Pixel modifications

[Domarius]

Thanks for the screenshots!
Is the Pico-8 16-color palette fixed or programmable? (i.e. you can choose what 16 colors compose your palette).
Although many classic systems implemented fixed palettes, I'm personally against them. The reason is that color matching and balancing is a key skill for any pixel artist, and forcing fixed palettes imposes a great limitation. So I advocate for small palettes of selectable colors. But it's just a personal preference!

Yes it's fixed, and I understand your sentiment, but... give it a try. When I say the Pico 8 palette has been put together with the benefit of hindsight, I mean that they are a REALLY good selection of 16 colours. All of the things in the natural (and unnatural) world can be reflected in these colours - flesh tones, trees, sunsets, etc. and it's actually an exercise in artistic ability to combine colours next to each other to affect how other colours are perceived. Also I'm sure fixed pallettes were a performance or manufacturing cost thing, so it's good for Pico 8 to aim so low and get something looking so good.

What I like about the Pico-8 is that is a fully contained platform: the system provides its own development tools. That's great for amateurs and hobbyist that are starting. It's a bit like the Arduino: it's quite limited, but the platform provides it's own IDE, language and debug platform. The entry barrier is really low and thus very attractive for education and first steps.

Yes it takes a lot of the hassell out! Actually my main complaint was the storage restrictions. I loved making games in it but quickly ran upagainst the data limitations, even with all the tricks I could manage.

And I can say I had a fair go at it, because I re-created tne entire Alex Kidd In Miracle world game in it! You can play it in your browser at this link:

https://www.lexaloffle.com/bbs/?pid=46037&tid=30218

Oh BTW you can see an example of pallette colour swapping in Pico 8 in my water level - you can replace colours, but it must be with one of the existing colours. You can do it between draw calls so that it only affects one sprite, or background, or whatever.