Reviews and criticism encouraged

This was a college project where we were teamed up with a copywriter from another class.

because this was a college project with a week to do, all my time went into concept and making it work, leaving a day or two for animation and sound ;<

We had to create a character with a detailed life history etc and then create an interactive flash interface, a "character controller" which lets the user figure out important aspects of the characters personality and life.

The interactive flash takes the view point of Stevan, a soldier who faught along side Ratko in the Bosnian war. Stevan is sent to rescue Ratko who is currently missing in action in Ethiopia, Africa after failing to complete a mission. Ratko suffers from post traumatic stress disorder and war psychosis. we depict this in various ways, one of them being overly hasty at drawing his gun, shooting you if a stone is thrown in his direction, as well as the sound of the woodpecker turning into the sound of gunfire upon which the bird is shot. He also has a strange connection with wolves....

Brief Character Profile:

Ratko was born in Serbia. His mother died during childbirth. His dad, a drunken neglectful father. Ratko blames himself for his mothers death.

The day he left his father's house to serve in the army was the day he started living. Wherever he went he owned the room. Weighing in at 117 kilos and seemingly chiselled out of concrete; he was the human equivalent of the Empire State building. Being a part of the army and later also leading a platoon gave him a sense of purpose. As much as he enjoyed the foreign feeling of acceptance, respect and authority, he was still unfulfilled.

While training at Batajnica Military base, Ratko met Beth, a journalist from Ipswich doing a piece on the illegal importation of arms. She arrived at the base with enough questions to make an in depth military investigation seem like an amateurish game of Cluedo. Ratko was fascinated by her. She had travelled extensively and was without a doubt the most fascinating human being he had ever met. She was layered with curiosity and chasing answers. The most interesting thing about her was the mere fact that she was interested in others. Most people are only interested in issues concerning themselves, but she was passionately invested in things that didn't involve her at all. It wasn't long before she inevitably became intrigued by Lieutenant Ratko Strugar, the giant with the ocean deep eyes. Their mutual fascination soon turned into a love affair and Ratko and Beth were married in Belgrade a year later.

Ratko never spoke about the things he encountered on the battlefield. The only insights Beth ever had were comments from those who fought with him. The longer he served in the army the more withdrawn he became. Beth was excellent at interpreting his thoughts even when he wasn't saying much and she instinctively knew that something had shifted. Whatever it was, it happened in the mountains of Srebenica.

A month after Ratko came back from Srebrenica he left his wife for a life of isolation in the Serbian outback; his only companion was his wolf, Senka (Shadow). Beth knew something was wrong, but there was no point in trying to solve the mystery. The door was closed and she decided to give Ratko time to work through the things that were obviously haunting him. He didn't come back. He couldn't trust himself and he didn't recognize the man he had become.

When the call came to go to Africa, Ratko knew what accepting another mission meant. He was standing on a mountain of bad memories and trying to shift it into a deep trench. If this mountain got any higher it would surely kill him. As much as he wanted to, he couldn't refuse another mission. His past was incriminating and they knew too much.