Full English - adventure game I made

[MmmSausages]

Hi everyone,

I’m an avid lurker, but this is my first post, so: HELLO. I’m posting because I’ve been working on an online adventure game which we’ve just released. It’s been a labour of love, because I and the rest of the team have always wanted to make a Telltalle / LucasArts-style adventure, but in Flash (and on a much smaller scale of course).

It’s British (warning, British gags), features voice cast including Richard Ayoade (IT Crowd) and I’d love to have some feedback. It’s a pretty light adventure game – more of a vehicle for jokes, and we wanted people to bomb through the game, rather than get stuck for ages on a puzzle, so you’ll probably get to the end of it pretty quickly - maybe an hour or so. There are two chapters at the moment, with a third coming tomorrow and a fourth next week.

Would love to know what you think. Here's the link...

http://www.channel4.com/fullenglish

[Darth Marsden]

Gave the first chapter a whirl. Given the subject material - which I don't find all that funny to be honest - this was reasonably entertaining. Though Richard Ayoade just sounded bored, although I gather that's normal for him.

Only comment I'd make is to make the walking speed a bit faster.

[Jennifer]

I just played through it... it really picks up in chapter two. I like multiple playable characters and the Day of the Tentacle style mechanics to share inventory puzzles between them. It's a bit weird to have the usable items glowing (although I understand why since you said you wanted it to have a bit more casual adventure feel). I don't suppose there's a way to turn that off if you'd rather have more of a challenge?

I'm intrigued enough to want to play through the next chapters once they're out. It's not quite my humor style, but then again, neither was Hector: Badge of Carnage, and I enjoyed that.

[Secret Fawful]

I'm really enjoying it so far, and I've actually laughed, so there's that. I wanted to Facebook about how I have no balls but it won't let me, so that's a bit of a disappointment. I really like the humor, though. Well, the dog. I mostly like the dog.

Oh shit, the Farmville parody is the best.

[MmmSausages]

Thanks for your feedback, everyone.

Really glad (some of) you found it funny!

Originally Posted by Jennifer

It's a bit weird to have the usable items glowing (although I understand why since you said you wanted it to have a bit more casual adventure feel). I don't suppose there's a way to turn that off if you'd rather have more of a challenge?

That's a really nice idea. More than anything, we wanted to prevent having to scrub the whole screen with the mouse in order to find objects (like in old LucasArts games). But having the option to turn it on and off is good.

Originally Posted by Secret Fawful

I wanted to Facebook about how I have no balls but it won't let me

Can you give me some more detail about this bug and I'll check it out.

That next chapter is going out later today - I'll post to let you know when. It's probably another 30mins of play.

Where are you all from btw? UK / US? Some of the celebs we take the piss out of won't be known outside of UK

[MmmSausages]

Actually, we've just worked out that facebook bug - the first time you 'share' it doesn't work, because of a facebook autorisation process. But then it will work every time after that first time you try. We're gonna fix it anyway, but do try and share again. Thanks

[Darth Marsden]

Well I'm in England, so I got all the parodies. Such as they are.

Another thing I'd suggest is to lampshade the fact you can exchange items between characters despite them being in entirely different games. Might not be doable at this point, but a line of dialogue querying how it's done - and then dismissing it with a silly line - would be nice.

Also, the cutscenes take a minute to load - might be nice to have an actual loading screen rather than the spinning Flash logo, otherwise people might think the game's crashed.

[Jennifer]

I'm in the United States, so I only got some of the celebrity parodies (although I don't get a lot of the celebrity parodies in US animated sitcoms either so I'm used to it ).

I just played through Chapter Three. I really liked all of the movie references here, especially one relating to a particular franchise that Telltale Games licensed.

And I didn't know the Facebook/twitter popups were actually clickable, that's pretty neat.

[Alcoremortis]

This game was pretty damn funny. I got a little stuck during the items switching bit though. I think it would help if we were able to switch around items even if we didn't need to do so. In my case, I attempted to switch something very quickly, but because the first thing I attempted to switch was a non-switchable item, it didn't work and I then thought that we couldn't switch things between players until Fawful informed me otherwise.

[Darth Marsden]

Really? Didn't you get a message about switching items when you got the older version of me to pick up the athlete's foot powder? That's how I knew to do it.

[Alcoremortis]

Originally Posted by Darth Marsden

Really? Didn't you get a message about switching items when you got the older version of me to pick up the athlete's foot powder? That's how I knew to do it.

See, I hadn't gotten the athlete's foot powder yet when I tried switching items. I didn't even know I could go over there. This is either a product of just it not being clear when the screen would shift over as you moved and when you get the screen change thingee... or the fact that I haven't played many games recently and am out of practice with the whole walking thing.

[Darth Marsden]

Yeah, that's a thing I was temporarily stumped by in the first episode until I realized you couldn't leave the kitchen without moving to the edge of the screen and having it scroll over. Once I realized that, I tried it in every room.

It's not the most intuitive thing though. Maybe a message telling people that some rooms can scroll?

[MmmSausages]

All really good comments, everyone, so thanks. There are contextual help bubbles that pop up, advising you that you can now switch characters or give items to another character, but they only appear once.

Chapter 3 is now up at the same url btw - you can choose it by selecting 'new game' then scrolling right to chapter 3. Final chapter is probably a week away. Thanks and do spread the word!

[Darth Marsden]

Did you increase the walk speed? That's probably my only real issue now, and I know it's a minor thing, but if it bugs me, you can bet it's going to bug other people as well.

[MmmSausages]

Originally Posted by Darth Marsden

Did you increase the walk speed? That's probably my only real issue now, and I know it's a minor thing, but if it bugs me, you can bet it's going to bug other people as well.

The funny thing is, that didn't come up in testing at all. We thought it would annoy some people, and had tried to make the characters walk faster (it's most apparent in the house, chapter one, I think), but it looked quite weird, with characters galloping about, and because it wasn't flagged by players, we didn't change it. We'll see if more people complain. Thanks for flagging.

The fourth and final chapter is now in the game btw. Have a go, everyone, and let me know what your favourite / worst parts are. Thanks

http://www.channel4.com/fullenglish

[Jennifer]

Originally Posted by MmmSausages

The funny thing is, that didn't come up in testing at all. We thought it would annoy some people, and had tried to make the characters walk faster (it's most apparent in the house, chapter one, I think), but it looked quite weird, with characters galloping about, and because it wasn't flagged by players, we didn't change it. We'll see if more people complain. Thanks for flagging.

Maybe add a double click to run feature (like Telltale did with Sam & Max and Strong Bad) and maybe a double click the exit and automatically leave the area function (like the later LucasArts games)?

Now that I played the game, I did enjoy it overall. I liked the Twilight parody in the final chapter, and the parody of the final game was pretty funny too. I got stumped on the final game for a while before I realized that the solution was to the left and not to the right. Edgar kept saying "I really don't want to do that" no matter where I clicked on the screen and wouldn't move, which made it seem like a bug rather than a case of going the wrong way. Maybe fix that to have him be able to walk beyond the ship's wreckage to the right, it might help to make people realize there's nothing on that side of the ship, rather than thinking the game broke (especially since the dog just seemed to disappear out of nowhere).