As a thank you for all your support, over the next few weeks we'll be sharing behind-the-scenes peeks at how Dome Keeper is made. This week, Bippinbit's René offers a tantalizing technical breakdown of our game's striking color palettes and how we make every world feel distinctive.
Like a lot of things in life, sometimes it's the tiniest details that make the biggest impact. Take the colors used in Dome Keeper; we already know that its striking art style makes it stand out for all the right reasons, but did you know that every world has its own particular mood and atmosphere (pun intended, of course), too?
Color me excited!
First, check out this hot pink screenshot below. It's memorable, right? I mean, I don't think any of us are going to forget a world with a hot pink sky and royal blue plant life, but this image is unforgettable not just because of its strange color combination! You see, without this particular color palette, Dome Keeper would be a very different game indeed…
Here comes the science bit!
Thanks to the color combination of this world, we can create whole new hues and colors on other ones, too. To help you visualize it, here's a handy breakdown of the hues and shades we can find in the color palette for the groovy image above:
It's kinda cool, right? Varying shades of green, blue, and pink dominate the color scheme, but the palette also generates a number of purples, violets, and browns, too.
What's that? You don't want to live in a hot pink world? We're not sure what you have against the pink skies (we dig it, quite honestly), but the good news is, you don't have to!
"The reason this pink palette looks so strange is because the color values here actually have something encoded, so it's not about the colors at all," René explains. "It's about the placement in this grid.
"We can tell the game to use a different palette, but one in the same shape. For example, it will take the color that's in one square and replace it with the color in the same spot from a different palette. Like this!"
Some of these colors and shades are just for the monsters. Some are for the Dome. Some can only be used for your Keeper. But that's why - thanks to this nifty system - Dome Keeper enables you to easily swap color schemes and create a world that feels special and personal to you!
Worlds apart - making Dome Keeper's worlds feel distinct
But it's not just the colors that make every world in Dome Keeper feel unique.
In the future, Dome Keeper's worlds will offer different challenges, including what monsters may spawn there, and how often. For instance: although you may encounter the same monster type on more than one world, each world will have a unique setup.
This means every battle phase will play out a little differently, and every battle will offer its own unique benefits and threats. Combat will always feel distinct as you move from world to world, adapting your battle strategies as you go.
There will also be modifiers that offer pre-made setups that will spice up your worlds, too, allowing you to select preferred modes when choosing your loadout.
One mode includes speeding up the monsters - oh no! - but giving them fewer HP points - yay! Another includes creating a maze-like map with loads of appendages, tunnels, and chambers to explore. And another again halves the number of attack waves you encounter – giving you much more time to do that all-important mining, of course – but the waves you do endure will be much more challenging.
As for why we're mining for minerals, relics, and gadgets? Hmm. Guess we'll have to tell you more about that in another update, eh? Watch this space…
Make sure you're following us on Twitter or join our Discord and let us know what color schemes and modifiers you'd like to see pop up in Dome Keeper!