Screen resolution and colour tricks of OCS/ECS games

[Khephren]

So iv'e had a look at games with a high number of colours to see how they did it, inspired by this thread:
http://forum.classicamiga.com/forum/...on-OCS-ECS-AGA
And also an arguement with an artist friend of mine who worked on some megadrive stuff 'Amiga games are 32 colour, megadrive could display more than that' (Yes, these are the 15 year old arguements that come from an industry filled exclusively with fanboys...and girls).

Your average game will be in the resolutions/bit depth that Phantom quoted in that topic , but some are much higher in colour count.And some try to con you... As a games artist, and Amiga freak, I find this interesting. I'm going to post some pictures with some theorising.

Pioneer Plague
Quite early, and not brilliantly drawn, but appears to be a fixed HAM palette of 256 colours. from an era of ST ports this is very cool!
pioneer_plague_04.png

No second prize
Gives a the impression the game is in 26 colours. But it's actually appears to be a 16 colour game screen, and a 16 colour dash, with shared palette colours to make the two blend. The new screen starts where the last line of the 3D road meets the HUD.
no_second_prize_04.png

Settlers
Looks like it's the same thing again, but the main game screen has 40 colours on it. so probably halfbrite.
settlers_16.png

Trex warrior
Getting complicated now. 87 colours on screen in this one, more elsewhere. It actually has 3 seperate copper fades going on, adding to the colour count. One for the sky, another for the sea, and another for the sun. A seperate screen with it's own palette for the HUD. And i'm betting the 3D is actually 16 colour (due to the lack of chunky, as we all know) -Frontier does the same thing.
trex_warrior_08.png

Universe
Having spoke to some coders, this game is apparently changing the palette entries for each line.Up to 200+ colours in some scenes. Similar to how some Atari ST art packages got more colours on screen.
universe.png

Fire And Ice
Plenty going on here. looks like three screens. One for the game screen, and two for the map. The map might just be one screen with copper palatte manipulation to change the reflection colours though. Multiple copper bars as well. Looks like four. End result is 170+colours on screen.
fire_and_ice_05.png

Lionheart
184 colours going on here. two seperate copper fades, later you get some water reflection like fire and ice. In areas with no copper bars/reflection....it's in plain old 32 colour mode
lionheart_07.png

For comparison, most megadrive games have between 28-45 colours (A couple slip over this). SNES between 90-150, (quite a few manage over this). So not to shabby from 1985 hardware.