🎮 Learning Game Development – Day 5 Basics of Color Theory

This post is part of my daily learning journey in game design and game development.I’m sharing what I learn each day — the basics, the confusion, and the real progress.

On Day 5, I learned the fundamentals of color theory.

At first, it looked simple.
But very quickly, I realized how important colors are in game design — not just for looks, but for mood, clarity, and player experience.

Color theory mainly revolves around three core concepts:

🎨 Hue
Hue is the pure color itself — like red, blue, or yellow — without adding white, black, or gray.

🎨 Value
Value refers to the lightness or darkness of a color.

1. Adding white creates a tint
2. Adding black creates a shade

For example, if we take red as the hue and keep adding black, it becomes a darker red.
Repeating this eventually turns it almost black.

Adding white does the opposite and makes the color lighter.

🎨 Saturation
Saturation means how bright or dull a color appears.

When black and white are mixed, we get gray.
Adding gray to a color (like dark red) makes it look less vibrant and more dull.

🖌️ Polychromatic Colors & the Color Wheel

I also learned about polychromatic color usage using RGB combinations.
Using colors,

we can create:

1. Primary colors
2. Secondary colors
3. Tertiary colors

The basic idea:

• Primary + Primary → Secondary
• Primary + Secondary → Tertiary

Using these combinations, we can build a color wheel, which helps in choosing colors intentionally instead of guessing.

🌡️ Color Relationships

After understanding the color wheel,

I explored different color relationships:

1. Warm colors – Reds, oranges, yellows (energetic, intense)
2. Cool colors – Blues, greens, purples (calm, relaxed)
3. Complementary colors – Opposite colors on the wheel
4. Split complementary – One color + two neighbors of its opposite
5. Analogous colors – Colors next to each other
6. Triadic colors – Three evenly spaced colors
7. Tetradic colors – Two complementary color pairs

Using any one of these methods, we can color game props, environments, or UI in a more balanced and intentional way.

Today wasn’t about memorizing colors. It was about understanding why colors work, not just picking random ones.

That’s what I learned on Day 5.

Slow progress — but I’m building a strong foundation.

If you’re also learning game development, feel free to follow along.

See you on Day 6 🎮🚀