--- title: "Retro Palettes: NES, Game Boy, PICO-8, C64 | Pixel Rumble" description: "Hex codes for the NES, Game Boy, PICO-8, CGA and Commodore 64 palettes. Click to copy, download GPL, PNG, JSON or HEX files, or convert your own palette." url: https://pixelrumble.buzz/retro-palettes/ --- **Stage 05** · colour select # Retro console palettes The colours of the NES, Game Boy, PICO-8, CGA and Commodore 64, with hex codes to copy and palette files for Aseprite, GIMP, Krita and your game engine. **NES** The Nintendo Entertainment System's picture chip (the 2C02 PPU) has 64 palette entries, numbered $00 to $3F, in four rows of brightness. It produces an analogue TV signal rather than RGB, so this is one widely used RGB rendering. A game can show up to 25 of these at once: a shared background colour plus four 3-colour background palettes and four 3-colour sprite palettes. ### NES (2C02) 64 entries · 55 distinct colours - `#7c7c7c` $00 - `#0000fc` $01 - `#0000bc` $02 - `#4428bc` $03 - `#940084` $04 - `#a80020` $05 - `#a81000` $06 - `#881400` $07 - `#503000` $08 - `#007800` $09 - `#006800` $0A - `#005800` $0B - `#004058` $0C - `#000000` $0D - `#000000` $0E - `#000000` $0F - `#bcbcbc` $10 - `#0078f8` $11 - `#0058f8` $12 - `#6844fc` $13 - `#d800cc` $14 - `#e40058` $15 - `#f83800` $16 - `#e45c10` $17 - `#ac7c00` $18 - `#00b800` $19 - `#00a800` $1A - `#00a844` $1B - `#008888` $1C - `#000000` $1D - `#000000` $1E - `#000000` $1F - `#f8f8f8` $20 - `#3cbcfc` $21 - `#6888fc` $22 - `#9878f8` $23 - `#f878f8` $24 - `#f85898` $25 - `#f87858` $26 - `#fca044` $27 - `#f8b800` $28 - `#b8f818` $29 - `#58d854` $2A - `#58f898` $2B - `#00e8d8` $2C - `#787878` $2D - `#000000` $2E - `#000000` $2F - `#fcfcfc` $30 - `#a4e4fc` $31 - `#b8b8f8` $32 - `#d8b8f8` $33 - `#f8b8f8` $34 - `#f8a4c0` $35 - `#f0d0b0` $36 - `#fce0a8` $37 - `#f8d878` $38 - `#d8f878` $39 - `#b8f8b8` $3A - `#b8f8d8` $3B - `#00fcfc` $3C - `#f8d8f8` $3D - `#000000` $3E - `#000000` $3F Download **Game Boy** The original Game Boy (DMG-01, 1989) shows four shades on a greenish reflective LCD. The hardware only knows shade numbers 0 to 3, so these four greens are the common approximation of how the screen looks. Game Boy sprites use three of the four shades, because shade 0 is transparent for them. ### Game Boy (DMG-01) 4 colours - `#0f380f` darkest - `#306230` dark - `#8bac0f` light - `#9bbc0f` lightest Download **PICO-8** PICO-8 is a fantasy console by Lexaloffle with a fixed 16-colour palette, listed in its manual. Because the colours are defined exactly, these hex values match what PICO-8 shows. The colour names are the ones the PICO-8 community usually uses. ### PICO-8 16 colours - `#000000` 0 black - `#1d2b53` 1 dark-blue - `#7e2553` 2 dark-purple - `#008751` 3 dark-green - `#ab5236` 4 brown - `#5f574f` 5 dark-grey - `#c2c3c7` 6 light-grey - `#fff1e8` 7 white - `#ff004d` 8 red - `#ffa300` 9 orange - `#ffec27` 10 yellow - `#00e436` 11 green - `#29adff` 12 blue - `#83769c` 13 lavender - `#ff77a8` 14 pink - `#ffccaa` 15 light-peach Download **CGA** IBM's Color Graphics Adapter (1981) builds 16 colours from red, green, blue and an intensity bit. Colour 6 would be a dark yellow, but IBM monitors turned it into brown, which is the version listed here. In the 320 × 200 graphics mode a program picks one of the four-colour sets below; the background is black by default but can be any of the 16. ### CGA 16 colours 16 colours - `#000000` 0 black - `#0000aa` 1 blue - `#00aa00` 2 green - `#00aaaa` 3 cyan - `#aa0000` 4 red - `#aa00aa` 5 magenta - `#aa5500` 6 brown - `#aaaaaa` 7 light grey - `#555555` 8 dark grey - `#5555ff` 9 light blue - `#55ff55` 10 light green - `#55ffff` 11 light cyan - `#ff5555` 12 light red - `#ff55ff` 13 light magenta - `#ffff55` 14 yellow - `#ffffff` 15 white Download ### CGA mode 4, palette 1, high intensity 4 colours - `#000000` background (black) - `#55ffff` light cyan - `#ff55ff` light magenta - `#ffffff` white Download ### CGA mode 4, palette 1, low intensity 4 colours - `#000000` background (black) - `#00aaaa` cyan - `#aa00aa` magenta - `#aaaaaa` light grey Download ### CGA mode 4, palette 0, high intensity 4 colours - `#000000` background (black) - `#55ff55` light green - `#ff5555` light red - `#ffff55` yellow Download ### CGA mode 4, palette 0, low intensity 4 colours - `#000000` background (black) - `#00aa00` green - `#aa0000` red - `#aa5500` brown Download **Commodore 64** The Commodore 64's VIC-II chip has 16 fixed colours. Like the NES it outputs a video signal, so RGB versions differ; this is Philip "Pepto" Timmermann's widely used set, calculated from measurements of the chip's output, which many emulators adopted. ### Commodore 64 (Pepto) 16 colours - `#000000` 0 black - `#ffffff` 1 white - `#68372b` 2 red - `#70a4b2` 3 cyan - `#6f3d86` 4 purple - `#588d43` 5 green - `#352879` 6 blue - `#b8c76f` 7 yellow - `#6f4f25` 8 orange - `#433900` 9 brown - `#9a6759` 10 light red - `#444444` 11 dark grey - `#6c6c6c` 12 grey - `#9ad284` 13 light green - `#6c5eb5` 14 light blue - `#959595` 15 light grey Download ## Using a retro palette Click any colour to copy its hex code. Each palette can be downloaded in five formats: **GPL** (GIMP palette, also opened by Aseprite, Krita, Inkscape and LibreSprite), **HEX** (one code per line), **PNG** (a strip of swatches; choose 1 px per colour when a program loads palettes from images), **JSON** (an array of hex strings, with names and NES index numbers where the palette has them) and **CSS** custom properties. Working inside a real console's limits is part of the look. On the NES each 16 × 16 pixel area of the background uses one 3-colour palette plus the shared background colour, and a sprite has three colours plus transparency. Game Boy art lives in four shades, so contrast does all the work. PICO-8 and the C64 give you 16 colours for the whole screen. Picking a palette first and sticking to it is the quickest way to make a set of sprites look like they belong together. For a picture rather than a drawing, use [image to pixel art](https://pixelrumble.buzz/image-to-pixel-art/): it maps every pixel to the palette you choose and can dither to suggest in-between colours. To draw by hand, pick the same palette in the [pixel art editor](https://pixelrumble.buzz/). ## Sources - NESdev Wiki, [PPU palettes](https://www.nesdev.org/wiki/PPU_palettes): the 64 entries, why the NES has no single RGB palette, and the $0D black. - Pan Docs, [Palettes](https://gbdev.io/pandocs/Palettes.html): the Game Boy's four shades and sprite transparency. - Lexaloffle, [PICO-8 User Manual](https://www.lexaloffle.com/dl/docs/pico-8_manual.html): the 16-colour palette. - Wikipedia, [Color Graphics Adapter](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color_Graphics_Adapter): the RGBI colours, the brown adjustment and the 320 × 200 four-colour palettes. - Philip Timmermann, [Calculating the color palette of the VIC II](https://www.pepto.de/projects/colorvic/): the Commodore 64 values. ## Questions **Are these the exact colours of the real consoles?** PICO-8 and CGA colours are defined digitally, so their hex values are standard. The NES and the Commodore 64 send an analogue TV signal and the original Game Boy has a greenish LCD, so any RGB version of those is an approximation. The sets here are widely used ones; emulators offer many variants. **Which file format should I download?** GPL for GIMP, Aseprite, Krita and Inkscape. HEX for Lospec-style lists and Aseprite. PNG with one pixel per colour for tools that load a palette from an image. JSON for your own code, and CSS for web projects. **Why does the NES table repeat black?** The NES has 64 palette entries, but several of them all display black. The table keeps the hardware order so the $ index numbers line up with what you write in code, and the downloads list each distinct colour once. Avoid $0D on real hardware: that black is darker than the TV expects. **Can I draw with these palettes?** Yes. The pixel art editor has PICO-8, Game Boy, NES, Commodore 64 and CGA in its palette menu, and image to pixel art can convert a picture to any of them, with dithering if you like.