Game color palettes

Game colour has to work twice: once as a mood and once as information. These twelve keep enough contrast left over for health bars, damage numbers and the thing the player is supposed to walk towards.

Using these in a game

  • Reserve one high-saturation colour for interactive objects and never use it for scenery. Players learn that rule in seconds without being told.
  • Test the palette at 25% size. If two colours merge at thumbnail scale, they will merge in motion.
  • Dark scenes need a light source in the palette, not just dark colours — without it, the screen reads as broken rather than as night.

The text colour under each palette is whichever of near-black or white reaches the higher contrast ratio against its first colour — check any other pairing before using it for body text.

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