look over there ->

This blog is dead.

New Nyarlu Labs HQ is......
http://nyarlu.net

big fat videos

Cool, a couple people have made FMN videos..

First up, seasoned Forget-Me-Not pro Deihlanos, with this really long and funny video which shows the gameplay far better than I managed to:




Also this one by MrECHOfox, which shows how horribly hard the game can be, especially at first:




Thanks guys =) It was very cool to watch someone else play it. I've only seen myself play it before. And my long suffering family members who I sometimes coerce into it who now try to set me on fire whenever I say "how about a nice game of Forg-arrrgh" *WHOOMPH*

~

Oh yeah, so that first Mac build doesn't work on OSX 10.4 or 10.5... If you're running one of those, there's a [possibly] fixed version here. Don't know if it works or not yet. If anyone tries it, let me know! ta.

EDIT! Ok that apparently works... updated the main link with fixed version.  EDIT#2! Ok it's still broken on 10.4 :(  Looking into it......

destructadelic dungeons

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hey, this blog is inactive now.. this page
has been linked to from a bunch of places
so i'll leave it here, but head over to
http://nyarlu.net for current stuff =)
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I made a PC/Mac version of Forget-Me-Not. Grab it here:

Windows
OSX

It's the same basic game as the iOS version, but tweaked.. a bit harder, faster, more balanced. It's meant to be more arcadey. It has a few new enemies, things-that-happen, and MORE FRUIT.  Now you can play with joysticks in front of the telly, yay!



 (please forgive the horrible and quiet audio on this video.)

Hope you like it! Tell me your high scores. (tell me if it doesn't work for you.. it's been tested on a few different setups but my coding skillz aren't so hot....)

There are no bells and whistles. The keys are: P1: cursors (+ enter to join game), P2: WASD (+ tab to join game). Or joysticks... Press 'O' from the start screen to bring up the options menu, from where you can turn on joystick, fullscreen, CHUNKY MODE, etc...

Big thanks to the lovely people who helped me test it <3 and thanks to everyone who bought the iOS version or wrote about it! You make things shiny.

Forget-Me-Not tips: grinding!

Some people were asking about the wall grinding mechanic in FMN.. Here's what it's all about:

How to grind: Think of the controls as being like a 4-directional joystick which is always pointed in one of the four directions. A quick swipe or slight movement of your finger is enough to change its direction. Wherever it's pointed is the direction you'll move, unless a wall is blocking the way.

If you're moving along next to a wall, you can set your next direction ahead of time. Point the "joystick" towards the wall to grind against it (you'll keep moving in the direction you're already facing), until you either reach an opening or point the joystick in a different direction.

You can tell you're grinding because some sparks will fly out where you're touching the wall, and you'll hear a grindy sound.


What does it do? Grinding builds up a charge. When you're charged up enough you'll start flashing slightly, and the sound will change. This means you're all cool and powerful and can squish enemies by running into them.

If you keep building up charge you'll eventually start flashing red (or blue if you're player 2). That means you're approaching maximum charge and you'd better stop grinding soon or you'll explode! During this state your speed will increase.

The more you grind the more you'll get used to knowing how far you can push it. Playing with sound on also helps a lot... you can tell by the pitch of the grindy sounds how much charge you're carrying.


When is it good to grind? Pretty much all the time! It's not essential but makes things more difficult and exciting (speed boost), while allowing for much higher scores (squish combo).  If you can balance your grinding so as to always be charged up without ever exploding you'll be a Forget-Me-Not champion. Like Kepa. Yay!

~

App storin' it up

Forget-Me-Not for iOS is out! It's two bucks.
App store link: http://bit.ly/Forget-Me-Not
Check it out, if you want to!
<3

Forget-Me-Not gameplay vid

Procedural sound, well not really but sort of.

Forget-Me-Not has sound now. It sounds like a zappy old arcade machine, hopefully. Eventually I want to learn how to code a synth so I can make games generate their own audio, but for now I'm just making sounds with good old sfxr... it's easy and makes the kind of stuff that suits a game like this.

But! It's amazing what you can do with a bit of pitch shift. I'm using Finch for .wav playback.. cool little bit of code that makes OpenAL very easy. Much thanks to Zoul who wrote it! Finch lets you change the pitch of samples, all nice and smooth. Playing stuff back at different rates depending on what's happening makes things come alive. Looping very short samples and changing the pitch = game-controlled instrument. Awesome. Try it.

Here's what it sounds like so far: fmnsfx.mp3 .... is it weird to upload the sound of your game being played? =P