Very sweet!
Before I begin, I'd like to praise you for earning a perfect 10 in all of my categories! (except violence, which I'm glad you didn't get a 10 in!) I'm very hard to please completely like that.
I'd just like to say that I rarely sit through a Flash of this length, which is very much to the game's credit. The story and characters kept me engaged throughout. Also, the art was very goood! And I loved Mr. Hangman and his skeleton slaves. Especially at the end. ;) I'd love to see more of them.
Also, I haven't played the first game, but I felt right at home in the game's universe. I'm still a little confused at how *spoiler* the main character's dead corpse could be used to erase the memory of his future and live self. The paradox aside (it's not supposed to make sense anyway, right? :D), that was the only part of the story that left me feeling confused. *spoilers over*
And most importantly, you had WONDERFUL voice acting, which is so totally rare!
However, there are a few things you should keep in mind when you make the next game in the series.
First of all, you should allow players to have free roam of the world to the extent that they've unlocked it. If that doesn't make sense, I'll explain further. There were several points in the game where the option to move was missing simply because a particular item hadn't been obtained. I'm talking about the buttons, not things like the reminder that we shouldn't go up the tower until we find the artifact (although leaving that door closed until the guards had left would have been better, in my opinion). For example, I couldn't leave the room where you first see the cult until I got the penny. I know I wouldn't have been able to continue, but having an invisible wall sort of thing that disappears only after collecting an item that appears to have no significance at the time is kind of frusturating...
Secondly, the speech bubbles were very hard to close if you chose to do so. The "X"s kept moving all over the place! This really only mattered the second time through, which brings me to a very important point:
On the second run-though, I couldn't use the door pick on either of the doors in The Old Man room! And the key that is there the first time through wasn't there either! Everytime I tried to click the lockpick to use it with the door, the inventory screen dissappeared and nothing happened back on the main screen! If it helps, I got three of the treasure map pieces the first time through. I don't know if there's a glitch because of that or something.
I know I had what seems like a bunch of complaints, but I'd like you to know that I really enjoyed your Flash and am looking forward to your next one. If I listed everything I liked about your Flash animation, we'd be here even longer!
If you could tell me how to use the lockpicker, I would be very happy, as I would very much like to play through the second quest and get past the blue door.
To anybody who took the time to read all of this, you are a good person with a long attention span.