Catico-1: A panoramic flash adventure game

[Lumlicious]

I just wanted to introduce my new adventure game I am developing to this board. My game, Catico-1, is a sci-fi adventure game created by me (Chad Lumley) in an attempt to create a free, high quality adventure game that can be played in a web browser. This first installment is created as a proof-of-concept to see if a panoramic game is possible with Flash and if it can be easily streamed on the internet. The project is currently in the alpha stage of development but will hopefully move to beta within the next couple of weeks.

I have a development blog that I recently started up at LUMLICIOUS, which has my development progress and an in-engine sample of the game.

[ad7venture]

Sample looked good.  I get a little dizzy with those things for whatever reason, but the artwork looked great.  Glad to see your project so thanks for posting.  I'm looking forward to more updates.

[Tumetsu]

Pretty impressive work atleast graphically. However, I didn't figure out which rug I could interact or how to bring inventory up  Nice start and engine seems to run fine so good work so far

[qubodup]

Quite nice, but the image compression does a bad job on text, rendered fonts would probably be better on the eyes, if possible (or use PNG for images of small-size text?)

It seems easy to miss something though. It would probably help to have interactive objects to be highlighted when the mouse hover over them.

[Trumgottist]

However, I didn't figure out which rug I could interact or how to bring inventory up 

The rug is the one by the door. Only a small corner of it is a hotspot though, so I'd never have found it if I didn't know what I was looking for. And the inventory only shows up in the close-up screens, which feels a bit odd.

[Tumetsu]

Thanks Trumgottist. Yes, inventory should be accessed in exploring view too and hotspots should have somekind highlight or effect to make them easier to distinguish from the background.

[ad7venture]

And the inventory only shows up in the close-up screens, which feels a bit odd.

I'm working on doing the same thing in my flash game.  It's just a choice like any other.  The first view shows items of interest, if they are interactive you are brought into a close-up where the inventory then has meaning.  It's one way of separating non-interactive objects from interactive objects, so you can make comments, etc, without adding confusion as to whether an object is interactive.

[Kickaha]

Thanks for sharing, nice to see what you're doing!  Thanks also for the link to the panoramic technology you're using, I was going to ask about that.

[Lumlicious]

Wow!  Thanks for all the great advice. I am glad that I posted here because I really needed some opinions from other adventure gamers.

...inventory should be accessed in exploring view too...

I only show the inventory in the close up views because I didn't really create any item interaction in the Exploration view.  I mostly did it out of necessity, but if it affects the gameplay I will change it.

...hotspots should have somekind highlight or effect to make them easier to distinguish from the background.

I am actually going to have the cursor change as you roll over hotspots according to the action necessary, but thanks for the heads up.

the image compression does a bad job on text, rendered fonts would probably be better on the eyes, if possible (or use PNG for images of small-size text?)

Thanks for spotting that! I am at such a constant battle to keep down load times that I must have overlooked it.  I will definitely use a better compression method.

Thanks also for the link to the panoramic technology you're using, I was going to ask about that.

Krpano is the best engine I have found so far, because you basically just layer flash files over the panoramic to create interfaces.

Thanks for all the great replies and I will be implementing you advice into the sample soon.

-C

[Trumgottist]

Oh, and welcome! I don't think anyone remembered to say that. (And that goes for you too, with the strange name starting with a Q.)

[Imari]

Oh, nice graphics!  I thought it was a photo until I looked a bit closer at the potted trees.   Just FYI, page also loaded in about 2.5 seconds for me.   I know that's importrant with Flash games.