So, is there any levels in particular that people would pick out for getting started?

Also, is there the ability to browse the maps directory in game, or do I have to manually type the names in?

Is there any plan to change the falling animation to indicate when critical speed has been hit, and the small lead up to this?  This could help visualise the safe distance that can be fallen.

The web gun is interesting because you can jump on it, like a floating platform.

Juggling the idol and lady seems like a fair trade to me. You can balance the use of ropes to return to fetch the other, or you can take the risk of throwing the idol ahead and hoping that it won't fall somewhere stupid. 

Speaking of the ghost, I'm really confused at why exactly the music slows down as you are notified to hurry up.
Speeding up music naturally stirs a feeling of urgency in the player.
Slowing the music down makes me want to slow down and take my time, and it sounds downright depressing.

I love the way the music slows down, it's very spooky and foreboding!

One question for anyone that has one of these. Does any software pay attention to the dials? Garageband only really seems to care about modulation and pitchband, but fruity loops did not seem to recognise these. Does other software allow control with dials or buttons further?

Yeah, you can usually set them up to control any parameters of the music (pitch included).  I don't know what software does what though, so.

Turns out that Garageband doesn't offer much control, rather annoyingly. Thankfully I came across a program called Garage Remote that sniffs the midi signal and enables you to assign simple stuff like RW, FF, REC, to the keyboard.  So I have six extra buttons on my keyboard that do something now. Shame there's no way to harness the dials for anything, but in general it is great.

I should try to make an actual song now, and stop messing around with it!

The outlines seem a little shaky at places though...

That'll be the caffiene!

Here's my new baby! :D Many thanks to my GF for getting it for me, she did the research and picked it out, and I'm very pleased with her choice. It's much sexier than most of the mini udb midi keyboards that I have seen.

One question for anyone that has one of these. Does any software pay attention to the dials? Garageband only really seems to care about modulation and pitchband, but fruity loops did not seem to recognise these. Does other software allow control with dials or buttons further?

I received a Roland Edirol PCR-M1 midi keyboard thing! I love it! It's really compact and works great on my Windows laptop as well as on my mac. I don't understand what most of the dials on it are for though! o_o;

I hadn't played this until today, shockingly! I love it though, I can see why Bytejacker gave this 'best free indie game of 2008'.

When I saw the injured puppy I thought he had diarrhea. Wasn't for a while that I realised it was blood, not poop.

I love the 'doggies!' guy! XD

#save - the - beagles! let them know it's christmas time!#

If you want to go gameboy-chiptune, I'd recommend the magic 8bit plugin.
But beware, that vst is quite an asshole if the overall latency is too high. But it's way better than the tweakbench stuff, because it doesn't ues samples.

I just tried this, and it is pretty awesome!
I had a really bad experience trying to install this into Garageband once.. and I'm almost scared to try again. It just made a super loud noise and my mac's audio didn't work until I rebooted (!!).  It might be worth trying though.

I'm struggling a bit with FL studio, but it does seem like a nice piece of software with a lot of good options. It doesn't seem to respond to the modulation button on my midi keyboard though.

I've heard that Tweakbench's Toad, Peach, and Triforce VST plugins work pretty well.

Wow, thank-you, these are perfect.
Peach is very sexy!! o_o

I'm playing around with FL Studio today, and it seems like a nice piece of software!
(I got a small MIDI keyboard as a christmas present! I love it!)

Does anyone know how I can do chiptune style sounds with FL Studio?  I like Synnah's piece, for example, but I can't seem to find an instrument like that.

It's great that Musagi works with my midi keyboard, it makes it much easier to use for me.

During Christmas dinner today the radio started playing Live Aid, and my girlfriend was inspired to change the lyrics to...

"# Save - the - Beagles!
 Let them know it's Christmas time!# 

is anyone else not seeing dock's screenshots?

Yeah sorry about that, now fixed

edit: Saladan, yeah I had that same bug happen just now.

I meant to say, this works pretty nicely for me on the Mac in VMware fusion on best settings. It works better in fullscreen mode (like this) than windowed mode.

Great! :D I think frequent builds makes more sense for a community thing like this! ^_^

F10? Why F10?

Well, why not? It had to be some key, doesn't really make a difference to me which one is

The F-keys are gimped on some PCs, like the new Dell netbook laptops (where they are missing) and all the new macs (where they are now 'FN' keys, secondary to volume, brightness, etc).

[Edit:]

This was never going to end well, especially as I had no bombs...

I went the other way to look for some sort of weapon, and he seemed to teleport over there, unless he has a twin on the same map.

Edit: As for not supporting the analog stick: be careful.  Some pads (mine included) use the joystick_direction() functions to refer to the D-Pad.  Probably due to the fact that the pad has no analog stick(s).  Other pads use these functions to check the left stick.  Might want to test with several varieties to see if they're all covered.

Yeah, I suspect my Sega Saturn pad works that way, and my NES-style pad. I don't have any pads with analogue, come to think of it (I figured I would probably hook up a PS2 pad or something, but I've never had any need to)

I'm enjoying this game quite a bit, but I'm not great at it.

I can't resist stealing from the shopkeeper, and he kills me every time.  I even tried climbing a rope to his shop ceiling and dropping a rock on his head, but he jumped up and shot me. I did, however, manage to steal a die from the craps house, and I managed to evade the shopkeeper that time. I then had loads of fun killing snakes by throwing the die at them. "Die, fiend! Six! Yay!" XD

About the ghost, I kinda like the idea but I don't really like the implementation. If there was a 'ghost' gauge (like the air in Mr Driller), then I would have a better idea of what was coming, or some other form of clue. Bubble Bobble managed this with a 'hurry up' message after a while and faster music, and then a 'dun dun dun' music before Baron Von Blubba. I tried to bomb the ghost to kill or stun it, but it doesn't effect it, which I found disappointing.

B+F+R are weird button allocations for Bomb, Flare and Rope. ASD would be my first pick.... or indeed, a joypad option

I find it weird that I am requesting more buttons as well, as I'm generally a stickler for less buttons, and two buttons is my preferred design mentality. Not sure what that says.

As for running, I think double tap would be better too.

I don't mind difficulty in games, but right now the controls are what I'm fighting with more than the enemies.

I just played this for a while - I love it! I haven't played a game like this in twenty years or so... and dying from a fall is something I haven't had to worry about recently.  Is there any fall-proof items? It would make it much easier to design levels around it.

  I love the monocle laser most of all. 

What would I have to do, and to whom, to get a Mac version of the game?

This is fantastic! Congratulations Derek, this came together wonderfully.  How did you construct the levels, out of interest?

I must confess, the controls really get my fingers in a tangle. I found it very difficult to control, and I think that more buttons rather than less would make it easier. For example, a button for bomb, rope and flare would be simpler for me. I wasted a lot of ropes too by fumbling the controls, or setting it off on the wrong tile, or downwards instead of upwards.