Vibrant Tartakovsky-inspired game sparks fascinating debate about colour theory

Colour can play a huge role in a setting the mood for the game Silent Hill 2's desaturated palette creates its sense of isolation, or how Celeste uses color to reflect the protagonist's emotional state and the tone of each chapter.

Colour certainly plays a big part in the striking art style of Genndy Tartakovsky-inspired Necrowave, and it's generated a surprisingly geeky debate (see our feature on colour theory if you need to brush up).

I'm born colorblind and love games, so I'm making a game with colors that are beautiful to me from r/IndieDev

Necrowave is a 2D platformer is about “the emotional life of a zombie stuck in a microwave”. Since death comes with a single hit, combat requires critical thinking rather than brute force. It's often gory, and the bright red blood really contrasts against the blue backgrounds.

It appears that the reason for this unusually striking contrast is because the developer has colourblindness. Writing on Reddit, Arfhis The Wizard reveals: “I'm born colorblind and love games, so I'm making a game with colors that are beautiful to me.”

The resulting colours look great to a lot of people without colourblindness too, and that's sparked a debate about why these particular colour combinations work so well.

Some suggest the game's colours are complementary (opposites on the colour wheel), while others point out that orange is opposite blue on the colour wheel, not red.

Others suggest that the notion of complementary colours is not objective and also that there are several colour wheels for different uses (RGB, CMYK or for mixing). Red and cyan are complementary, while red are teal are often used together for contrast in film and photography, and some of the scenes in Necrowave do have teal in them

For whatever reason, the combination of blue and red in Necrowave really pops, making the game feel bold and vibrant, while also highlighting all that blood. The striking animation work is giving some people Samurai Jack vibes, which certainly isn't a bad thing.

You can wishlist the game on Steam.

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