Hi all, Well, I do hate to be the naysayer here, so let's get it out of the way. I bit the bullet and bought the game yesterday. I love the premise of the game, and I love all the retro-love that has been put into the game. I can even cope with this being "just" a high-score-driven game, which are really not my type from the get-go. What I really can't stand is the amount of times the control gets in the way of playing the game. I mean, if this game was controlled with a keyboard on a PC, this game would absolutely rock. As it is, however, many times I end up wanting to move up, for instance, and have the character move right/left, completely screwing up the chain I'm setting up. Are there any plans for having this being controlled "joystick" or "dpad"-like? Asides from that, hey, good game. I really am looking forward to getting more play time with it, hoping that the controls won't make me give up. Any tips, asides from the video that was recently posted? Regards, Paulo
Ooh, ace Thanks heaps Hodapp! I found out FMN was also reviewed in the UK mag Retro Gamer.. Now to try to find copies of that and EGM here! I can't believe my game has been reviewed in physical magazines.. It's been a few years since I bought computer mags but I used to buy a lot of them, never dreamed I'd be reviewed in some. Very happy. Actually I've never played Berzerk, though heard a lot about it.. the giant ghosty thing was inspired by the guy who turns up when you take too long in Bubble Bobble (same idea though) About the sort of obscure nature of wall grinding.. yeah. I guess it's not very well communicated. Thinking of putting in a tutorial bit to make it make it more obvious. But then again, I do like games where you have to experiment to find out all the things you can do... (pjft already emailed me and we had a chat about control woes... so i'm not ignoring what he said, it's just that i've already replied....) basically, yeah there will be some other control types in the next update, and maybe some visual feedback added to the swipe controls. if anyone wasn't getting on with the swipe controls but kept trying anyway, i'd love to hear your experience - like, did the controls eventually grow on you with practice? or, not. i ask because for me, since i made the game with the swipe controls right from the start, i'm obviously very used to them - and i really like them.. when i play the (as yet unfinished) PC/Mac port with keyboard controls, i don't like it as much, despite kb being more accurate.. (i am looking forward to putting in joystick support though!)
I don't remember the ghost thing in Bubble Bobble -- but then I guess I never lingered that long on a level. But if there is such a thing in it, they almost certainly got the idea from Berzerk. Berzerk itself is a simple maze shooter from the early era; level after level of robots shooting at you and you have to kill them first and avoid hitting the walls (which are electrified). Take too long and the bouncing Evil Otto ball wall come out and chase you. There was a sequel of sorts called Frenzy which was basically the same thing, but you could destroy segments of walls and kind of snipe through openings. I like exploration, too, but such things should be limited to things that are beneficial but not essential to gameplay. In the case of where I got stock, that made grinding kind of essential. if anyone wasn't getting on with the swipe controls but kept trying anyway, i'd love to hear your experience - like, did the controls eventually grow on you with practice? or, not. i ask because for me, since i made the game with the swipe controls right from the start, i'm obviously very used to them - and i really like them.. when i play the (as yet unfinished) PC/Mac port with keyboard controls, i don't like it as much, despite kb being more accurate.. (i am looking forward to putting in joystick support though!)[/QUOTE] I don't mind the swipe controls. I acutally think this sort of thing is how all top-down maze crawlers (Roguelikes and such) should work. Having said that though it does seem a bit imprecise -- or perhaps too sensitive might be more accurate. There were a few times I swiped in one direction before a turn so it would turn when I reached it, and it did so -- and then proceeded to turn again at the next junction, which seems to suggest it picked up a swipe or something, even though my thumb wasn't touching the screen. So the swipe controls could maybe use a bit of tweaking, but otherwise I think this is the best control scheme for games like this.
Hmm, did you try lowering the swipe sensitivity in the setup menu at all? It defaults to 3, the most sensitive.. a few people have said that setting it to 2 helped to stop accidental direction changes. (this setting basically just enlarges the "deadzone" - so you have to swipe slightly further for a direction change to be picked up)..
I just tried that -- I didn't even notice the settings up top. It seems to work better with my play style, though I still had a couple of missed turns. I'll probably have better luck with it on the iPad, as there's more room to move and I don't have to constantly lift my thumb if I'm obscuring a part of the screen.
It took me a little while to get a grip on the controls but they're now second nature. I found switching the sensitivity to 2 rather than the default 3 was a huge help--the controls now feel much more solid and I rarely miss a turn or accidentally turn the wrong way. This is a great game. Keep up the good work, nyarla.
I thought the ghost was inspired by Spellunker (and its spiritual successor, Spelunky), with a touch of Boo from Super Mario Bros. 3 added for personality. Don't think I didn't notice how he covers his face when you shoot at him! But yeah, it's the same principle. You dawdle in a stage and the ghost comes out to make your life miserable. Berzerk did it, Bubble Bobble did it, and now Forget-Me-Not is doing it too. It's really important in the latter game because without Mr. Ghosty, you could theoretically hang out in a single stage and blast the hell out of everything that appears, collecting enough fruit for dozens of lives. (Also, it's worth noting that in Frenzy, Evil Otto is killable, but comes back faster each time he dies. After the third time, he's so fast that he catches you before you can squeeze off a shot. Also, you don't want to make Mama Otto mad... kill Evil Otto in her stage and she sends a swarm of Otto Babies down to turn you to ash!)
I'm going to be honest - I just can't get into this game. I could never like Pac Man either so maybe it is just not for me. Yet I appreciate how much effort and work has gone into this, and apart from the actual gameplay it seems like a good game, so wish you all the best,
I think the ghost in this game is killable, too -- or at least delayable. I was on a very large level (entire screen, lots of open spaces filled with flowers) and it took a long time to complete. The ghost came out before I was done, and I hit him a few times (or an enemy did, dunno which) and he eventually disappeared, allowing me to complete the level. I'll have to experiment to see what the deal is.
How'm I doin? meant to post this a while ago, well over 50000 flowers by now sounds go with electronic music of all kinds like candy sprinkles on top found out the secret to the controls: play the game a lot want the font, preferably compatible with fontswap for ancient firmware constantly, constantly grinding wouldn't mind more monsters/powerups/fruits etc but what i really want is to have a full Forget-Me-Not cabinet in my living room. *sigh* a man can dream...
FAQ and Bestiary I really enjoyed Forget-Me-Not, so I decided to create a FAQ and bestiary to describe the gameplay and various monsters. Some of the details came from nyarla on these boards, but mostly from my own observations. You can find it on GameFaqs at: http://www.gamefaqs.com/iphone/625312-forget-me-not/faqs/62334 BTW, my current high score on Standard mode is 1.28M (#6 on the leaderboard), thanks to wanton Pudding abuse. - David
Oh my god, that's amazing! I'm honoured you took the time to do that. Really well observed, though there are a few things you've missed (to do with some different variations of some of the enemies, for example... the most obvious one being the 'bob-ombs' with white crosses on their backs. most other enemy variations are more subtle). [edit: happy to tell you some details if you want but I'm guessing it's a lot more fun figuring them out ] I am allllmost ready to start working on the FMN update so there should be some more stuff to add in a while... "wanton Pudding abuse", haha. thanks heaps man! I want a Forget-Me-Not cab too. Looking into adding iCade support... also once the update is done I'll finish off the PC/Mac ports. I'm tempted to build a cab and put FMN in it I don't know about fontswap but you can get the font in TTF form here: http://fontstruct.com/fontstructions/show/xe_teencial (used in FMN by the kind permission of the guy who made it, Xenophilius. I went looking for a font on fontstruct.com.. this one was exactly what I had in mind. Fell in love with it as soon as I saw it. It reminds me of some of the weird C64 games I loved as a kid)
I *thought* I'd seen that bob-omb with the + on its back, but then I never saw it again. It's hard to observe those rare enemies, but that indeed is part of the fun. Hints are good, but I'm happy if you don't spoil the fun. Some of the scores are REALLY hard to figure out though -- most of the times the monster scores are mixed in with fruit scores and so impossible to read. Awesome, can't wait! If you add iCade support I'll definitely get an iCade. Thanks again for such a great game.
Yeah! totally crazy. I wonder if that guy just spent a LOT of time, or if he found some new way of scoring noone else has thought of. I can't wait to finish the update and equalise things more. I'm waiting to hear back from the iCade guys now... I'll do my best! Will be needing some people with iCades to test for me, because it will be awhile until I can get one myself..
Excellent. I can volunteer as I just received my iCade. Initial impressions of iCade are that it's really amazing. It does just send out keyboard commands over bluetooth. I'm guessing their SDK is really just a nice wrapper around the methods that receive the events - since it is a little cryptic. For example it sends out "F" when pressing one of the buttons, and "U" when you release said button. Similar scheme for the rest. They probably just wrap all of this up into neat readable methods like "buttonOnePressed" or whatnot. Anyway, I would like to make a formal request that for FMN to support shooting by button press. The automatic shooting is really great for the normal touch controls - but with the iCade it would add a lot to the fun factor if we controlled the shooting.
