I think palt() should be just replaced with a single variable that denotes color to be used as transparent, which defaults to 0. Because frankly, we don't need multiple transparent colors, I can't think of a single scenario where this would be useful.

I have played around with two different uses of multiple transparency, both aimed at reducing the number of sprites needed for certain effects. First, a particle effect using small sprites with few colors. You can pack, say, four 4x4 sprites into a single 8x8 sprite using different colors. Then use palt() to hide the ones you don't want and pal() to remap the color. (You could probably achieve the same effect by (ab)using clip() to mask out the parts you don't want.)

The other use was for a hydra monster with multiple heads that can be chopped off and regrown. Rather than having a single sprite for each different number of heads, I have one sprite with seven heads, all in different colors, and use palt() and pal() to select which ones will be drawn.

Dude, you need to stop making all these threads in editor. This is just wrong, palt is very useful. See my fast life cart for one method, but being able to make any color transparent is super important for optimization and redrawing effects over the existing screen. Why would you want zep to waste time removing functionality?

-1

multiple transparent colours are useful. for example, in tempest the shoreline sprites are "rainbows" and i can map all the colours to sand colour and then control the thickness with palt.

Thumbs down

-1 That option is useful for so many things..

Too noob to have an opinion aside from thumbs up for making people defend it :P very interesting to hear about different ways such a feature is useful from people.