Ink Colors Observations+Discussion

[stachenscarfen]

Look!
LOOK!!
Look at all the beautiful gooey goopey inks in this wonderful squid game we all are excited for.
They are well and truly magnificent bodily fluids and today I am here to tell you about them in excruciating detail.

Basically, I took a long hard look at the colors in this game and now I am attempting to make a record of all the possible ink combinations, in which modes and levels they appear and how frequently. The first step is cataloging all the colors before I can determine anything else more specific.

All of the sources are referenced from screenshots, most of them are from the American Splatoon direct but a few are from livestreams of review copies and other Nintendo promotional videos.

Full disclosure though, exact color matching here is almost impossible. Due to the different environments and light sources in each stage as well as the shaders on the ink itself, the colors aren’t entirely consistent. So the hex codes are the web safe versions of the estimates I made from color sampling multiple sources, they’re not 100% accurate but they’re in the ballpark.


Spoiler'ed (spoiled? spoilered??) because with images it's pretty long.

The TL;DR chart below sums up everything pretty well but I just wanted to document everything as thoroughly as possible.

Spoiler: TURF WAR

PINK : #ff3399

ORANGE : #ff9900

TURQUOISE : #33ffcc

BLUE : #3333ff

PURPLE : #cc00ff

YELLOW : #ffff33 (ish)

Unlike the other colors, yellow ink wasn’t available in the testfire (or at least i never encountered it), but it does appear in the direct.

Here it is in a livestreamed turf war match.

These next two might need a somewhat of an explanation.

After watching several matches I started to pick up that the shade of green often paired up against purple, didn't seem quite the same as the one paired against pink.

(I hope this doesn't come across as patronizing, I genuinely had a hard time telling these colors apart and just want to make sure this has a thorough explanation)

From the gamexplain livestream, here's an inkling in the shooting range which has the same lighting and environmental conditions in each picture which makes it easier to see.

And here's the same inkling in the same pose in the same shop showing off each color in her hair.

So just to differentiate them I’ve been calling the warmer one

LIME GREEN : #99ff00

and the cooler one

SPRING GREEN : #33ff66

They’re working names which I guess is just another way of saying I dont have a clue what to call these colors.
(let me know if you have any suggestions)

WHAT I HAVE GATHERED SO FAR

Any comments, concerns or criticisms are cool.
If you have any more information on this topic I'll gladly edit this post to keep it updated.

I'm double checking to see if I missed any colors in Octo Valley right now before I update the list with single player.

 

[Crucifigo]

I'm pretty sure there's more colours than this in the main version based on screenshots in some video's I've watched, so hopefully we'll find some cool new combinations upon release. This is going to be super handy for artists who need a source for their Inkling colours.

 

[stachenscarfen]

I'm pretty sure there's more colours than this in the main version based on screenshots in some video's I've watched, so hopefully we'll find some cool new combinations upon release. This is going to be super handy for artists who need a source for their Inkling colours.

Yes there are almost definitely more out there, probably more than I have noticed own my own. There are a couple that I'm hesitant to post because I'm not sure if its just the lighting in the stages thats affecting how we view the color or what . . . but anyways here are the colors that appear in single player.

Spoiler: OCTO VALLEY

PURPLE : #cc00ff (PROBABLY)

I THINK this is the same color purple available to the inkling in turf war. But its difficult to prove because the player inkling cannot spawn as this color. Either way its pretty close.

ORANGE : #ff9900 (same as turf war)

YELLOW : #ffff33 (same as turf war)

LIME GREEN : #99ff00 (same as turf war)

SPRING GREEN : #33ff66 (same as turf war)

Once more, both of these colors are comparable but you can look at the top left of the screen to examine them more closely

BLUE : (same as turf war)

TURQUOISE : #33ffcc (same as turf war)

AQUA : #99ffcc (NOT in turf war)



Again, here are two colors that appear similar at first but take a closer look.

Aqua (as im dubbing it, once again open to suggestions here) is paler and less saturated than turquoise is.

And a close up of the meter.

 

[DonkaFjord]

I think there is a pale tomato soup reddish color that gets paired with a green too.

 

[Marmalade]

I hope that Aqua color isn't exclusive to singeplayer because I really like that color a lot, but haven't seen it online at all yet.

Would it be possible to color lock this color and use it online?
And, while we are at color locking, I was wondering if it effects other players? Meaning, if I have somebody in my party that has a color locked, does my team always get the same color, or does the player with the color locked color see a different color?

 

[m.m.]

I've been keeping track of colors since I started and this is an exhaustive list as far as I can tell.

Pink is online-only and the white-green is offline-only.
Probably they created the 8 online colors first, but then replaced the pink with the white-green for single player because the enemy is always purple.

I originally thought that the colors came in set pairs, like if your team was orange, the enemy team is always blue.
But this is not the case: you can also play orange vs turquoise and blue vs lime for example.
There are probably still only set pairs though, otherwise you'd get lime vs yellow or blue vs purple.

I guess the truly exhaustive color info would be every legal pair of colors in online battles.
At max there would 28 pairs, but it's probably closer to 10 pairs.

And, while we are at color locking, I was wondering if it effects other players?

Color assignment is not game-wide anyways I think?
As in, all four people on your team might be seeing the four of you as different colors even without color lock.
If that's the case then color lock doesn't affect anybody else, of course!

 

[LunarWingCloud]

I think there is a pale tomato soup reddish color that gets paired with a green too.

I saw that at one point online last night. The whole field was watermelon.

 

[Kris]

I find the Orange on Blue , obnoxious. I like Pink n Yellow though.

 

[ZypkerGaming]

The ones I don't like are yellow, lime green, and blue. I like all the rest, with pink and turquoise being my special favorites.

 

[Pivi]

actuallly theres a list of color combos! theres more than you think!

Spoiler

 

[rmzy]

I think there is a pale tomato soup reddish color that gets paired with a green too.

This sounds like the color that seems to be exclusive to Splatfest:

I could have sworn I've seen a darker purple online and a mint green that's definitely distinct from turqouise/"spring green" (I had someone else confirm that it looked different as well) offline but I'm starting to wonder if it was just lighting differences after all.

 

[m.m.]

actuallly theres a list of color combos! theres more than you think!

Spoiler

There's 11 pairs on this picture, and two duplicates? Lime+Blue as well as Teal+Pink are on there twice...
I wrote down all the pairs that appeared while I played turf wars today and here's what showed up:

• Orange+Blue : 5 times
• Orange+Teal: 1
• Pink+Yellow: 5
• Pink+Teal: 3
• Pink+Green: 3
• Lime+Purple: 4
• Lime+Blue: 5

Teal+Blue and Yellow+Blue are both on that picture but they did not show up at all and I don't remember seeing them, either.
It also looks like Purple+Green is paired up on the pic, but in-game it's Purple+Lime instead. Green is only paired with Pink.
Possibly some combos are only in ranked mode or something.

If anyone sees a pair that isn't one of those seven in a turf war, I'd like to know!

 

[Lyn]

Nice. Pink is definitely my favorite so far, especially when clashing with light blue. :)

 

[m.m.]

Single player level 20 uses a 'pastel blue' ink that is not on our list, unless it's just weird lighting,

 

[Trieste Sp]

I'd love to see them add new colours like black or red.

 

[DonkaFjord]

This sounds like the color that seems to be exclusive to Splatfest:

I could have sworn I've seen a darker purple online and a mint green that's definitely distinct from turqouise/"spring green" (I had someone else confirm that it looked different as well) offline but I'm starting to wonder if it was just lighting differences after all.

I've seen it online already, it just seems very uncommon (The pale red/green.)

 

[m.m.]

The "tomato red" only appears in ranked, along with other ranked-only colors: light teal, pastel purple, pastel green, pastel blue, burnt yellow, and very dark blue.
That's 7 ranked-only, I'm thinking there's one more that I'm not sure of. That would be 8 regular colors and 8 "rare" colors.

 

[Superjustinbros]

Nice analysis.
I should mention that the Yellow used in Turf Wars is a lot closer to a Yellow Orange than a straight yellow. Also, going into the the training area immediately after doing a level in Octo Valley will cause the balloons to have the Octarian's colors, no matter what color your Inkling is. The colors the Inklings can become in Octo Valley are unique to Octo Valley and Octo Valley only.

These were my results of attempting to screen cap the Multiplayer colors as they appeared when using "Reset" in the training area. The top row is how they initially appeared on the screencap, the middle row is with +100 Contrast (in Photoshop), and the bottom row is +200 Contrast. IMO, the middle row is the most accurate of my result.

EDIT: I've noticed that sometimes Splat Zones will use one of the Octoling color pairs.