palettes and Games
Posted By: Sir_Veillance
Subject: Palettes and Games
Date Posted: 17 February 2016 at 1:59pm
Just a quick question here. I am working on a small game project with a few friends and I am doing a lot of the sprite and tile work. I am using a 32 color palette, but have run into a problem.

Since there are only so many browns or so many greens, and I use them in the tiles as well as the characters, a character often has the same color on as the tile behind him. Should I break the palette to amend this problem? For some colors it seems impossible to avoid because there isn't a replacement for it in the palette.

Just curious about other's suggestions.



Replies:
Posted By: eishiya
Date Posted: 17 February 2016 at 2:14pm
Through clever design, you can avoid that being an issue. For example, if the colours never but up against one another, and/or are dominant in one but only accent colours in the other, it shouldn't hinder readability.

Plus, you should consider if you're using those colours in the most effective ways you can. Perhaps there are more striking colours you could use for the characters, something to make them more distinct from the world and from each other? In particular, using the more naturey/neutral colours widely in the background but only in small amounts (as accents or as AA and neutralisers) in the character usually helps avoid readability issues in games with small palettes.



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