As you may know, Mario Paint has sixteen colors including black and white. The others are, from left to right, red, orange, yellow, green, sea green, cyan, blue, burgundy (a reddish brown color), brown, peach, purple, dark grey, and light grey.

The "color fade" effect cycles through some of these colors as they disappear (for the purposes of disappearance, white is effectively transparent). The first phase is that black becomes sea green, peach becomes orange, purple becomes yellow, dark grey to cyan, and light grey to blue, reducing the palette. Then, burgundy disappears as brown becomes red, then yellow becomes orange and red disappears, then blue becomes cyan (orange disappears), cyan becomes green, and then green finally vanishes.

In playing Gnat Attack, Level One has only two bugs on screen at the same time. Borrowing the sprites and names from Mario Wiki we have several bugs here.

	Fly	Buzzes around, easy to hit
	Fly Parent	Will come from in the sides and spurt out "Fly Children" which will go after you and can't be destroyed
	Fly Bomb	Gets close to you and will explode, but easy to hit since they all go toward you.
	Big Fly	Will often stop and shoot off projectiles. Get 'em before they do.
	King Watinga	The boss. Has several attacks.

Level One has two bugs on the screen at any given time (unless noted). Extra lives are given at every 25 bugs, and sometimes during boss fights (like the second one).
100 (start) - two Flies enter
80 - Fly Parent appears, though only one at a time (the other is a Fly)
64 - drops to one Fly at a time
60 - Fly Bombs appear
40 - Big Fly appears
20 - Fly Parent makes a reappearance except there are two at a time now


Level Two has four bugs at a time which makes things go by faster. King Watinga has more attacks. 100 - four Flies enter
80 - 2 Fly Parents appear with two Flies
60 - Fly Bombs appear
40 - Big Fly appears (these can get chaotic)
20 - 2 Fly Parents with two Big Flies


Level 3 has six bugs with oddities like King Watinga having a different voice and occasional moans from swatting regular Flies instead of their usual sound effect
100 - six flies enter
80 - six Big Flies
60 - three Bomb Flies, three Fly Parents
40 - two Fly Parents, two Big Flies, two Flies
20 - three Fly Parents, three Big Flies