Author Topic: Why Amber UI?  (Read 2973 times)

Ravager

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Why Amber UI?
« on: April 11, 2024, 04:54:42 pm »
The game's UI, and a lot of the computers in the game, seem to use a monochrome display in either amber or green.

This hearkens back to the old amber / green monochrome CRTs of the 1980s. However, the computers, such as the laptop in your quarters, look like they are using LCDs, or some other thin display.

So why are most people using monochrome displays?


I understand the retro appeal of it, and the idea that Underrail stems from an 'early space-age civilization,' which could mean the space-race era, early 1980s, etc...

However, in Underrail itself, I can see some justification for monochrome. If industrial capacity is very limited, and more about repairability / serviceability / modification, that obviously favours a simpler display technology.

[You don't have Japan and South-East Asia producing semiconductor wafers and LCD controllers.]


Your personal device can read blueprints, which I sort of assume are in monochrome. Not ideal, but blueprints are basically monochrome. So is some kind of monochrome flat-screen adequate?

If you look at people on the internet making very simple computers [something easier to conceptualize and build than a MOS 6510], they invent monochrome displays. [Although colour is not impossible.] So maybe Underrail [at least the South] is using really simplified 32 or 64-bit computers with very basic displays, for the most part.

What do you think?


Vokial

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Re: Why Amber UI?
« Reply #1 on: April 23, 2024, 09:03:23 am »
This is why the player character in Castlevania NES is also in amber. It's what POPS OUT the most from the dark blue, grey, green color palette.