Test Game shows blue everywhere

[SilvaStorm]

When I run Test Game, it loads up and the whole screen is blue. When I move the mouse around or make my character move, the blue disappears as my mouse or character gets to that area. I could move the mouse around for 5 minutes clearing it away but that just seems like a waste of time. What is going on and how can I fix this?

[Gilbert]

Seems to be a driver problem, try updating DirectX and/or your graphic card's driver.

Also, try running your game in windowed mode, is it the same?

[SilvaStorm]

I changed the depth to 16-bit and the blue didnt appear (good) but I really wanted to use 8-bit for my game (bad). How do you change it to open in a window?

[Khris]

There's an executable called winsetup in the Compiled subdir of your game dir.
Run that and check "Run in a window instead of fullscreen".

As a side note: it's more reliable to not use the Test Game option but to run the game.exe in mentioned subdir instead.

[SilvaStorm]

How do you make sure the colors you are using for your game are in the 256 line, every time I import a background (drawn in Paint, the only drawing etc. program I have) it says it will be unusable as it is a hi-color picture. What do I do?

[Khris]

Try saving it in GIF format.

[Gilbert]

Save it in M$Pain using 8-bit format (which can make your pic looks like crap), or use apps that can edit 8-bit images natively.
However, for most users it's easier to have the game set in hicolour so they don't need to mess with palettes.

[SilvaStorm]

Doesn't hi-color make the game run less smoothly? And how do you make a Paint pic 8-bit?

[Gilbert]

Depends on the resolution and how consuming your game is. Normally, most semi-modern computers should be able to handle 640x480 hicolour games quite well.
I'm not sure, availability of 8-bit modes probably varies with versions of M$Pain bundled with different versions of windows, if there's an file format option like "256 colour BMP" use it (since I'm not using English windows I don't know exact wording), GIF works also, though I'm sure that not all versions of M$Pain can save images as GIF format.

[SilvaStorm]

I tried gif, but to no avail. Do I just have to draw a background in paint using the colors from the palette?

[Gilbert]

Did you mean your M$Pain didn't have the option to save as GIF, or AGS refused to import GIF?

[SilvaStorm]

AGS refused.

[strazer]

To summarize: The effect you describe is caused by using a 16-bit room background image in a 256 color (8-bit) game. I think unless you downconverted your game from 16-bit to 8-bit, AGS should have told you that the room will be unusable.

To avoid this, make sure your image is in 8-bit format before you import it and be sure to re-import it if you lowered your game's color depth.

If Paint doesn't work for you, try using another paint program to save your image as a 256-color bmp.