Something Amiss
 

I would say the loading time is way to long. I'm still waiting for it to load ..
Not sure how much longer I will wait.

Load Time
 

Thanks for the feedback. It's very helpful.
I'll have to revisit the file sizes and see if I can slim them down. Since this is an indie game I'm learning as I go.

How do I interact with my surroundings? It seems that all I can do here is walk around. Loading time is a bit long, but not at all a problem. Looks nice, by the way :-)

Navigation
 

To interact with objects just roll the cursor over something. it will turn red and the name of the object will appear at the bottom of the screen. Then hold down the mouse until the "verb disc" appears. Without letting go, roll over one of the 3 buttons on the disc (talking, looking, or using).

I created a help section accessible via the top right of the page which explains how to play in a bit more detail.

If you reload the first page you'll see that I added a link to download the game (6MB) and play it offline. This should solve some of the performance problems. I'm currently looking at ways of reducing the load time.

Thanks for helping me test this thing and work out the kinks!

Thanks

Nice! Now I get it. Just one more small thing. When the character walks across the screen, sometimes it "floats" or "slides" across the floor when it nears a wall. Especially when walking across more than just one "screen" ("walking-animation" stops before you reach the wall). It looks a bit funny, but that's just a small glitch. Go for it! I'm looking forward to playing! It looks nice!

I didn't have any problem with the load times at all, maybe 3 seconds at most. And the character animations ran nice and smoothly.

A very intriguing start! I hope the next chapter is longer!

i got it working now. I did get the sliding too. if you click on the MRI machine and say use look and have her by the door she will walk to it and starting sliding to the MRI machine.

Sliding Bug
 

Yes, I'll have to work on that sliding bug. Guess I can't chalk it up to slippery floors. ;) Let me know if you encounter any other anomalies.

I just finished it. Let me give you a bit of feedback.

WARNING: CONTAINS SPOILERS

Negative:
1. It's very short, even for only one chapter, but offcourse you probably realise that. If you continue to make chapters I would encourage you to increase the length of them a bit. Also realise that if you double the amount of rooms you should be able to triple the amount of puzzles with a bit of creative thinking, so players can get even more out of your game.
2. The story in the beginning could have been a little bit more fleshed out. Normally, if after a scan the doors are locked a normal person would just wait instead of trying to break out. Maybe give the player a bit more of a reason for trying to escape the room, ex: an alarm is going off.
3. I couldn't really make out what was being said on the taperecorder. Maybe next time you can consider adding subtitles for us non-native english speakers?

Positive:
1. I like the intro movie. It sets the mood very well and just basicly looks really cool.
2. Very nice artwork. I like your style.
3. Puzzles were good. Not too hard, maybe just a tad too easy, but that's nitpicking. I like how there are objects that are just for show, and not used in a puzzle.
4. What I've seen from the story so far seems very interesting.

Ultimately, I liked it and would love to see more of it. :9

* I second the suggestion about subtitles, if we're supposed to get anything from listening to the tape. And / or a comment from the protagonist after listening to it.
* Loading times were quick for me, but I have a good connection.
* There's a full screen option. Is it supposed to work? It did nothing for me.

Like others have said, I basically liked it and would like to see the continuation.

Very promising!

However, as we start solving the puzzles we get too little involved with the character, so the gameplay becomes a bit uninteresting.

Feedback Appreciated
 

Thanks for the comments, folks. It's really helpful in strategizing future chapters.

I agree that the story needs more exposition. And the taped message is a bit too garbled and vague. (There's such a thing as being too mysterious, I guess.)
As for gameplay, I'll avoid puzzles for puzzles sake and try to tie them into the overall plot and character motivation. That's good advice.
Full screen only seems to work when you launch the game outside a web browser, so I'll have to work on that too. ;(

"Item one fifty-one on today's glitch list."
- Jurassic Park

The full screen option is something that only works when the game is run in Flash Player. So long as the game is running in a browser it will always be in window mode.

However, anyone could make a new HTML file that redirects to the game's main SWF file and have whatever resolution set within their own HTML file. It would still be in a browser window, but you could effectively set it to run in as big a window that would fit your monitor.

You could also suggests the user to press F11 so the browser goes fullscreen. This works with IE, Opera and Mozilla. ;)

That will make the browser window fullscreen, but the game would still be the fixed resolution if it's embedded in the HTML (ie, if in the HTML the flash SWF is set to display at 800x600 it will stay at 800x600 no matter if the browser is fullscreen or windowed.) You'd have to link directly to the swf URL to get that to work (ie, http://www.somethingamiss.com/somethingamiss.swf). Unfortunately, the way LASSIE works is that there can be data OUTSIDE the boundaries of the visable game screen the creator defined (for instance, scrolling backgrounds) and if you play a LASSIE game at a resolution not proportionate to what the game was created for you can see things you weren't meant to see.

A HTML with a JavaScript resizer solves that. So, the Flash will fit proportionally in any screen size, and without extra stuff on the borders.

Anyway, 800x600 or 640x480 games expanded/stretched to 1024x768 looks very ugly (mainly the bitmaps). I do prefer to see it at original size, even if it's small in the middle of the screen.

Serial Adventure Games
 

Not sure if this concept has ben explored before in a game or in the forums but I wanted to get people's thoughts on the concept of a serial adventure game - one that is dished out in episodes (in my case chapters) over an extended period of time - much like TV shows such as Lost, X-Files, 24, etc...

The Cons as I see them are...
1.) having to wait for the next chapter to come out and losing audience interest in the story.
2.) having to be connected to the internet to play.
3.) the possibility that the developer has to quite game progress (because of sickness, work, etc.) and there being no satisfying ending.

The Pros are...
1.) being able to respond to user feedback to improve the game experience and fix bugs.
2.) completing the game in chunks makes it easier for the indie developer to proceed and and user feedback provides motivation to keep going.
3.) a timed release can increase suspense and word-of-mouth buzz.
4.) the chance of spoilers is reduced.
5.) advenure junkies don't feel the need to complete the whole game in a caffeinated weekend blitz (i speak from experience)

Chapter Two
 

Thanks for everyone's feedback. I've decided to go ahead and create chapter two - keeping in mind all the suggestions posted here. The chapter will have many more rooms and puzzles and push the narrative a big step forward. Look for the release announcement in the next couple of weeks.

Great! Keep up the good work!