Palette Controls

The engine uses a color palette for all rendering. These functions let you temporarily remap palette colors for visual effects.

The palette

The palette has 16 colors, indexes 0 to 15 (the standard PICO-8 set). Every function that takes a color expects one of these indexes:

Index	Color	Hex
0	black	#000000
1	dark blue	#1D2B53
2	dark purple	#7E2553
3	dark green	#008751
4	brown	#AB5236
5	dark grey	#5F574F
6	light grey	#C2C3C7
7	white	#FFF1E8
8	red	#FF004D
9	orange	#FFA300
10	yellow	#FFEC27
11	green	#00E436
12	blue	#29ADFF
13	lavender	#83769C
14	pink	#FF77A8
15	peach	#FFCCAA

set_col

set_col(index, replacementIndex)

Temporarily remap one palette color to another.

Parameters:

• index (number) – Palette slot to replace.

• replacementIndex (number) – Palette slot to copy into it.

This changes the active palette used by all subsequent rendering calls. Use it for:

• Damage flashes – swap sprite colors to white or red for a few frames

• Night mode – darken all colors

• Enemy recolors – create enemy variants by swapping specific colors

• Power-up effects – tint the player when powered up

Invalid palette indexes print an error in the output panel. Unlike clear(), the error is caught by the engine: the frame keeps running with the palette unchanged.

-- Make color 8 render as color 10
set_col(8, 10)

-- Flash the player white on hit
if player.hit_timer > 0 then
  set_col(8, 7)   -- swap main color to white
  set_col(9, 7)
end

reset_col

reset_col()

Restore the original palette, undoing all set_col changes.

reset_col()

Always call reset_col() after temporary color swaps so that later drawing calls in the same frame use the correct colors.

Typical usage pattern

function _draw()
  clear(0)

  -- Draw enemies with a red tint
  set_col(8, 4)
  for i = 1, #enemies do
    sprite(enemies[i].spr, enemies[i].x, enemies[i].y, 1, 1)
  end
  reset_col()

  -- Draw the player with normal colors
  sprite(player.spr, player.x, player.y, 1, 2)
end