Colors and Palette

The Default Palette

PIGO8 starts with the classic PICO-8 palette:

Index	Name	RGB	Description
0	Black	(0, 0, 0)	Used for transparency
1	Dark Blue	(29, 43, 83)
2	Dark Purple	(126, 37, 83)
3	Dark Green	(0, 135, 81)
4	Brown	(171, 82, 54)
5	Dark Gray	(95, 87, 79)
6	Light Gray	(194, 195, 199)
7	White	(255, 241, 232)
8	Red	(255, 0, 77)
9	Orange	(255, 163, 0)
10	Yellow	(255, 236, 39)
11	Green	(0, 228, 54)
12	Blue	(41, 173, 255)
13	Indigo	(131, 118, 156)
14	Pink	(255, 119, 168)
15	Peach	(255, 204, 170)

Transparency

By default, color 0 (black) is transparent when drawing sprites. This means:

Pixels with color 0 in your sprites won't be drawn
You can layer sprites on top of each other
Change transparency settings with Palt()

Custom Palettes (palette.hex)

Load palettes from sites like Lospec:

Download a palette in HEX format
Save as palette.hex in your project:

c60021
e70000
e76121
e7a263
e7c384

PIGO8 automatically loads it on startup

Note: Color 0 is always transparent, and color 1 becomes white. Your hex colors start at index 2.

Palette Functions

SetPaletteColor

Change a single color at runtime:

import "image/color"

func (g *game) Init() {
    // Make color 8 a custom blue
    p8.SetPaletteColor(8, color.RGBA{0, 100, 200, 255})
}

GetPaletteColor

Read the current color at an index:

col := p8.GetPaletteColor(8)  // Returns color.Color

SetPalette

Replace the entire palette:

import "image/color"

func (g *game) Init() {
    grayscale := []color.Color{
        color.RGBA{0, 0, 0, 255},       // Black
        color.RGBA{85, 85, 85, 255},    // Dark gray
        color.RGBA{170, 170, 170, 255}, // Light gray
        color.RGBA{255, 255, 255, 255}, // White
    }
    p8.SetPalette(grayscale)
}

GetPaletteSize

Get the number of colors:

count := p8.GetPaletteSize()  // Returns 16 for default palette

PIGO8 Documentation